A Phone That Knows Youre Busy

　　Its a modern problem：youre too busy to be disturbed by incessantphone calls so you turn your cellphone off .But if you dont remember to turn it back on when youre less busy.you could miss some important calls if only the phone knew when it was wise to interrupt you，you wouldnt have to turn it off at all. Instead，it could let calls through when you are not too busy

　　James Fogarty and Scott Hudson at Camegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania based their system oil tiny microphones，cameras and touch sensors that reveal body language and activity. First they had to study different behaviors to find out which ones stongly predict whether your mind is interrupted

　　The sensors monitored these and many other factors while four subjects were at work . At random intervals，the subjects rated how interruptible they were on a scale ranging fromhighly interruptibletohighly not-interruptible . Their ratings were then correlated with the various behaviors . It is a shotgunapproach：we used all the indicators we could think of and then let statistics find out which were important， says Hudson

　　Interestingly，the computer was actually better than people at predicting when someone was too busy to be interrupted . The computer got it right 82 per cent of the time，humans 77 per cent. Fogarty speculates that this might be because people doing the interrupting are inevitably biased towards delivering their message，whereas computers dont care.

　　36 A big problem facing people today is that

　　B they must turn off their phones to keep their homes quiet.

　　D they are too busy to make phone calls.

　　A could help store messages.

　　C could tell when it is wise to interrupt you.

　　A Phone That Knows Youre Busy

　　Its a modern problem：youre too busy to be disturbed by incessantphone calls so you turn your cellphone off .But if you dont remember to turn it back on when youre less busy.you could miss some important calls if only the phone knew when it was wise to interrupt you，you wouldnt have to turn it off at all. Instead，it could let calls through when you are not too busy

　　James Fogarty and Scott Hudson at Camegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania based their system oil tiny microphones，cameras and touch sensors that reveal body language and activity. First they had to study different behaviors to find out which ones stongly predict whether your mind is interrupted

　　The sensors monitored these and many other factors while four subjects were at work . At random intervals，the subjects rated how interruptible they were on a scale ranging fromhighly interruptibletohighly not-interruptible . Their ratings were then correlated with the various behaviors . It is a shotgunapproach：we used all the indicators we could think of and then let statistics find out which were important， says Hudson

　　Interestingly，the computer was actually better than people at predicting when someone was too busy to be interrupted . The computer got it right 82 per cent of the time，humans 77 per cent. Fogarty speculates that this might be because people doing the interrupting are inevitably biased towards delivering their message，whereas computers dont care.

　　36 A big problem facing people today is that

　　B they must turn off their phones to keep their homes quiet.

　　D they are too busy to make phone calls.

　　A could help store messages.

　　C could tell when it is wise to interrupt you.