We've all had that awkward moment when you forget to silence your phone in the cinema and it happens to go off during the quietest scene of the film.  You'll be glad to hear that this may not be a problem for long, as Microsoft are currently developing a technology which automatically recognises environmental factors and adjusts it's profiles accordingly.

Using location data, your phone would automatically send calls to voicemail or silence itself when it detects you are in a cinema, or perhaps use the light sensor to tell when it's dark and prevent you from being woken up while asleep.

Some features based on similar technology are already integrated into phones, such as HTC's flip-to-mute function, and even the pick-up to answer feature on the Huawei Ascend P6.

The scope of this technology reaches further than simply not disturbing you, though.  It could theoretically set up other aspects of your smartphone such as enabling Wi-Fi when you're at home or at the office, and disabling it when not to preserve battery life.  It could also be used to let the phone detect when you are driving, so it could automatically switch on Bluetooth and connect to a hands-free device.

These developments were revealed in a recent patent application made by Microsoft which was relating to Microsoft's Live Messenger, however it also mentioned it could be applied to voice calls and video conferencing etc.

KitGuru says: We look forward to seeing this technology on phones of the future!

Thanks to The Telegraph, Photo: Extremetech

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