Some phones use tone-dialing. Certain tones = certain numbers. If those music-maker things in Hallmark cards were adapted to make the correct tones, they could be added to spam mail (or used for infinitely better applications). Being fairly easy to mass-produce, they could be given away cheaply. A potential consumer holds the thing to the phone, and it beeps out the number. A lot easier than dialing. In fact, these could be programmed for personal uses. Hold it up to any phone, and the number is called. Secretive calls could be placed without immediate knowledge of the other parties number. These could be combined with bombs, giving that standard beeping, but also sending a phone number out for police to call and negotiate with. Lazy people don't need to dial. The possibilities are numerous.-- Shadow Phoenix, Oct 03 2007 Quite. Easy_20Button [MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 03 2007] Tone-Dialer Decoder Tone-Dialer_20Decoder [Shadow Phoenix, Oct 04 2007] These guys are all over us. http://hackedgadget...-card-phone-dialer/this is the second Idea from here I've seen done on this site in a week. Careful everybody, they're paying attention..... [bleh, Dec 11 2007] OTP unit http://www.tradekey...eeting-card-module/I think it's Baked ... sorry [8th of 7, Dec 11 2007] I just annotated the same thing on another idea (link)-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 03 2007 Yeah, I know. That's where I got the idea. I wrote the anno above yours.If you want the idea, Ill take my version down. If you don't, this stays. Please respond.-- Shadow Phoenix, Oct 03 2007 No problem :-)-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 03 2007 Oh bugger, I just used an emoticon.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 03 2007 Heh :-) Oh great, now I did it too. Thank you very much!-- Shadow Phoenix, Oct 03 2007 I'm neutral on this, because how long before unscrupulous types put freephone numbers on the advertising, but set the chip to call their premium rate overseas numbers without the unwary consumer realising?-- imaginality, Oct 04 2007 I'm pretty sure I saw one of these for an answering machine. You click it and it calls your home phone and activates the playback. It then has other buttons for fast forward, rewind, delete, etc. It either exists or I dreamed an invention, which happens with increasing frequency since I've been coming to the bakery.-- marklar, Oct 04 2007 [Leaping to conclusions--see below] WT...? You got this idea from MY annotation on the Easy Button idea: //Well, it could be cheap. The "phone phreakers" make "red boxer" widgets out of Hallmark music cards to play money-received tones into pay phones. A music card could probably be made to make dialing tones. I Googled "tone dialer". Radio Shack doesn't sell tone dialers anymore. baconbrain, Oct 03 2007//
You can keep this idea if you want. But tone dialers already exist.-- baconbrain, Oct 04 2007 I used to have a watch that had a tone dialer in it. It was pretty small and told time, kept phone numbers, had a stop watch and a calculator too.-- jhomrighaus, Oct 04 2007 Um, [baconbrain], I posted this before you made your anno. I made the first post, [MaxwellBuchanan] made the second, I "borrowed" the idea without the express permission of said baker, who made a post here, I asked for permission, got permission and went to bed. I don't remember your anno at the time. Of course, I am probably wrong. In which case, I am very sorry for this very long anno. [imaginality], check out my tone-dialer decoder idea.-- Shadow Phoenix, Oct 04 2007 Oh, okay. I see. Sorry. I jumped to the wrong conclusion. Um, GREAT IDEA! [+]-- baconbrain, Oct 04 2007 thx, [baconbrain]. Don't worry, it happens.-- Shadow Phoenix, Oct 06 2007 I think [baconbrain] is perhaps voting ironically for his own idea, [SP].
Sometimes an anno will produce a variation on an idea that's sufficiently different to warrant posting as an idea in its own right - if that's the case, the originator of the offshoot idea should post it. As you admit yourself, you "borrowed" this idea from elsewhere - [MaxwellBuchanan] very graciously gave you "permission" to post it, but you can't really claim that this idea is yours.
To me, the HB is about originality and creativity above all else. I admire your enthusiam, [Shadow], but if the originator of the anno-based idea didn't think it worthy of a new idea, in a way you're kind of going against their wishes by appropriating it and posting it yourself.
While the HB is a huge, sprawling monstrosity of a site that seems to exhaust every topic under the sun, in reality it's as nothing compared to the voluminous bulk of stuff that hasn't even been thought of yet. It's more fun to plumb those depths rather than recycle what's already been said. I'm sure you can be more original than this, [SP].-- lostdog, Oct 06 2007 True. However, passing thoughts rarely get acted upon or are seemingly unworthy of a sparing glance. I saw the wasted idea and capitalized upon it. I do not, in any way, accept ownership of this idea. It is 97% [MaxwellBuchanan] (The remaining 3% is my creative liberty. Such liberty can, however, be attributed as a anno, which I would have added if said baker had posted this idea.) In fact, everything related to this idea should be treated as property of [MaxwellBuchanan] (except for my Tone-Dialer Decoder offshoot), and I am just some guy looking after it because the true owner is too busy with more creative ideas. I now bow my head in shame for dredging up the unoriginal ideas of the past.-- Shadow Phoenix, Oct 06 2007 Well, actually I think it's 97% derived from [wittyhoosier]'s "Easy Button" - my only observtion was that you can do the dialling by tones rather than from having something plugged in to the phone line.
I love the HalfBakery. Sometimes it reminds me of Life (I mean the computer program, not life), with little pockets of cells oscillating for a while and then either fading out or flowering into chaotic pattern. Oh bugger, I'm raving.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 06 2007 [Lt. Frank] I think you've misunderstood the idea (or else I have). I believe the idea was for a little pre-set widget that would automatically dial a single number, said widget to be given away as a promotional item.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 08 2007 I agree that the mfd is void, for the reasons explained above.-- jutta, Oct 08 2007 Yes, playing DTMF into a phone from a device other than the phone is nothing new. But doing it as a cheap, throw-away paper product such as a business card or piece of direct mail is - or at least rare enough to qualify as coevolution. (Read, I've never seen it before.)-- jutta, Oct 09 2007 Good idea I tried to patent this over ten years ago.It wasn't patentable because they said it was a method of business, and those weren't patentable untill the late 90s.-- pydor, Oct 10 2007 When the battery started to fail, the device might dial other numbers unpredictably. The numbers dialed and responses obtained by the dying device could be used to augur the future.-- bungston, Dec 11 2007 random, halfbakery