Last night I noticed that Google released an April Fool's day app called Gmail Tap. The premise of the app was that you could compose messages on your phone using a combination of Morse code and predictive spelling.
What I find funny about this is that I really don't think the idea is all that crazy. Just imagine the benefits.
-The entire screen could function as a receiver as it only needs to records dots, dashes, and nothing.
-Only about 26 letter codes would required by users, and I don't think that this is necessarily particularly onerous. With a good predictive spelling mechanism this could be pretty fast.
-Users would only need to know Morse code and would not have to worry about letter or character placement on their phone's keyboard.
Maybe the neatest possible outcome of such an app would be that if incoming messages could be translated back into Morse code through the phone's vibrate function one could communicate without relying on sight or sound, or even the ability to use a keyboard. And wouldn't that be neat? And might such a functionality potentially be of use to individuals with visual or auditory impairments?
All of this to say that I hope Google actually considers developing an app along the lines of Gmail Tap, it might actually be more useful than it seems at first.
What I find funny about this is that I really don't think the idea is all that crazy. Just imagine the benefits.
-The entire screen could function as a receiver as it only needs to records dots, dashes, and nothing.
-Only about 26 letter codes would required by users, and I don't think that this is necessarily particularly onerous. With a good predictive spelling mechanism this could be pretty fast.
-Users would only need to know Morse code and would not have to worry about letter or character placement on their phone's keyboard.
Maybe the neatest possible outcome of such an app would be that if incoming messages could be translated back into Morse code through the phone's vibrate function one could communicate without relying on sight or sound, or even the ability to use a keyboard. And wouldn't that be neat? And might such a functionality potentially be of use to individuals with visual or auditory impairments?
All of this to say that I hope Google actually considers developing an app along the lines of Gmail Tap, it might actually be more useful than it seems at first.
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