Great ideas for drunks: Google creates "Mail Goggles" for e-Mail sobriety test

from Greg Crandell

Apparently, there's a problem with e-mail that even the SPAM filter didn't see coming.

With new methods of communication come new desires to communicate whenever we can. Twitter makes for quick updates about our personal lives, Yelp makes it easy to find what you like in and around your living area, JuicyCampus lets your kids have another way to blow all that wonderful tuition money (other than Facebook, of course).

But with new communication methods come old worries. You can hang on to an angry letter after you write it - rip it up, throw it away, what have you. But when you send an e-mail, it's gone. Apparently, this happens a lot when people are drinking. So much so that Google created "Mail Goggles" - a filter that stops you from sending drunk e-mails.

You install Mail Goggles yourself, setting it for certain times you might be...well, let's just say polluted. When you e-mail at those hours, Mail Goggles asks you a series of math questions. Get them wrong and you'll have to wait until you're sober to get that idea across. Sound like a good idea? Maybe, if you happen to be a drunk web-user. According to our whippersnapper-in-chief Jimmy Marks:

I think they need to make one for cell phones. I got a call from a friend of mine at four in the morning asking me to send him a fax on my cell. We haven't spoken since. Maybe new phones should come with breathalyzers? Just thinking ahead of the curve here.

Comments

[Ben Rogers]

Maybe we should encourage a system that forces all email senders to answer a series of math questions. The more annoying the communication, the more sophisticated the math they have to do.

I'll put it on my wish list alongside a tropical island and a swift end to the financial crisis.

[Elliott]

I wish it worked that way with annoying people at parties. Before they tell me about how spiritual Enya makes them feel, they have to tell me the derivative of (2x^3 + 7/3x^2 + 5).

Any chance this will raise test scores?