Sometimes you just have that urge to check BlitzMail, but you aren't anywhere near a computer. Alas, you have no option but to wait until you are once again in the proximity of a trusty Apple or Dell to find out who has been filling your inbox.
For those who simply cannot live without the security of their blitz account, David Marmaros '01 has a developed a solution: PhoneBlitz. PhoneBlitz allows its users -- who have to register via PhoneBlitz's web-based partner NetBlitz -- to access the messages in their BlitzMail inbox by dialing an automated 800 number.
"All you have to do," Marmaros said, "is tell PhoneBlitz who you are and it will read your email to you."
When registering online users of PhoneBlitz set a PIN number, which allows them to access their email from any phone. Users also have the option of setting a phone number from which they can call without having to enter their PIN.
"PhoneBlitz has a call tracer, so it knows where you are calling from," Marmaros said. "If you always call from the same number, like a cell phone which no one else uses, you can set PhoneBlitz to let you right in to your account without entering your PIN when you call from that number."
The system is entirely voice-activated. It tells the user how many new messages he or she has received, and allows the user to skip through the messages, read selected messages, and delete selected messages.
"The system is based entirely on voice recognition," Marmaros said, "although you can use the keypad to navigate as well."
Marmaros said that the voice that reads the messages is easily understandable, though at times it "seems a little fast, if anything."
PhoneBlitz is not only for listening to received messages, however. It also allows users to send messages. However, because voice recognition software is unreliable for long messages, according to Marmaros, he chose not to incorporate it into PhoneBlitz. Instead, PhoneBlitz records the user's message and sends it as an attachment. The attachment can then be downloaded on a computer to be listened to, or played back by another PhoneBlitz user.
According to Marmaros, the Student Assembly is working on plans that would use the PhoneBlitz service to provide additional features to students. One idea he said that they are considering is a wake-up call option.
Most students contacted had not heard about PhoneBlitz. "I think its unnecessary, especially on campus," Megan Peck '06 said. "Its so easy to access a computer that being able to call for blitz doesn't save much time."
