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I learned about this new service from LifeHacker

Keep in mind that this is for making hearing phone calls as you can use it from your mobile phone or if your computer is capable of making phone calls from the browser. It’s a useful tool to minimize wasting minutes on the cell phone and aggravation with phone menus.

Fonolo uses a patented process called “Deep Dialing”.  Fonolo works by automating the nativiation through the dreaded touch-tone menus. (”Press 1 for English…”)

Instead, you navigate a company’s phone menu visually, through a web or mobile interface.

Just click the point in the menu you need to call and fonolo will automatically dial the company, navigate to that point and then connect you to the call.

For those using Relay Services, this is a handy guide to prep you for the phone menu so that you can decide ahead of time which numbers to press for the right services.

For example, here’s what it would look like if you plan to call AOL:

Main menu

Main Menu

Hi. Thanks for calling AOL.

This call may be monitored or recorded for quality service.

[click to expand] Main Menu:

To get to the right place, just say one of these:

“Reset password,”

“Tech support,”

“Billing,”

“Sign up,” or,

“Cancellations.”

If nothing sounds right, say “It’s none of those.”

Right now, they’re limited to a small number of companies since it’s in Beta mode. Fonolo built a system that “spiders” the phone system, much like a web search engine spiders the web. Fonolo dial companies, navigate their menus and use a combination of voice recognition, signal processing and human editing to maintain a map of phone space. Since phone menus can change any time, Fonolo continually spider each company to keep the database current.

Not a bad idea to reduce your time on Relay Services (but of course a bad idea for Relay Services because that’ll mean less money for them, heh).

Fonolo

Best cartoon drawings about how USA has gotten into the subprime mess. Really simple to understand and gets right to the point.

How subprime works

Warning: swear language

I found this website via LifeHacker which focuses on Informercial Scams.

I see DirectBuy TV commercials all the time. I recalled a very similar high-pressure sales pitch when we first bought our house. I can’t recall the company name except it started with “C”. At the sales pitch, they told use we must join today or forever lose the opportunity to save money. Well, my B.S. antenna shot way up and I said I needed time to think. The salesperson suddenly became cold to us and we were quickly shown the door.

So I had a hutch that Direct Buy was a reincarnation of this defunct company. Sure enough, the complaints listed at Infomercial Scam described the same high pressure sales pitch.

Here’s one of the complaints that caught my eye:

4/15/2007 - Karen writes:
We are a deaf couple from Phoenix, Arizona. We called them for an appointment for showroom etc. They said we would have to bring an interpreter(sign language) The supervisor (guy) was very rude to us. We cancelled it. Thank God. Later we found this website and learned more about Directbuy scam. Please do something to shut it down ! Contact the TV media- 20/20 !!!

Good thing they walked away. Supposed they had a UbiDuo? That would’ve solved the communication issue but then would they have fallen for the sales pitch anyhow?

WinfreePCS is seeking affiliates and freelancers to market UbiDuo. Please check out the Freelance Jobs board often.

Back then, I wrote about podcasting and the deaf .

Thanks to Digg, a real estate agent with hearing loss wrote about how podcasting is gaining a wider acceptance in selling real estate, while forgetting about their potential deaf customers.

Podcasting and other Hearing Imparied Issues in the Real Estate Industry