You've heard of "reverse 911" communications systems, right?

That's where a police department can mass-dial thousands of homes an hour to make a pre-recorded announcement about a safety hazard. Perfect for when a child has gone missing, for example, and they need a neighborhood's help.

Well, Sony is trying to take that approach one step further: to your television set.

The technology giant last year filed a patent application for "reverse 911 using a TV." The filing states that emergency communications are transmitted by television "broadcasters, cable television systems, wireless cable systems, satellite and radio service providers."

Sony believes it can do the same thing using the Internet and a networked television.

The company believes networked televisions, which will have their own IP address, will become more common. How will such an emergency broadcast system work?

The reverse 911 message will come over the Internet and across your TV display. If your TV is off, the message will have the capacity to turn the TV set on (yes), so you could be alerted even when you're not paying attention.

How about that? Do you feel comfortable with Sony potentially building TV sets that can automatically turn on  in your home thanks to a signal from the government?

Mind you, it's just a patent filing and such a system may never get built. But it is now possible to do.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: For The Home, Gadgets
        

What do you buy your blogger friend who's also a couch potato? Why, IBM's proposed new auto-blogging remote control, of course.

Engineers at IBM have been developing a TV remote control that can be programmed to auto-blog while you watch whatever it is you want to watch, according to the patent filing.

How does it work? Let's take a look at a snippet from the patent filing, which was submitted last year but didn't show up online until April.

A viewer selects a media program to view by use of a remote controller with networking capability. Upon the viewer wishing to send a blog posting to a blog, the viewer determines whether a tag to be included in the blog posting is to be a pre-existing tag or a custom tag, wherein the blog posting comprises program information about the media program useful to identify the media program. If the tag is to be a pre-existing tag, the viewer selects the pre-existing tag from a plurality of pre-existing tags using the remote controller and if the tag is to be a custom tag, the viewer generates the custom tag using the remote controller. If a protocol provided by the remote controller to send the blog posting to the blog allows a snapshot of the media program to be included in the blog posting, the remote controller takes the snapshot of the media program and includes it in the blog posting.

So, basically, IBM has built a pretty potent little remote control that can be networked. You can set it to automatically post what you're viewing to your blog. (The patent talks about posting automatically to a microblogging service -- probably Twitter.)

The patent also references Joost, the social network for video watchers. One might surmise that IBM is looking for a way to do what Joost does for online viewers, but for your television set. One of my favorite parts of the patent offers this rationale for the remote:

"...more than ever, people wish to be able to share their comments with others in real-time as they experience life. In the case of television, for example, one of the joys of watching television is discussing with one's friends the juicy bits of a favorite show or the latest television program."

I contacted an IBM spokesman who couldn't help me ferret out more details in time for this posting. He could only confirm that the patent filing -- for "automatic blogging during media viewing" -- was indeed theirs.

Want to read the full filing? Go here.

But come back and let me know what you think? Do you watch so much TV and share your viewing habits so often with others that you'd need such a remote control?

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Big Ideas, For The Home, Gadgets, Social Media
        

I met an interesting chap last week: Donavon West. He's an independent software developer who works out of his home in North Baltimore. He's also a tinkerer, with a fascination for both new and old tech -- and how to combine the two, at least aesthetically.

I wrote about one of his creations, which he's calling the Home Servidor. Take a look at the video below (BaltTech blog's first video!) for a little tour of it. (Note: no cigar was harmed in the making of this video and I don't condone smoking them. <cough-cough>)

To celebrate the spirit of hackery, anybody else out there doing interesting mashups of new and old tech? Drop a note in the comments. Maybe I'll show up at your front door with a video camera. ;-)

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Entrepreneurs & Risk Takers, For The Home, Gadgets