Phone water company X on phone number N Close my account Information you might need: My name is Y, my account number is Z, my address is A and my password is B
I hate having to speak to people whos job it is to try and stop me achieving my goal, ie cancelling accounts. And having to wait on hold, and having to phone back when the call queue is shorter. etc
I guess you could create a dedicated API wrapped around Mechanical Turk, and then stick a website in front of it.
Oh, and the mail company has a service to forward your mail, and change your addresses for various companies when you move. Part of the deal...
I do like the idea of a system that learns recipes that you [probably] like, and sends you their ingredients and a recipe every few days.
I would love to hear more about the kinds of things you'd find useful (email in profile). I am also based in the UK.
I suspect that most of this stuff will have to wait for nanobots. Any way we can do this sooner?
And, because I'm in Seattle....a Weather API (with CRUD capabilities.)
If you are truly God, please implement ASAP
"What's 2.2kg in lbs" (0.10cent)
Someone on their computer just google it, type the answer and receive 0.10cent.
So basically, it's IRC + Stackoverflow but in real-time and you pay to get the answer now without searching. People could wait for the metro or the bus with their phone and see the questions and could click [answer] if they know the answer (or know how to get it really fast) or [next] to get another question.
Ideally, an expert in a field could make real money in situations where he/she would lose their time. Waiting in a queue to pay? Just answer 1 10$ question. Waiting at the metro/subway? Answer a couple question.
Looking for the name of a street? Lost? Searching for ketshup in the grocery? Just ask and put your price.
Full geolocation would be quite a bit harder, what would be the use case where you'd need to, say, plot the location of your keys on a map?
Probably wouldn't happen as cities are addicted to parking ticket revenue, and there are unionized meter readers.
OK, I'm thinking as I type. The API must represent a functional system (i.e. function calls do no have side effects, produce the same output given the same environment) for RE to work. The first million iterations of such an API would not 'feel' functional because humans tend away from rationality (insert gender-prejudiced joke here.)
I suspect that once you get down into the tiniest bits of the human system (quantum behavior in brains, if indeed that's even necessary for consciousness), you can get much more functional results. Then, that gets us into eliminating chaos (replacing it with knowledge) in complex systems.
Consider: knowing how that precise collection of molecules (that tasty roasted meat, whose chicken was raised on marigold petals but once ate a bug or three) will affect the digestive, circulatory and nervous systems of a human; initially when the odor affects the receptors in the nose and ultimately after digestion has done its job and delivered all the tiny chicken bits to cells in the human body. And between those times, how anticipation from delayed gratification ("we'll wait for Grandma to arrive before we eat") affects the effects of the food on the human. And from here, chaos theory...
I pontificate muchly and pointlessly, but it was fun.
I'm not sure that I've done a good job articulating what I want, in part because I only have a vague notion of what would help me out. I do know that keeping all sorts of "polling lists" in my head (or even in a calendar/todo list) is very stressful. I'd love to offload the work of remembering this stuff to a trusted assistant.
What other things in life are missing async callbacks?
- Cancelling X service before it auto-renews next month/year/whatever - Generally, any task with the word "confirm" in it - Audit-related tasks such as making sure my client writes me a check for the amount I invoiced.
One could implement basic "tickler" functionality at first without any back-end integrations and then build one-off interfaces for common use cases -- for example, use the eBay API to observe purchases I've made and add ticklers based on the auction's stated delivery dates. Maybe this service also grabs tracking numbers and digs a level deeper for you. "Remember to grab your package from the front porch -- there's a 90% chance of rain tonight!"
"Receive package" (Report in 2 weeks)
Basically, a small camera on my ear or something that watch in real-time with AI to recognize text. And then, a small 'bip' + a red light pointing to it.
Join the club.
We need cheap, mini(or sticker like)RFID/GPS systems, so that we can just stick it to the items we want to track.
an App on my phone which I can use to find the nearest ATM and make a withdrawal. It knows my account credentials. I tell it how much cash I need. The app generates the transaction, encodes it in the QR code. I show the phone screen to the ATM's camera. The ATM dispenses the cash, takes photo of the person receiving the money and attaches it to the transactions log/statement.
No germs exchanged, no risk of skimming, more security (password vs. 4-digit pin code), no need to carry the ATM card around.
Sure, I probably just need to get Google TV or Tivo, but you'd think it wouldn't be a Herculean task, y'know?
I'd like a digital wall paper on my walls so that I could change how my walls look every day.
1. An API to connect to non-profits and donate to them.
2. An API to retrieve college textbook information..like what are all the courses for the fall semester and their required textbooks.