OK, sure, everybody is all anticipatory for Apple’s upcoming iPhone, which is set to conquer the world in a few short weeks. And why not? It’s essentially got everything: web, email, text, music, and it runs fracking OS X, to boot. And yet, it’s not even out yet and Nokia has gone and potentially trumped it.
Because Nokia is adding a true killer app to one of their upcoming phones: the Lightning Detector!
That’s right, Nokia has applied for a patent to add a lightning detector to its upcoming phones. Instead of looking outside at the really dark, scary rain clouds, scanning the horizon lightning and listening for the thunder, you can take the phone outside and it will do the job for you!
The theory is that lightning bolts emit signals of certain frequencies, and:
A special software program designed by Nokia analyzes the signals, calculates the distance to the lightning and informs users of imminent strikes.
That’s right! No more counting “1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippis, 3 Mississ– holy crap!” between the flash and the crash. Now, let your Nokia Lightning Phone do it for you. Science!
Right now, it’s unclear as to how the Lightning Phone will actually warn you of an lightning strike, but here are some suggestions:
- A huge lightning bolt overtakes the outer display.
- The whole phone actually becomes electrified and gives the user a minor jolt.
- The phone starts making thunder noises, then a voice repeats: “Get out of the rain, you idiot! Can’t you see there’s goddamn lightning!” over and over again.
Sure, you could carry around Desmond from Lost to warn you away from imminent lightning strikes, or you could carry the Nokia Lighting Phone. Your choice, brutha.
Best of all: it might be able to give you up to a full second of warning! That could be the difference between 100% struck by lightning and 95% struck by lightning. Whew. Thanks, Lightning Phone!
But that should only be the beginning: I have a bunch of other suggestions for future Nokia Detector Phones:
- The Earthquake Detector Phone
- The Mugger Detector Phone
- The That Porta-Potty is Totally Disgusting Phone
- The Your Boss is in a Totally Bad Mood Today Phone
- The French Fries They Are Giving You in The Drive-Through Are Already Cold Phone
Every single one of these would be an iPhone Killer.
I hope this is a hoax otherwise it would be pretty sad. Hilarious but sad as hell.
Lightning detector, how quaint- done in the 80’s, done again in the 90’s done yet again in the 00’s it’s easy! – simply uses two inductors and a filter circuit the pulses are measured for hight and width and this represents distance and type of lightning.
The ‘strike alert’ is a little pocket gizmo that does exactly this and has been out for 15 years. They can’t work indoors because there is too much interference from computers, flourescent lights etc, outside only.
Basically nice idea (of someone elses) Nokia – but unless you are out on the golf course and are compeltly blind it aint gonna be any use… thunderstorms are usually fairly obvious btw..