14 DAY TRIAL // Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation and you desperately wanted to tell the person you are talking with to shut up but you didn't do it because your heart didn't let you put the guy (girl) down like that? There is a solution now to those kinds of awkward situations: a brilliant patent has been filed on July 13th 2006 for a cellphone "shut up" button by Jonathan D. Moscato from New York.
Just imagine the many uses one can give to such a brilliant invention: tell your wife to shut her yap with just a push of a button, shutting the mouth of anyone that slightly nags you on the phone without having to go yourself through such a task.
One push of a button and silence would come down and you will happily continue whatever you were doing at the moment you were so rudely interrupted in, with no remorse or any other after-thoughts. Just push the button and it will carry over without asking what you want it to say because it already knows what his job is: telling the guy on the other end to shut the fu*k up!
Although this might seem the masterpiece of a mad man, I think he's done a very good job. The ways one can use this button are not strictly limited to such cases because, if its inventor would think to also implement a way to record your own message, you could also use it as a way to warn the person you are talking with that you can't continue the conversation due to some unexpected events.
You can see the image attached to the patent in the left and, to further understand the purpose of this invention, read a part of the patent's text where the inventor describes the way in which this button will be used: "The Driver-Attentive Notification System was invented to allow a driver who is conversing on a cell phone to purposefully inform a remote caller to temporarily reduce her conversation intensity level when faced with an attentive condition. The device works when the driver presses an activation switch, which causes the notification system change to an activated state and then sends a notification message to a remote caller to inform her to temporarily reduce her conversation intensity level. A resume message is also sent to the remote caller when the driver changes the notification system back to the deactivated state. This message is sent to inform the remote caller that it is ok to resume her normal conversation intensity level."
Notice the way he describes it as if it would be about a wife nagging his husband on the phone :). I told you the guy is brilliant and if you didn't believe me in the beginning, you will surely do that now.
Just think about this invention arriving on mobile phones: it will totally revolutionize the way we talk to each other mainly because the ones that often raise their voice while speaking, probably thinking they can't be heard, will be more careful when addressing you. If they won't, then the magic "shut up" button watches over and it will definitely know what to tell them in case they make the wrong move :).
