Carl Tyler's Blog

1 - That is a cool idea. It would be a great help at dinners where you wanted to split the bill.

2 - I've seen a few of these things on the iPhone commercials. I will admit they potentially change the way people interact, and they have a "cool factor".

I will then back off and say this:

iphone bump contact transfer: both people pull up contacts screen, first user pulls up contact to transfer, users bump phones.

Other-phone contact transfer: First user pulls up contact to transfer, hits "send", chooses beam/text/bluetooth, chooses 2nd user's name. 2nd user is prompted and accepts contact. Users not required to have physical contact, or even be in the same room.

And no download of add-on app required.

Many of these "there's an app for that" ads can be answered by either "my smartphone already does that pretty easily" or "I have internet access, why download an app just for that?"

I'm trying not to sound negative. They really are slick! They make it so easy that they probably get newbies using these features ...features they never noticed they already had on their old phone.

3 - @2 Very much agree. What is it 14 years ago my Palm could beam contact details to another palm? Was more hygienic, didn't even need to bump

4 - @3 Yup, and beaming was a part of PalmOS so that you could beam more than just contacts. You could beam apps. And any app could support beaming so that you could, say, beam a shopping list to another Palm.

5 - "Snotty beamed me last night... twice, it was wonderful."

6 - Saw something like that in the new ABC series Defying Gravity. Takes place about 40 years in the future, so no one carrie cash anymore, they have smart cards. Users can transfer money from one to the other simply by rubbing them together.

7 - Saw something like that in the new ABC series Defying Gravity. Takes place about 40 years in the future, so no one carrie cash anymore, they have smart cards. Users can transfer money from one to the other simply by rubbing them together.