An interesting new patent has been published today for a device that can get you out of difficult situations by ringing your phone at a predetermined time.

It seems that the patent is discussing a similar service to popularitydialer.com but this is not made clear in the application.

The patent helpfully describes how:

The ability to receive an incoming call on a mobile phone can also serve as a method for a user to escape a situation with the excuse of answering the phone.

Generally, a mobile phone user must talk with other person in advance for making an expected phone call to get away from some annoying situation. However, it is difficult to contact with other person. Furthermore, there are a lot of uncertainties since the other person is a human being and miscommunications may happen. For example, other person may forget to call the user or miss the right time to call by just a few minutes.

The claimed invention provides a method for simulating an incoming call on a mobile phone comprising inputting a predetermined input, and executing a simulated call on the mobile phone when detecting the predetermined input.

Simulated calls