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My 2nd Brain

Submitted by: thecougar
Created: Mar 22, 2007, 6:03 pm

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The Idea

Each day I have to remember little things. Where did I park? What time is my restaurant reservation? What's my flight number?

My idea is a service that keeps track of all those little life details and feeds them back to you wherever you are. To save a reminder, you simply call a phone number, say the catagory, and then provide the details. Later, when you want to retrieve the details, you call a different number, say the catagory, and the system plays back your message.

Example: You are shopping with your wife in November and she says "I love this necklace! This would make a perfect gift (hint, hint)." As soon as she's out of earshot, you could call 555-1000, say "wife gift", then "silver necklace at Macy's". A month later when you are at the store trying to buy her Christmas present, you'd call 555-1001, say "wift gift", and the system would playback your message. You'd also be able to log into a website and see a list of all reminders you've recorded.

I thought of this idea when I was...

aimlessly wandering a parking garage trying to remember where I parked. Also, this idea is pretty much already implemented at jott.com. The big difference here is the ability to save the reminder under a specific keyword. This is a much more structured and focused more on easily retrieving specific data as opposed to storing and sharing free-form data.

Comments Posted

piedad Posted: March 22, 2007, 8:30 pm

After a while, you might also end up forgetting the keyword that you used... how do you address this?

thecougar Posted: March 22, 2007, 10:27 pm

I thought about this, you could either go to the site and see a list of your saved messages along with the associated keyword, or you could save a command like "List Keywords" and the system would play them back over the phone or send you a text message.

DoctorO Posted: March 23, 2007, 2:02 pm

Why not just use your cell to type in the todo list: wife gift necklace macy's. I usually just have a piece of paper in my pocket and a pen nearby.

Noone Posted: March 27, 2007, 7:38 am

You can text your self as well and store it ..so I am out frm this one ..nice idea

thecougar Posted: March 27, 2007, 7:13 pm

I'm with you, there are definitely easy ways to remember stuff now. But there is a bigger picture here - the concept of one central storage point with multiple front ends that you can access in a variety of ways. Cell phone, text message, email, web site, desktop widget, MySpace widget. The service could print out your saved stuff and send you a handwritten letter. You could walk into Macy's, it could scan your retina and print out a list of any items you had stored.

By no means am I suggesting that we try to implement this huge, blown-out implementation on CH. But it's an interesting space, especially if you start to think big picture.

Siliconsand Posted: April 15, 2007, 8:44 pm

OK Thecougar I like this idea of 'second brain' which has certain limitations in present technological context otherwise it would go more than just helping remember where's my car and the Christmas gift.

Like say if it could bring all the expenses made till now,commitments given,friends won,enemies made and why,time spent on....we could be getting some some very helpful leads that might shape our lives better.

Don't take me wrong buddy but I believe we are little early in time.

techguy Posted: April 17, 2007, 8:41 pm

I think this is a great idea. I've wanted this for when I fill up on gas. I want to know the mileage when I filled up so that when I fill up again I'd like to calculate my gas mileage. There is the button on most cars that does the trip mileage, but I had one that didn't have it.

Essentially, I'm saying there could be a lot more applications for this idea.

E115 Posted: April 18, 2007, 5:42 am

I actually have a file on my phone where I jot stuff like this down. Stuff I know I will need to remember, but never will when needed.

An advantage of a text file as well is that when I go to look for something in particular I can scim read quickly the contents and see that I haven't missed anything on there.

A) Its free
B) I don't need to make a phone call, e.g. discrete.
C) Quickly review everything.

Rizal Posted: May 21, 2007, 6:23 pm

cool. but i think there is something already that resembles like this

Hello!

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