“Inconspicuous Mode” will make Windows Phone Less Annoying in Theatres & Meetings
When you are in theatres and meetings, you must have been taken by surprise when it suddenly rang in between only to make you realise that you forgot to turn volume down. Microsoft is working on a patent which will make phones less annoying, and this feature may come to Windows Phone in future.
Named as “inconspicuous mode”, this patent was granted to Microsoft which would automatically change brightness, turn off notification sound, or eve mute them and take off every other thing which might be not suitable for that environment. Making your phone “Not readily noticeable” which is what inconspicuous mean.
A communication device is configured to switch from a normal mode of operation to an inconspicuous mode of operation in which a reduced set of information is presented on a home screen of a display of the device in comparison to a set of information presented on the home screen in the normal mode of operation. In addition, other display properties such as contrast and brightness may be adjusted to make them less conspicuous. The home screen in the inconspicuous mode of operation is less obtrusive or conspicuous to individuals than in the normal mode of operation. The device may enter the inconspicuous mode upon user request or by detecting at least one environmental condition using a sensor available to the mobile communication device. The environmental condition may be anything that the device can detect or sense in its surrounding environment such as ambient light or sound. The device may return to the normal mode of operation by user request or when the environmental condition is no longer present.
While this could be triggered manually, Microsoft has idea to get this done automatically as well. It will use your location, WIFI, etc to figure out where you are and then follow up. I guess you will be able to set all these things manually and identify them as Theatres, meeting rooms and so on. It is expected for Calendar events to kick in as well which is probably the best source.
In other implementations mobile communication device may, through other components, obtain other information that might be employed to determine the location of the device, including for example, Wi-Fi access points having particular service set identifiers (SSIDs), e.g., “home,” “ABC theater”, or even a MAC address, IP address, or the like which is associated with a specific location. In some cases the venue itself may participate in the venue determination process. For example, at the beginning of a movie, the theater may send a localized broadcast to all devices within the venue instructing them to enter an inconspicuous mode. The broadcast may be of any type that can be detected by the mobile communication device and may be, for example, in the form of an audio, optical, RFID or text message.
Source: Patent Yogi. via TNW | Inconspicuous mode for mobile devices [US Patents Office, PDF]
