Another Raging Idiot bright idea... (ConceptPhone) part2

[Raging Idiot]

My previous "(ConceptPhone) part1" idea was involving my personal hardware wishlist of this phone highly modified, and centered around the idea of separation of keyboard and display. http://www.ppcgeeks.com/another-ragi...one-t4239.html

So today, my ConceptPhone idea will be centered around a perhaps easier to achieve goal of creating the most advanced "today screen" that I can imagine -within the limits of reasonable probability.

If there is such a way to accomplish this already - I'm unaware.
I've seen many of my ideas brought to light long after I thought of them but never had them written down to be able to say "yep, thought of it first 3 years before and here's the proof". haha


On the Today Screen, I want to see:

a dynamic picture that would change with the conditions of various events.

Follow me here on this imagination.... So lets say you start with a picture of someone holding out their arms... Like in one of those games where all you see is your arms in front of you. This is completely scene based, so forget about working in boxes or text, etc..

On your wrist watch you have the time display. In that hand - you have your mail. If you have 3 new emails (within set period of time) then you will be holding three envelopes... In the right hand you could have a cellphone and it would display number of missed calls and blink for voicemail.
In front of you there will be a scene which is depicted by your current weather. If it is bright and sunny and hot and very low humidity it could show a desert scene, and your arms would be sunburned red. If its very cold it could show an arctic landscape, and perhaps either dress up the arms or display them as ice. Perfect weather might be a beach scene, and humid weather might show a rainforest - and if it's currently raining just show rain in the rainforest. You get the idea... Clouds could be added per amount of cloudiness expected.
Green clouds could be added if smog alerts are given in your area. The sun pic could double in size if high UV alerts were given as well.
I've been greatly disappointed by the current selection of weather apps and their corresponding lack of full screen interaction and small amount of scene/weather displays. To me, a good weather theme should have at least 50 picture variation/combinations to display the full range of the weather patterns and be able to convey things such as high/low humidity.

The difference in which scene displays should be customizable to each user, as everyone has a slightly different take on what should be displayed for what set of conditions. Ideally, it should allow for new pictures to be added by the user just in case they want even more diversity.

Let's take this one step further now...with the fun stuff..
and have our arm model "character" on a motorcycle.

On the dash - The current bandwidth can be displayed on the MPH gauge and the current battery power can be used on the fuel gauge. CPU usage could be RPM, and well you see how it works...

The labels could be spoken when you touch the various gauges so that it will be easier to remember what everything is, and would add to the effect that the person on the bike is the one interactively reading.

Perhaps another dimension could be added by the use of darkening the background and lightening the fonts as the day becomes night and vice versa... Showing the rise and fall of the sun and moon...along with all the appropriate moon phases.

The biker could be the users choice, and would have a selection of voices - or the user could opt to record their own voice, as well as arrange their dashboard accordingly.
The type of bike could change depending on type of current internet connection. Faster speed, get a faster bike.

And with the integrated weather app, a pollen alert could be displayed as dust on the windshield. If a traffic alert is possible, then it could be displayed as actual traffic on the road in front of the motorcycle.

Keeping with the theme, the sound reminders/notifications could be a selection of horns and reving. vroom

As a programmer I know I could create this on the PC in less than a week, and I wouldn't expect it to be all that impossible to achieve a similar TodayScreen scenario on the 6700 if given a little more time.

In a forum mostly filled with what currently works and what doesn't, figured I'd just add to the brainstorming of ideas and potential innovations...

-Rage

[luv2chill]

Very cool idea. I think you should do it! Maybe RPMs could show the signal strength.

I love the idea of the sky getting darker to match the current conditions. I have always wanted PC wallpaper that did that. There was/is an app for the Mac that did that and I always thought it was such a great idea.

I've seen "dreamscene" on Vista and it's not all that great. I think a subtle animation (like the sky turning from day to night) is so much cooler. That way it's not distracting.

Again, very cool "outside the box" thinking here.

[jamesus]

That would be cool. The weather portion can (sort of) be accomplished using Doreen's Vista Alive themes.

[Raging Idiot]

Doreen's Vista Alive themes isn't exactly what I had in mind. It looks like a start though.

If the phone is to have GPS functionality then perhaps the dashboard could have a toggle to change it into "path finding" mode. Then the gauges could then do double duty, with the MPH showing "Actual" MPH, and an onboard compass could point to destination or next turn.

..and while I'm raging... might as well have the "path finding mode" scene depicting relative positioning via a street sign on the road in front of the biker.
These GPS additions would just be an ultra scaled down version of any GPS software currently on the market - but would be a much smaller footprint on the device- much less resource intensive- and arguably a bit more "fun".

Ok, now for some real raging...
Couple this with the OnBoardDiagnostics of your car and you will be able to determine when you actually need to get gas and a couple hundred other diagnostical reports. (I did it with my laptop) .... Then all the gauges on the phone could coincide with the vehicle you are in.

...now that I'm working myself into an uncontrollable rage....
might as well add yet another toggle for a VirtualEarthMobile overlay (or underlay rather) so then it gives the effect of displaying the roads ahead similar to other GPS software. Except now you have your dashboard choices on screen and it gives the funny appearance of your character driving on the map.

ahh - the imagination is an interesting thing... and I could go on all day. Might as well have the headlight switch on the bike turn on the flashlight of the phone. This is getting long and I gotta go for now..... more to come!

-Rage