I was thinking about how the 770's least-used feature appears to be it's microphone. Suddenly two ideas came to me. Walkie Talkies or Baby Monitors.

First, to prevent someone snooping on 770's over the Internet, we would have to marry two 770's in proximity to one another with a serial number generated by the proximity sensor (ie. a wi-fi connection).

As Walkie Talkies, there is no need for a VOIP account, and you can W-T both in Wi-Fi or over data-enabled cellphone. In W-T mode, putting the cover on shuts off screen but nothing else. Zoom key acts as 'Push to Talk' switch, plus/minus is for volume, and power is for beeps or squelch. Alarm sounds for last 5 mins of battery.

Baby mode is similar, except one 770 is set to full time 'push to talk' and the other to listen. The F/T P.T.T. one is set to listen but only send when there is sound to help battery life, unless plugged in.

Just thinking out loud. If these seem bland or dumb, please forgive me.

Later.

Later.

Real walkie talkies and baby monitors are a lot cheaper

True, they are cheaper, but if you already have the 770's, why not?

But tell me this... Can standard Walkie Talkies work between two people 500 miles apart? These would, using the internet as the medium. Free live communication. No VOIP sign up fee. No Phone call. As long as the devices were in the Walkie-Talkie mode and were both already linked via a password interface and W-T channel #, just push-to-talk (Zoom key) and fire off some chitchat. A number of other callers could be linked to the same chat channel #, and the internet server would capture all the messages spoken and yet and make sure everyone heard them by feeding them in the order they came between the next patch of silences.

Dozens of people could talk simultaneously but no one would talk over anyone else.

I know.... I know.... this is pretty far fetched stuff. Not likely. I understand that. But that won't stop me from at least putting it out here in case some supergenius falls in love with it and decides to program it.

That's what so great about the Linux OS they've given this thing... people like you, the creators, the inventors, those that work hard to build upon ideas helpless dreamers like me come up with but cannot achieve on our own.

I love how quickly the Dev community has re-engineered some of the Maemo apps for the 770, and how every day the new versions are coming out.

Keep up the great work, guys. The 770 is the funnest Handheld device ever, thanks to you.

--Ciao.

I just saw a commercial last night where a cellphone company now has a way to get up to 6 friends online at one time using a messenger variant but everyone is talking at the same time. It's like turning your cellphone into a walkie talkie, only visually you can see who's talking at the moment because that person's name lights up on the screen. It's like a strip of 6 names arranged down the screen.

It's a commercial where a woman is on a date and the guy is weird and leaves to go the bathroom and her friends tell her to propose marriage as a way to scare him off. Pretty funny.

Later.