The Hindu Business Line : Dial SOS for that exit line

THERE you are, stuck in a boring meeting, only because your boss ordered you to go. You don't hear voices, just a low drone; you start checking on your stream-of-consciousness, holiday in Goa, shopping in Dubai, and vada pav at Flora Fountain...

Suddenly, you remember the disastrous blind date you got into when in college.

Help is at hand if Indian mobile phone companies can take a leaf out of Virgin Mobile in Australia: it has launched a new SOS service as part of its value-added services bouquet and it gets you out of those disastrous dates, and meetings.

All you have to do is surreptitiously dial 767 (corresponding to S-O-S in your dial pad) and cut the call. Virgin Mobile will call you back in about a minute, and assist you with an excuse and will even talk you through it and you can just get out of wherever you are.

This would have been more helpful if Virgin could have just added a facility to dial the number with the time the rescue call is needed or SMS the number with the time of the rescue call. This will help in situations where you are stuck in a meeting where you can't even twiddle your thumbs - you are in a meeting with your boss.

The SOS service just shows the way things past come back and haunt you. And it's funnier that even technology is like that. In an earlier generation, people set up a friend or colleague to make the rescue call.

Only now, it's your most personal friend - the friend that connects you to your other friends - who takes care of that.

Virgin Mobile has also added another service called the DUI (dialing under the influence) service.

As the name suggests, it is meant for people who are in the habit of calling their friends, colleagues, relatives, when they are under the influence.

And again, like SOS, this is a new take on an old method - barring calls to certain numbers.

Well, people who do dial under the influence know how it is: you call up your boss or your wife (doesn't really matter which in terms of effect) and tell them a few truths under the influence. And where will you be the next morning? Out of a job, out of your home, or both.

With the DUI service, you just call 333 along with the number of your boss, or your wife, or whoever you might end up calling.

From that time till the next morning at 6 a.m., all calls to that number will be barred from your mobile.

This presents a small problem, though. What would you do if you were not in any condition to drive and want a pick-up from home?

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

nagaraj@thehindu.co.in

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