Pinger: Like Text Messaging, But With Your Voice

My dad — let’s refer to him as “Dr. Ed” — claims that cell phones and email are ruining modern society. Now, he’s no Luddite, as he uses both, but he does have some strong opinions as to how technology is ruining long-established rules of grammar, spelling, etiquette, and eroding a set of behaviors that I’ll file under the quaint (and arguably antiquated) concept of “common decency”. Therefore, I think it’s safe to say he wouldn’t be a big fan of Pinger. The services offered by Pinger allow users to record brief voice messages and distribute them via a cell phone much like you would a text message. I can see how this could be useful. Users can “ping” hands-free by dictating a message, thus allowing them to message a group of recipients simultaneously, “ping” while driving, and deliver comprehensible messages free of text-shorthand. I imagine the predictive-text challenged and fat-fingered folks may find Pinger especially handy. Other, slightly less savory benefits also come to mind… the “ping” booty-call, blowing off a date via “ping”, you name it. But, here’s the real question: how good Pinger servers at interpreting tipsy callers? You see, it’s questions like these that (much as it pains me to admit it) make me wonder if Dr. Ed is on to something…