Theaters and restaurants etc should be able to purchase a transponder which declares the area as a quiet zone. Cell phones in range should then be required to automatically put themselves into quiet mode, maybe with a notification to the owner that they are going into quiet mode. This automatic silencing would be much better than having those places try to tell users to silence their phones manually-- less work for users, and greater compliance as well.

Here is a scenario for how a call from a patient to a doctor would work if that doctor was in a quiet zone.

1. The patient would hear: "The person you are calling is in a quiet zone. Press 1 to get transferred to voice mail, or if your call is urgent, press 2 and they will be alerted of your call".
   
2. If the patient presses 2, he would hear "Please hold, your party is being alerted to your call, this could take a minute".
   
3. The doctor's cell phone would then vibrate, and she would see on the caller ID who is calling. She could decide to ignore it, or she could signal her phone that she would like to take the call.
   
4. Because the doctor is in the quiet zone, her phone would not actually allow her to speak with the patient until she leaves the quiet zone.
   
5. If the doctor acknowledges the patient's call, the patient would hear "The other party has been alerted and is now leaving the quiet zone so they can take your call, please continue to hold."
   
6. When the doctor is out of the quiet zone, her phone would start to ring, she could then answer it and hold a normal conversation.

What do you think? ¶12:35 PM; digg

Sports Groupie is a cool website created by my colleague Ron. It simply lets you pick your favorite sports team, shows you their schedule, and let's you choose an away game to then find you the cheapest airfare and hotels. Fun.

My son and I went to a Red Sox game at Philadelphia this year, at their new ball park. Wow, I bet if you sent more Bostonians there (or to other awesome new ball parks) the vote on Fenway Park rebuild would come out a little differently. I love Fenway and would still vote to keep it vs. building a new park, but Philadelphia sure was tempting. ¶11:08 AM; digg

Welcome to AIM Fight -- this is hilarious and brilliant. AOL is using this tool to flaunt the connectivity in their instant messaging network, and to encourage people to try to grow their network. Hey, add me, so I don't lose so badly against Jeff D... ¶1:19 PM; digg

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Drive my car, not. I was complaining to my brother yesterday that a stereo shop put six miles on my convertible even though there was no need to drive it. He said "that's nothing!" and told me a body shop kept his Acura for one month, supposedly waiting and waiting for various parts, but when he finally got the car back, he looked in the GPS and saw addresses for several towns all over the place! I guess they had a fun time using his ride for the month. Sheesh! He then tells me his friend drives a tow truck and admitted to taking a couple quarters out of each car his tows-- just enough to add up for coffee runs during the day but not enough to elicit complaints. My brother couldn't believe this, so he has started leaving a dozen quarters in his car each time he leaves it at a shop or with a valet, and sure enough, people almost always take some of the money! Time for a major sting operation me thinks... ¶11:59 AM; digg

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