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The cellular squirrel screens your calls (yes, we said squirrel).
We love the concept behind this device — to screen your cellphone calls
for importance while you’re busy chatting up someone else — we just have
no idea why it involves a squirrel. MIT’s Stefan Marti has developed the
Bluetooth, animatronic, context-aware Cellular Squirrel as part of his
dissertation project — when it picks up an incoming call, it actually
engages the remote caller in a conversation and compares keywords from the
interaction to keywords picked up from the conversation you’re having
nearby. It combines this data with your contact list and the caller’s tone
of voice to determine whether the call is important enough to interrupt
you. Yeah, we laugh at it, but we secretly want one, because to get your
attention it gyrates its body in that animatronic way that makes us feel
kinda funny. We’ve installed a fleet of 20 in the Engadget call
center.
[Via Mobile burn]
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Reader Comments
it's so cute......
can it tell the call that you can't answer
the phone right now because you've gone 'nuts'
Just wait until these guys start flipping out and going after people... Just like squirrels always do!
Oh come on man - the question really is, why NOT a squirrel? Duhhh.
A squirrel once saved my New Jersey ass from some pigeons that came from NYC to kill me.
my wife bought a busted squirrel beanie baby off eBay because it
endured a "hard winter" and now it's lodged "secretly" in one of our house
plants.
we're so gonna get this
This is really just anouther way for Big Brother to watch us and their just packaging it in a cuwt wittwe squiwwel. Awwwwwww. *buys 1,000 to hand out to people on the street corner*
I need one right now.
It's been a while since I've seen anything that's cool and cute at the
same time.
Why can't Mr. Marti just make the squirrel throw a nut
at the caller instead?
The only question is: Where can I pick up one of these?
I never owned a cell phone before but to own 1 of those. I would probably by one. Its better than a lazy cat who just sits there and looks at the phone.
YOU WILL BOW TO MY ARMY OF STARVED CRAZED SQUIRRELS!!! HAHAHA
I molest children: bluegramps@yahoo.com
OhMyGodISawASquirrelTellMeIHadAPhoneCallAndHeWent
"WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee.php
I think this will only create more issues in regards to screening calls. You can't program every possible circumstance, so you could miss the call of a lifetime and break a call for a joker just because of this little rodent. And besides, you'd only have access to it's useless abilities at a permanent site unless you're nutty enough to carry this thing around. What's wrong with programming your cell phone to have a caller priority list and an emergency option on call waiting. I just wonder what lengths people will go to come up with the next 'so-called' big hit.
This is the kind of stuff I want to see coming out of MIT more often, nice one!
I think it's funny that an ad for humane squirrel traps appears on the context-ads part of this page.
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