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The Internet Idle

P2P Alarm Clock Service 107

Posted by samzenpus from the dial-n-for-nerd dept.
bs0d3 writes "Instead of waking up to a regular alarm clock, TalkO'Clock will let others help you get out of bed. The service allows you to choose whether you want to be called by a male or a female stranger, and it has a robot – CallO'Bot – lined up in case no one is available at the time you have to wake up. All completely anonymous of course." Not sure why this is better than your phone alarm, but if you're starving for human contact this might not be a bad option.

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P2P Alarm Clock Service More

P2P Alarm Clock Service

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  • Geek Win! (Score:5, Funny)

    by hellkyng ( 1920978 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @02:58PM (#37183290)

    I can finally have a woman wake me up in the morning, other than my mom shouting down the basement stairs!

  • stupid... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by snugge ( 229110 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @03:00PM (#37183310)

    start by registering on facebook... WTF?!?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Krojack ( 575051 )

      Maybe they are hoping FB catches on and buys them out?

    • Oh..ok.

      I was reading on the site...and starting to wonder if you had to have a FB account to use this.

      Sad...I was thinking of doing it, but I don't have, nor do I plan on having a facebook account at anytime in the future.

  • Customize (Score:5, Funny)

    by jnpcl ( 1929302 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @03:02PM (#37183332)

    Do I have the option of a custom phrase to wake me up?

    I'm thinking something along the lines of Moan My IP [moanmyip.com].

    • Hmm...let me know when they are able to market a Blowjob wake up option...

      Wake up with a smile on your face every morning.

  • What's the catch? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chebucto ( 992517 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @03:04PM (#37183362) Homepage

    This isn't so much 'too good to be true' as it is 'too weird to be true'.

    Remember the 4853th rule of the internet: find out where they get their money.

    At first blush I'm guessing they're scamming for access to people's facebook data. What other angle they have, I don't see.

    • Color me skeptical, but to get a call or make a call, you have to give them your phone number. If I'm reading the site right, you have to confirm a text message sent to you to be the alarm clock. What I'm a bit concerned about is that they will sell this information to third parties, and I'll start getting texts from advertisers on my phone.

      Maybe I'm wrong; I hope I am. Maybe these really are just nice folks who want to create an interesting service. They are in Russia (the "heart of Siberia," according

      • I don't care who has my phone number. Between the anti-spam features of Google Voice and android apps that will send all calls from people not on my contact list directly to voicemail I don't get bothered by annoying phone calls anymore.

      • The privacy policy (Score:4, Informative)

        by KingSkippus ( 799657 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @03:20PM (#37183580) Homepage Journal

        ...And there it is. Pulled out of the site's Privacy Policy [talkoclock.com] (emphasis mine):

        "Personally Identifiable Information" means any information that may be used to identify an individual, such as, without limitation, a first and last name, home or other physical address, an email address, phone number or other contact information, whether at work or at home.

        ...

        We may use your Personally Identifiable Information to complete transactions, respond to your requests, answer your questions, and notify you of promotions, updates, or special offers that we think may interest you.

        Is it a clever idea? Yes, it is, and it really sounds like a fun thing to participate in. But if it means that I might start getting advertising texts--or worse, phone calls--then hell no. Count me out. I sympathize with them needing money to keep the service up and running, but that's just way over the line for what I'm willing to give people just for a few minutes here and there of amusement.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Nehmo ( 757404 )

        Color me skeptical, but to get a call or make a call, you have to give them your phone number. ... I think I'll pass

        So? They will have your phone number. Are you afraid of marketing calls? Set up a Google Voice account. Use that number and froward it to your cell. If they flood it with advertisements, un-forward it.

        • So? They will have your phone number. Are you afraid of marketing calls? Set up a Google Voice account. Use that number and froward it to your cell. If they flood it with advertisements, un-forward it.

          ...Or I could just, you know, not. It's not like this is something extremely useful and/or important that I need. It's something totally useless and purely for mild amusement, certainly not worth the trouble of making special arrangements for.

          So yeah, I stand by my original answer. No thank you.

      • They are in Russia (the "heart of Siberia," according to their web site),

        Ooh. So I could get one of the women to tell me about "moose and squirrel" when they wake me up. Where do I sign up?

    • 4853rd
  • What? Why? What am I missing? I don't even... Who would even want this?

    • Well... Clearly there's a demand. I hope you enjoy it. I'm still just as puzzled, but thanks for the replies.

  • Oh good you're supposed to agree to be 18 or older when using this service from their ToS.

    I didn't want some sassy 14 year old kid waking me up in the morning.

    • Indeed that would be a completely different service that would probably end being woken daily by some guy named Bubba.

  • I think it's a great idea - I can be a nagging bitch in the morning to an exponentially-growing number of peers!

    Sarcasm aside, I think it's a great idea - it allows those who would like to reach out and help others in some small way to do so with (very little) risk to them, and it helps those who may feel "Why should I bother? No-one cares whether I get up anyway!" to feel better about themselves.

    1 person Liked this.

    • Would that one Like happen to be yourself?

      In any case, I can see how people would abuse this kind of system (screaming to wake someone up instead of gently calling to the sleeper, playing immature sounds, etc.), but it's definitely a step in the right direction. This will be interesting to watch unfold.

      • I was joking. I really like the idea - it's a genuine social service, in the vein of "helping others". But how would they stop people being abusive, as you say?

        They could have the receivers of the calls feedback on the site. But then what's to stop them abusing that?

        Being human sucks. Gimme Borg infrastructure anyday...

        • Yes, I know you were joking. But I agree, it's easy to abuse feedback, especially since this service only deals in tiny, relatively unimportant phone calls. However, feedback abuse is relatively uncommon wherever I go, but again, over a service that's "just a phone call", it's bound to have issues. Places like Amazon and Ebay have much less trouble with this due to well-established high standards (relatively speaking) and more product worth (people are more willing to rave or rant about products that are qu

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tibit ( 1762298 )

      Sometimes we need a nagging bitch to wake up in the morning ;)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I think it's a great idea - I can be a nagging bitch in the morning to an exponentially-growing number of peers!

      Where's +1 Arousing when you need it!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by u38cg ( 607297 )
      Man, who *wouldn't* want to be woken up by a Mistress in the morning?

  • Oh the opertunities.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Amtrak ( 2430376 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @03:08PM (#37183440)
    Hmm, you mean there is a service that will let you troll random strangers in the morning via telephone! I'm sure that will work out wonderfully!
    • And the site will send you ads to your phone. Not really worth it, you should be able to troll for free.
  • I have a sunrise clock that gets brighter at 30 minutes and starts playing birdsongs at 15 minutes before the alarm goes off. Usually by the time the beeping starts, I'm pretty wide awake. It also has a white noise function for overnight sounds to drown out the snorer down the hall, and a wind-down function that doubles as a night life. It was pricey, but worth every penny.
    • Sounds interesting. Does it come with a 24 hour display and autosetting to NIST time broadcasts? What about separate Saturday, Sunday, weekday alarm times?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ster ( 556540 )

      Link?

    • Got a sleepphase alarm clock. This thing wakes me up at a moment that I'm next to awake, for a good start each morning.
      It works with an armband (much like a sweatband). The band checks your movement and when you move a little (as you do in the "good to wake up phase") and if that happens withing 30 mins before the set time it wakes you up.
      It's very pricy (at EUR180), but worth it.

  • Paging Mrs. Walowitz (Score:3)

    by milbournosphere ( 1273186 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2011 @03:15PM (#37183502)
    Knowing my luck, I'd get an old Jewish woman screaming at me every morning. "Who's there?! Are you a sex criminal?!"
  • "You do not want your head to leave the pillow... Your eyelids are growing heavier.... ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" I can't imagine how many people will be late to work because of this.

  • The service allows you to choose whether you want to be called by a male or a female stranger, and it has a robot – CallO'Bot – lined up in case no one is available at the time you have to wake up.

    So, in other words, your choice is a male or a bot?

    • Since somebody earlier mentioned only 7.5 users will try this service, and one of those will be me, your choice is a male, a bot, or me. ;-P

  • I dial 252 (ALArm) from the device I want to be called at, and enter a time at the prompt. At the appointed time, the lovely voice of Allison Smith [digium.com] tells me it's my wake up call and presents me with a random 3-digit number to enter. If I don't answer, hang up, or get the number wrong, I'm called back every two minutes until I get it right. The random number business is necessary because sometimes, if I don't have to do a slightly complex task, I'll just hang up and go back to sleep.
  • Okay, seriously, what does this have to do with P2P?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shish ( 588640 )
      I presume that you don't know what P2P actually means, and you just think that it's a synonym for file sharing? It isn't - it means "peer to peer", ie, two approximate equals communicating in some way. P2P file sharing is when multiple computers communicate to share a file, and this alarm service is people communicating to get each other out of bed. As examples of non-P2P alarms, consider the standard alarm device, a watch, or as somebody pointed out, a PBX. These do approximately the same thing, but are on

      • Oh, wow, my bad.

        My fault, I should have read TFA (or the site, in this case). Sorry for the ignorance.

    • i think p2p means "people to people"
  • From the headline I figured it was a service to wake me up when my torrents finish in the middle of the night.
  • I've been waking people up with pranks I've done 3 wake up calls first when they answered I said I was Officer Johnson, there was a wreck at the corner of 5th and main earlier and I was told to notify next of kin.

    next person I got my 4 year old son to say "I'm going to kill you" in his 4 year old yet creepy as fuck voice :P

    and last I rickrolled them, person on phone said "Ah Shit, and hung up"

    this is just too funny

    especially the first one I got real good they thought it was real, they forgot abo

  • Strange, interesting idea to get in touch with total strangers. Except that waking up is the exact time I don't want to talk to strange people.

  • if u need some invites. ask me) 10 invites for buddies))) 1wo6syq4f0ne xot2scbe8znw 1dv9shauetqc 74jblz9rvqn2 evud6fgcxjw1 fec04jdsbi35 5u9yrqvo68x1 z0t3f6yuworx j3ch4p7sld96 bp369qcltmek

  • Not sure why this is better than your phone alarm

    Depends, are we talking about an iPhone?

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