Cebu studes create app that dials names

CEBU CITY, Philippines — A group of college students in Cebu has developed an application that allows mobile phone users whose phones can access the Internet to call a person registered in the application site’s database.

The catch, according to SpellDial lead creator Jose Albert Padin, is that the caller need not memorize the person’s number, but just the username of the person being called. Padin said it is often easier to memorize a person’s name than his or her mobile phone number.

Calling through SpellDial’s website, www.spelldial.com, also saves kilobytes of the phone’s memory to store contact information, he said.

“We believe that connecting should be simple and easy. That’s why we made SpellDial. SpellDial allows others to contact you through a name instead of a number. Why do you let people contact you by number when you have a name? With SpellDial, your name could be your number,” SpellDial’s slogan reads.

“I have talked with 100 people and only three of them remember Jollibee’s delivery number. This is because we easily forget numbers. Most of those I have talked with, however, remember the vanity numbers of their favorite fast food (outlets). So we thought that if names are easy to remember, then why dial numbers?” Padin said.

Vanity numbers are phone numbers that spell something on the keypad like “348-MCDO,” which stands for 348-6236, McDonald’s delivery hotline. Vanity numbers are limited to four characters so not all may use it.

With SpellDial, establishments may use their name regardless of how long it is.

Another situation when SpellDial would come in handy, Padin said, is when a mobile phone user loses the phone. What would happen is that the user would have to get in touch with all his contacts either through text or voice call to disseminate a new number. However, if the user is registered under SpellDial, he simply has to update his contact details online.

“In SpellDial, you never lose connection. I have donated my phones at least thrice to snatchers and it was miserable to lose all your contacts,” Padin said.

Getting connected

To register to SpellDial, a mobile phone user can go to the SpellDial website and create an account for free. Once he is registered, his contact details will be saved in the site’s database.

Padin said users need not worry about security because the site provides an option that hides the contact numbers registered. There will also be no duplication of usernames because a username is registered exclusively to one account.

Padin said users can even use special characters if only to make the username unique.

To call a person registered in the database, the user simply has to click the “Use SpellDial” option, which will lead him to the application page. There, the user can type the name of the person in the dial box.

As of last month, SpellDial had active 989 registered users.

Limitations, plans

Padin explained that the application only works for mobile phones that are Internet-capable like iPhones and Android-powered handsets, but the team is optimistic that it can find ways to make the application accessible even to non-Internet phones and even landlines.

“We understand that only some parts of the world have constant Internet access virtually everywhere. So we are also working to develop technology that will allow you to use SpellDial from an ordinary GSM mobile phone or even a PSTN landline. Although we don’t know how long it would take, it could come sooner than you expect. So make sure that you get the SpellDial name that you want before someone else takes it,” said the SpellDial team.

In the Philippines, the number of i-Phone users has reached millions and is expected to grow double or even triple in a few years.

The team

Padin is a fourth-year Information Technology student at the Center for International Education in Cebu City.

With him in the team are Nicole Faye Macarasig, an IT student of STI; Maria Paola Galan, a graduating IT student of the University of San Carlos; Jonina Joy Sharpe, a Mass Communication student of the University of San Jose-Recoletos; David Tangal, a Business Administration graduate of the University of San Carlos; and Kent Jason Tupas, an IT graduate of AMA Computer College. — Freeman News Service