Engineer develops new app to revolutionize office-to-field communications

CALGARY, Alberta – Former Bendovus Energy engineer and IT manager, Lewis Bluetar, believes he has invented a smartphone app that will revolutionize the way that the head office communicates with operators, and how field workers communicate with other field workers. The secret behind his new app, which is aptly named Phoney, is the proprietary DoubleTransfer™ technology, which Mr. Bluetar describes below:

I am ecstatic about this new app. Imagine for just a moment, that you, sitting at your desk in downtown Calgary, and your field superintendent both have this app on your phones. When you speak, your speech is translated into a text message. That text message is then transmitted via SMS to your superintendent’s phone, where the app then reads the text out loud via a computerized voice made to match mine (or the sender’s voice, in general). That’s where the patented DoubleTransfer™ comes into play. There’s nothing like this on the market, and that gets me very excited. It is real-time, and it’s also real-cool. – Lewis Bluetar, Phoney founder

According to Phoney’s AppStore description, the application is designed to save oil and gas producers and service companies big money because SMS messages are typically free in unlimited amounts, unlike voice minutes. But unlike making a normal phone call, which people can do with their phones as they are, the new Phoney application requires the user purchase an omnidirectional, impedance-matching, carbon-ceramic ribbon type microphone to make things work.

The team over at TechTech.ca have had a chance to beta test a prototype version of the application, and here is what they had to say:

Well… Mr. Bluetar sure is onto something here, but it’s not very useful. The lags and delays in the DoubleTransfer™ technology make communicating with Phoney absolutely painful – while using this app there were times when I considered jumping off the 63rd floor of my building only to land head-first on a thumbtack.

Imagine making a cell phone call where you have very, very, very poor, intermittent coverage, and then degrade that quality 100-fold. It is that horrible. We would be surprised if Phoney is downloaded more than 7 times from the AppStore, GooglePlay, and BlackBerry Apps combined. And throw in the fact that you need to purchase that monstrosity of a microphone, and our TechTech recommendation is: stay away from Phoney. – Stacy MacMurtry, TechTech.ca chief editor

For you mobile app fanatics out there, keep your eyes peeled for Phoney, which is set to hit the mobile app market by the end of the 2014 Q2 for a bargain price of $19.99. With in-app purchases, which allow you to make your voice sound like those of famous people and popular singers, you can option Phoney up to $749 – what a bargain.