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21/01/08 Kids Mashup An O2 “Call Me” Hack
SINGAPORE - I just missed the days of having a mobile phone while young, I actually won my first one (a 2 line display) at age 17 at a DCU openday while deciding where to go to University. It resembled a brick in looks, and soon behaved like one when I forgot to take it out of my buoyancy-aid map pocket before going out to practice handrolls.
As a scout-leader I watched mobile phones trickle down from 2001, a luxury of rich-kids with them packed in padded Tupperware for emergency right down to 2005 when all but the youngest kids would arrive with them and keep them in their pocket all day long no matter the activity. Always in touch with their friends by text, their parents by voice and for many it would provide a channel for their alter-ego - pretending they weren’t so uncool to be on a scout-camp. To start a camp I’d often throw in a water activity and collect all their phones in a dry-bag which would promptly be locked in my car until that evening. (There are 2 arguments to kids with phones on camp, 1- peace of mind of the parents, 2 - peace of mind of the leaders!).
As a 10 day camp would progress, we used to watch the credit phones run out. They needed a top-up and they’d have a 3 days wait to visit a village to get it. Necessity leads to innovation, and so ‘winging-it’ the kids developed a communication system built on the O2 Meet-Me service (Send a free ‘Call Me’ text to any Irish mobile number even when you are out of credit). Signals were of the type 1 Call-Me meant meet me now, 2 Call-Me’s meant I’m delayed. etc.
Clever, huh. Now back to the point - how can we hack this into a free SMS web-service?
To send a ‘Call me’ message: Type *103*recipient mobile number# and press Green phone icon
Eg: *103*0861234567# Green phone icon
Both Pay monthly & Speak easy prepay customers can send ‘Call me’ messages free of charge.
Answers on a post-card.
-Robin.
(Image Credit: Communication hacks must have been regular at this WW2 Keppel Harbour observation post, Fort Siloso, Singapore.)
Tags: callme, cell, General, hack, mashup, mobile, o2, Services
2 Comments
21/01/08 Rowan
Encode your 140 SMS bytes as unary and send a Call-Me message for each unary digit. Problem is it will take longer than the age of the universe to send most messages… a slight drawback.
haha… O2 might just cop onto that when you need to send 1,000 call-me’s!
