7 Technologies That Could Benefit From the Gmail Goggles Concept | Back to Blog

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  7 Technologies That Could Benefit From the Gmail Goggles Concept

  contributed by rtcrooks October 7, 2008 at 8:10pm

  

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  Google's labs have recently put out word of their newest feature, Mail Goggles, which effectively prevents GMail users from firing off random emails when drunk. This new tool requires users to solve several simple math equations if they want to send an email during certain hours and days of the week, to ensure that they are in a stable state of mind. We greatly appreciate Google's effort to help us limit the amount of regret we experience in a given weekend, in fact, I could use similar restraint in other areas of communication that are often a source of shame the morning after. We have figured out social networking and social bookmarking, now we just need to figure out a holistic solution for social handcuffing.

  
  1. Text Goggles
  
  
  
  Alcohol + tiny buttons + abnormally short attention span - context = catastrophic miscommunication. Trying to piece together a text message conversation from the night before can be more painful than your hangover headache. Worse yet is seeing that you sent one solo message laced with liquid courage to which there was absolutely no reply. A foolproof excuse for your textual harassment? "T9 can say the darndest things."
  
  
  
  2. Drunk Dial Goggles
  
  
  
  The mother of all alcohol related tech-communication mishaps. Haven't talked to someone in years? There is probably a reason that your rational mind has stopped you from calling this person sooner. With that pesky reason out of the way, however, you are ready to rekindle the most distant of relationships, albeit with slurred speech. Everyone is excited to catch up and hear the latest news from an old friend or ex. Though you know the fun is over when there is a long pause on the other end of the line..."Wait...are you drunk?"
  
  
  
  3. eBay Goggles
  
  
  
  For a three year stretch of my life, after any rough night at the bars, I dreaded my own personal walk of shame to the computer in the morning. Far too often, I saw my gold Wells Fargo ATM card next to the keyboard, and really hoped that there wasn't some 3 month subscription to a porn site that I had made at 4am without even remembering the logins. In all cases, the autopilot drunk web surfing mode of my brain brought me to eBay, which is why I have a wide assortment of Goya prints, cufflinks, $5 Yves St. Laurent ties, Denver Broncos team sets from the 1980s, and for good measure, a package of 50 random John Elway cards. If I had to do simple addition problems to get in, that would not be a barrier, since I obviously had the wherewithall to function through the bidding process. eBay benefits from this, so it would have to be a 3rd party firefox add-on that made you follow a fly around the screen and click on it 5 times in a row before you could place a bid.
  
  
  
  4. Skype Group Chat Goggles
  
  
  
  Skype users who utilize the group chat feature with multiple groups inevitably know the pitfalls of mixing up conversations. Especially when one conversation is talking about the other conversation. The probability of such a mistake increases exponentially by the number of drinks you have consumed. The information and material you choose to share when intoxicated is not always suitable for the "Richard's Family Reunion 2008" conversation. I propose that you must solve an electronic Rubik's cube before you paste a RedTube link into any chat window.
  
  
  
  5. Twitter Goggles
  
  
  
  If you have your Twitter account set up so that you can update from your cellphone, you could surely benefit from a few restrictive measures that might keep you from trying to sound cool before realizing that all of those people in the tech world that you want to impress just read your update that said "I am so fcuking drunk and stoned rght now. isn 6. Facebook Goggles
  
  
  
  This could also have a great 3rd party add-on, so that you don't get hammered and break up with your girlfriend for the night and go home and write that you are now single. If you have ever had a fight with your significant other with regard to your social networking site profile, then you know that this is truly a "what has my life become?" situation. I never again want to hear that my "default pic", "status", or the contents of my "wall" have somehow tragically affected my real life.
  
  
  
  7. IM Goggles
  
  
  
  There is a certain combination of chemicals that might make some of us decide that it is time for someone to know what we were like in college when we listened to the Pink Floyd discography and nothing else for 3 weeks (including "Animals" 11 times straight through over a 3 day period). MSN Messenger, AIM and GTalk need to do us a favor and slow us down when the words get jumbly and rapid by saying "you may not send a message that often, you are obviously baring your soul to a new acquaintance and now is not the time for them to know the real you." Better yet, just install a breathalyzer on your computer and when you don't pass, just go to sleep.
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