A fat wallet  is terrible looking. It gives you that big bulge that’s just ugly. The smartphone can lighten up a heavy wallet. We’ve seen mobile phones displace cameras, music players, books, credit cards and a lot many and we can also digitize stuffs in the wallet like business cards, receipts, ID cards, loyalty cards …etc. Here is yet another suggestion from the Google fanboy on digitizing business cards and eliminating them from your wallet.

• Digitizing physical business cards

Business cards help us share contact details and make use of it over a long term for mutual benefit. It is pretty much a necessity for networking. But how do you deal with a bunch of 100+ business cards when you return from a conference or trade show. Stuffing the cards inside the wallet or maintaining a box of cards or a rolodex is burdensome, occupies physical space and cannot be carried with us wherever we go. I propose a solution wherein, Google, which also has apps like Google Goggles and PhotoScan, should come up with a mechanism to integrate business cards with contacts by provisioning users to scan business cards using the phone’s camera, transcribe what is written on the card and save or merge it to contacts. From the digitized card, the user should be able to contact them via call, e-mail, SMS, or add them on LinkedIn.

Once the user captures the business card on the contacts screen, it should display the image of the scanned business card followed by the below fields, which should be fetched from the transcribed text on the card and the user should be allowed to edit/enter the missing information manually.

• Title
• Name
• Job Title
• Company Information
• Address
• Phone – with options to add multiple phone numbers
• Email – with option to add multiple email addresses
• Website – with options to add multiple URLs
• Blog
• Birthday
• Social Media – (LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Others)
• Label/Category
• Option to add a note like how and when they met

In some cases, business cards are printed on both the side and hence there should be an option to capture the rear of the card too, which should be displayed at the bottom. When the user taps on a saved card, an expanded view of the card should be displayed with the front image of the card on top, followed by the details, followed by the rear image of the card.       

• Design, store and send electronic business cards to other mobiles

Your business cards are something that you may need, especially if you are in a profession that needs to build contacts. Handing out your card is a much useful way of making new contacts and it should be just a swipe or flick away with your mobile device. Converting business cards as digital  entities and making them shareable peer to peer using NFC or any other wireless contact sharing would save a lots of physical space and also a few trees. The user should be allowed to capture and save his/her own card or create a customised card, which can be shared over phone to phone wireless sharing or over email.

My card section on top should show the captured image of the business card along with the editable contact details below,

• Title
• Name
• Job Title
• Company Information
• Address
• Phone – with options to add multiple phone numbers
• Email – with option to add multiple email addresses
• Website – with options to add multiple URLs
• Blog
• Birthday
• Social Media – (LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Others)

Alternatively, if the user wishes to create/design his/her card rather than scanning it, the user should be provided with a create option in the My Card section. Upon clicking create, the user should be displayed a form to fill in the above contact details along with option to upload the company logo under company information. Once the user completes entering the details the next screen should prompt to select from a few available templates of business card. In order not to confuse the user too much and to keep the creation process simple, only limited templates should be provided with options of background colour limited to White, Grey and Blue and prefixed text colours complementary to that of the background. The text font should initially be limited to only one, which looks professional and pleasing. Once the user selects the template, a preview of the user’s card should be displayed with options to finalize the card or to go back and change the template or edit the details. The finalized card should be displayed in the My Card section of the business cards tab in the contacts screen, with options to share wirelessly to others.

Mock-up of Contacts screen with an additional tab for Business Cards. (Designed using Marvel)

Improving safety on the roads helps road users, prevents accidents and saves lives. It secures people while traveling on the roads. Improving and maintaining the road infrastructure can ensure on its part, safety on roads and give a great travel experience.

Impediments on roads such as  potholes, unmarked speed breakers, unmarked road turns, fallen signages, malfunctioning signal…etc can cause drivers to lose control over their vehicles and cause  accidents.  Such accidents can be prevented to a significant degree, if there are proper caution signs/marks and when the roads are properly maintained. However it is difficult for the civic agencies to monitor all the roads for maintenance issues . My suggestion would be to crowd source these to bring it to the notice of civic agencies using Google maps. Civic agencies should tie up with Google maps, where Google maps provides an option for the users to earmark locations where there are potholes, unmarked speed breakers and unmarked turns on roads. These markers done on Google maps can be seconded as authentic issues by subsequent users who pass through the same locations. Upon taking confirmation from a few users, Google maps should send notification to the civic authorities, who can in turn address the issue. Such notifications can also be utilised to point out broken/leaking public water pipes, damaged electric poles, unsafe electric cables lying on the roads, or anything which compromises the safety of the road users and which needs to be addressed.

For this purpose, Google maps should place an option on the map screen, to report a maintenance issue, by marking the location, adding specific details and upon submitting, a notification should be sent to the civic agencies.

“Be alert! Accidents hurt.” ~ Author Unknown

I am a great fan of Google and its ‘Do not be evil’ philosophy. I feel that the utility of mobile devices during emergency situations can be improved, if the below functions are added.

Emergency dialler

In a country like India, when a person meets with an accident and becomes unconscious, those who come to help or the police would want to find out the identity of the victim. They would also try to access the mobile phonebook to contact the family or friends of the victim. In most cases, mobiles are locked using passcodes, so as to protect personal data and hence is not of much help during such emergencies.

What can be done?

The screen 1 below shows the sample screen of a locked mobile, with an option for making an emergency call. When the ‘Emergency call’ option is clicked, screen 2 as shown below is displayed. However, screen 2 allows to dial only numbers like 911 or 112. The emergency contact for various countries differ and hence those too should be included. Now, to inform the family or friends of the victim or to find out the identity of the victim, dialing to a number on the phone book wouldn’t be possible as the phone is locked. So, when the phone is locked/passcode protected, the users should be able to access and dial a few numbers from the phone book. For instance, when the user taps on the ‘Emergency call’ option in screen 1, screen 3 should be presented instead of screen 2 as it is shown currently. In screen 3, the user should be presented with a list of 3-5 emergency contact numbers. These emergency contact numbers should be pre-selected from the phone book, based on a prompt from the device.

Ex. User should be able to map/assign the contact ‘Mom’ as Emergency 1, ‘Dad’ as Emergency 2, and so on, where ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ are contacts stored in the phonebook.

Screen 1

Screen 2

Screen 3

‘Track me’ app

What is this?

This app should help the mobile user to text, send a photograph of any person, place or thing or to send a voicemail, to a Google protected mailbox/application, which can only be accessed by Google and any investigation agencies.

Why is this required?

Case 1: When women in Indian cities travel alone in an auto rickshaw during night times, they are advised to send a message with the name of the driver and the registration number of the auto, to their friends or family members. This helps to track, in case of any unforeseen events.

Case 2: In the movie 127 hrs, Aron Ralston goes on a hike to the Blue John Canyon, without informing his mother. His mother was not aware of his whereabouts and files a missing complaint.

So, when a person is going somewhere without informing anyone, as mentioned in case 2 or if a person is travelling alone as mentioned in case 1, the mobile user should be presented with a track me button in the home screen. The user should be able to open the app and text, capture an image like the auto rickshaw registration number or record a voice on where he is going and for what purpose and click on save. This message should be saved to a Google server, which cannot be deleted by the user and should be auto deleted after 2-4 weeks time. When the person is found missing or does not return home for long, parents can file a complaint and the investigation agencies should be able to trace the whereabouts of the missing person using the message the user left lastly. Though the phone movement can be tracked using signals, this app would give an option for the users to relay his actual intentions of going somewhere or his whereabouts. Ex: Not all people are comfortable to disclose where they intend to go and what they intend to do there. This app would help to track them and at the same time protects their privacy.

PS:

1. The “Emergency Dialler” idea got implemented in Android N, released in Aug 2016.

2. Google has come up with “Trusted Contacts“ app based on my app suggestion “Track me” which was sent to suggestions@google.com. Google’s new Trusted Contacts mobile app lets you connect to friends and family in the event of an emergency.