Technology is usually seen as empowering, allowing us to do more with less, whether it’s money, time or effort. But we tend to forget the restrictive side of technology. This week two great examples have emerged.
The first is a setting for Google email, which is called Mail Goggles, and stops you emailing people late at night on specific days by setting you some arithmetic questions. You can configure it for any time or day of the week, but the defaults are Friday and Saturday between 10pm and 4am, so it’s clearly aimed at social drinkers. Get one of the 5 questions wrong or fail to finish in the time granted, and it says: “Water and bed for you.” Ouch.
The second is Ford’s MyKey setting, which limits certain functions in your automobile, such as limiting speed to 80mph, restricting audio volume, and encouraging superior driving. This is aimed at parents who have their children borrowing the car, and will cause huge family rows, I’m sure, but Ford claim it will help teens drive more safely. The feature will be initially available in the 2010 Ford Focus, with the promise of more models to follow. Ford even have a helpful cartoon showing the happy parents and kids using the features.
Of course, parental restrictions are nothing new, with settings on cable Television and PCs available for years. The challenge has always been for the children to crack the code by fair means or foul, and the Focus will be no different.
Will these features catch on and be copied by others? Hard to state. Phone maker LG introduced a similar idea to Mail Goggles in 2006, which was a phone breathalyser, aimed at stopping those late-night, booze-fuelled calls we shouldn’t make to the ex. A great idea, surely? Perhaps, but I haven’t seen it copied by the other phone makers.
Which makes me think the MyKey idea is more likely to be widely adopted. Restricting technology is always going to be more popular when you’re selling the product to people who are doing the restricting to others rather than to themselves. We all like to think we have the self-discipline to not drink-and-dial, or drink-and-email, however much experience tells us otherwise. Perhaps the MyKey system should breathalyse the kids too?
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