No Mobile Phones For You!
from the take-the-law-into-your-own-hands dept
The CEO of Cell Block came up with the idea for his company after he was annoyed at a dinner where people were talking on their mobile phones. Just because he got annoyed, he decided that he should take away that right from other people by developing a wireless signal blocker that can make mobile phones (and other wireless technologies) unusable in certain areas. Of course, there have been other companies (mostly outside the US) that have created the same kind of technology, so it's not clear what's special about these guys. Besides (more importantly), it's still very much illegal to block wireless spectrum in the US - but Cell Block is pushing to have that overturned. Of course, they need to fight against the entire cellular industry to do so, which leads to the following quote from the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association: "What we're seeing here is something similar to a person choosing to block the street with a barricade because they don't like the noise in their own back yard."
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msykes
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not the right approach
Anyway the right thing is to have a device that sends out a low-power signal instructing phones in the area to go silent (switch to vibrate, or maybe switch to "straight to voicemail"). Over time new phones would get this feature. Then people with legit reasons (doctors, parents who have a babysitter, etc) can keep the phone on, but absent-minded losers won't bother the rest of us.
A similar feature would be good to tell cameras "disable your flash" since lots of museums are being trashed by flashes from people who don't know how to switch it off!
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A better analogy...
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Want it blocked? You can do that.
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