Mobile Phone Etiquette

With the enhancement in the technology the prices of mobile phones has fallen down badly. This has made possible that everyone can now afford a smart phone, but many of them don’t even know the proper use of these smart phones. They only know to update their Facebook status, along with call, SMS, and yes to use the phone as a camera. Well believe me I am not going to give lecture on the use of smart phones, but here are some tips about the mobile phone etiquette.

The most basic tips of mobile etiquette are that you should know the places where your mobile phone should remain in a silent or vibration mode. There are times when you need your mobile phones in silent mode, like you are on a date and having dinner with your spouse, or you are in a hospital, or you are in a meeting, or you are in a restaurant. You should always keep your phone in a silent mode or in a vibrating mode at the places like temples, churches, or other worship places, funeral places, hospitals, theatre etc. If you can’t put it in silent mode then please make it switch off for some moment.

Many a times we should not pick up the phone too unless it is too urgent. Like you are attending a meeting in your office, or your senior is having discussion with you, then you should ignore the phone calls unless it is too important to pick. If it is very urgent, then you should first ask for permission and then only pick up the phone, also try to tell the calling person that I will talk to you a bit later, as I am in a meeting.

Yesterday I was going to somewhere and I picked the public transport, while I was standing in the bus, I hear one person was talking to his friend and his sound was so loud that everyone in the bus can hear it properly although the bus was having the enough noise too. Many a times we see that people were unable to hear other person due to heavy noise in public transport, in that case simply tell the other person that I am traveling at the moment and I will revert back to you within a few minutes. Don’t shout and annoy your co-passengers.

It is very irritating if you found that someone from a group, whom you are addressing some serious issue, is busy with cell phones. So don’t play with your cell phones while you are participating in a serious group discussion or someone is addressing you.

The time has gone when we use to judge the personality of a person with the help of his/her mobile phones, now it depends on how you are talking to someone on phone. So you should know these basic tips or mobile phone etiquette’s so that everyone can think positive about you.

SURFACE TABLE

Microsoft Surface is a surface computing platform that responds to natural hand gestures and real world objects. It has a 360-degree user interface, a 30-inch reflective surface with a XGA DLP projector underneath the surface which projects an image onto its underside, while five cameras in the machine's housing record reflections of infrared light from objects and human fingertips on the surface. The surface is capable of object recognition, object/finger orientation recognition and tracking, and is multi-touch and is multi-user. Users can interact with the machine by touching or dragging their fingertips and objects such as paintbrushes across the screen, or by placing and moving placed objects. This paradigm of interaction with computers is known as a natural user interface (NUI).

Surface has been optimized to respond to 52 touches at a time. During a demonstration with a reporter, Mark Bolger, the Surface Computing group's marketing director, "dipped" his finger in an on-screen paint palette, then dragged it across the screen to draw a smiley face. Then he used all 10 fingers at once to give the face a full head of hair.

Using the specially-designed barcode-style "Surface tags" on objects, Microsoft Surface can offer a variety of features, for example automatically offering additional wine choices tailored to the dinner being eaten based on the type of wine set on the Surface, or in conjunction with a password, offering user authentication.

A commercial Microsoft Surface unit is $12,500 (unit only), whereas a developer Microsoft Surface unit costs $15,000 and includes a developer unit, five seats and support.

Partner companies use the Surface in their hotels, restaurants, and retail stores. The Surface is used to choose meals at restaurants, plan vacations and spots to visit from the hotel room. Starwood Hotels plan to allow users to drop a credit card on the table to pay for music, books, and other amenities offered at the resort. In AT&T stores, use of the Surface include interactive presentations of plans, coverage, and phone features, in addition to dropping two different phones on the table and having the customer be able to view and compare prices, features, and plans. MSNBC's coverage of the 2008 US presidential election used Surface to share with viewers information and analysis of the race leading up to the election. The anchor analyzes polling and election results, views trends and demographic information and explores county maps to determine voting patterns and predict outcomes, all with the flick of his finger. In some hotels and casinos, users can do a range of things, such as watch videos, view maps, order drinks, play games, and chat and flirt with people between Surface tables.

FEATURES

Microsoft notes four main components being important in Surface's interface: direct interaction, multi-touch contact, a multi-user experience, and object recognition.

Direct interaction refers to the user's ability to simply reach out and touch the interface of an application in order to interact with it, without the need for a mouse or keyboard. Multi-touch contact refers to the ability to have multiple contact points with an interface, unlike with a mouse, where there is only one cursor. Multi-user is a benefit of multi-touch—several people can orient themselves on different sides of the surface to interact with an application simultaneously. Object recognition refers to the device's ability to recognize the presence and orientation of tagged objects placed on top of it.

The technology allows non-digital objects to be used as input devices. In one example, a normal paint brush was used to create a digital painting in the software. This is made possible by the fact that, in using cameras for input, the system does not rely on restrictive properties required of conventional touchscreen or touchpad devices such as the capacitance, electrical resistance, or temperature of the tool used (seeTouchscreen).

The computer's "vision" is created by a near-infrared, 850-nanometer-wavelength LED light source aimed at the surface. When an object touches the tabletop, the light is reflected to multiple infrared cameras with a net resolution of 1024 x 768, allowing it to sense, and react to items touching the tabletop.

Surface will ship with basic applications, including photos, music, virtual concierge, and games, that can be customized for the customers.

A unique feature that comes preinstalled with Surface is the pond effect "Attract" application. Simply, it is a "picture" of water with leaves and rocks within it (a lot like a screen saver used in Windows XP or Vista). By touching the screen, users can create ripples in the water, much like a real stream. Additionally, the pressure of touch alters the size of the ripple created, and objects placed into the water create a barrier that ripples bounce off, just as they would in real life.

Multi touch

On touchscreen displays, multi-touch refers to the ability to simultaneously register three or more distinct positions of input touches. It is often used to describe other, more limited implementations, like Gesture-Enhanced Single-Touch or Dual-Touch.

Multi-touch has been implemented in several different ways, depending on the size and type of interface. Both touchtables and touch walls project an image through acrylic or glass, and then back-light the image with LEDs. When a finger or an object touches the surface, causing the light to scatter, the reflection is caught with sensors or cameras that send the data to software which dictates response to the touch, depending on the type of reflection measured. Touch surfaces can also be made pressure-sensitive by the addition of a pressure-sensitive coating that flexes differently depending on how firmly it is pressed, altering the reflection.Handheld technologies use a panel that carries an electrical charge. When a finger touches the screen, the touch disrupts the panel's electrical field. The disruption is registered and sent to the software, which then initiates a response to the gesture.

In the past few years, several companies have released products that use multitouch. In an attempt to make the expensive technology more accessible, hobbyists have also published methods of constructing DIY touchscreens.

Many companies in recent years have expanded into multitouch, with systems designed for everything from the casual user to multinational organizations.

Laptop manufacturers have begun to include multitouch trackpads on their laptops, as well as constructing tablet PCs that respond to touch input rather than traditional stylus input.

In the wake of the iPhone, several mobile phone manufacturers have begun to replace traditional push-button interfaces with multitouch interfaces on their handheld devices as well. So far, such innovations are mostly restricted to the higher-end smartphones used for web browsing and computing in addition to phone-based functions.

A few companies are focusing on large-scale surface computing rather than personal electronics, either large multitouch tables or wall surfaces. These systems carry a hefty price tag and are generally used by government organizations, museums, and companies as a means of information or exhibit display.

Apple Inc. lists "Multi-Touch" on their page of trademarks, however, this was only added some time after October 2007, and Apple was awarded a patent covering multitouch on 20 January 2009,. "Multi-Touch" is now considered a Genericized trademark.