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Computer: Text Feature
PDA PDF GPS   (+6, -1)  [vote for, against]
Displays books appropriate for your surroundings

Wander into the bathroom with your PDA in hand and it automatically switches to a category of ebook suitable for toilet reading.

That was my initial thought. Then I realised that it could only display your left handed reading material in an appropriate circumstance. Such files would be hidden from view anywhere except in your sordid den.

Walk into a train station and the appropriate maps and timetable details are summoned up.

And so on...

Was originally thought of for offline reading of PDF's, etc, but could be expanded to include online capability where available.
-- kodabar, Feb 05 2010

//a category of ebook suitable for toilet reading.// might depend on who's holding it

{WTF TLA?}

[edit] Oh and, RFID - GPS won't work in-doors
-- Dub, Feb 05 2010


Triangulation of mobile phone mast signals might work indoors though but maybe not with the accuracy needed for this application.

A someone who tends to keep different books in different places, especially a thick academic book by the bedside so I can gradually work through such weighty tomes, I'll throw it a bun.[+]
-- Aristotle, Feb 06 2010


If I went into my bathroom, I'd want reading suitable for the bath, not the toilet.
-- coprocephalous, Feb 06 2010


I think these should be given, or sold cheap, to employees by large companies, like Blackberries, and for the same reason: easier to keep tabs on the workers. Whoever did your annual performance review would discuss the statistics of your bathroom breaks.

Might not the idea work better with an MP3 player than with a PDF reader, though? There's a wider range of locations to which particular music is appropriate than for reading matter, and I could imagine the people who obsessively organize music playlists getting really into programming this invention.
-- mouseposture, Feb 06 2010


Hmm, I should maybe invent something else first. Indoor GPS! Just implant an RFID tag under your skin and attach scanners to every doorway in the world. Can't see any problem with that.
-- kodabar, Feb 06 2010


There are quite a few location sensitive apps on the Android OS.

Example is this: http://www.twofortyfouram.com/

I can't find it, but I'm sure there is one about that is programmable to load programs at different locations.
-- tmassey101, Feb 07 2010


But some of the information you want to display on your PDF GPS PDA might be sensitive or confidential. It would be better to have a PGP PDF GPS PDA.
-- hippo, Feb 07 2010


Or have people sign a PDF GPS PDA NDA.
-- jutta, Feb 07 2010


And if it were also the merchandising tie-in for a popular Roald Dahl book, it would be the BFG PGP PDF... oh, never mind...
-- hippo, Feb 07 2010


I wonder how often the GPS would force it to change genres if I were cruising at 30,000 feet?
-- RayfordSteele, Feb 08 2010



random, halfbakery