“Press one if you’re a
Are you fed up having to press endless key combinations at the behest of a recorded voice every time you ring your bank?
Have you had enough of dealing with automated responses when all you want to do is talk to a phreaking human about your problem?
Then help is at hand, thanks to the wonderful folks at gethuman.com.
Started by Paul English to “change the face of customer service in the US”, the site offers wealth of keyboard combinations to bypass squawking, beeping auto-bot operators and get straight to a living, breathing human being.
The non-profit site features long lists of cunning keypad combinations that let users get off the automated phone merry-go-round and straight to the ear of a human operator.
Happily, as well as a large US database, there’s a growing list of UK companies, including banks, building societies, finance companies, mobile companies and more.
Here’s some example entries from the ‘gethuman’ UK database – obviously, we haven’t tested them all, but initial reports have been encouraging, but tell us how you got on.
American Express 01273 576576
Press # at each prompt.
Barclaycard 0870 1540154
Keep pressing 0 when asked for your 16 digit number.
NatWest Gold Card 0870 3331993
Don’t press anything. (Ignore 4 prompts.)After two failures, press 2 for an account manager.
Orange 07973 100450
Press 0# each time you are prompted for a number (3 times)
T mobile UK 0845 4125000
Press 0 at each of the first 3 prompts.
The gethuman.com database being constantly updated, revised and expanded and also features some helpful tips and tricks, with a blog offering insights and info, so it’s worth keeping an eye on it to see if your bank turns up on their list.
Bookmarked!
With a bonkers new naming strategy that suggests the creatives may have been on something stronger than caffeine, Orange have launched a new tariff that links customer behaviour with animal characteristics.
Initially launching to Pay Monthly customers, the animal packages will be made available to Pay as you go customers later in the year.
Seiko Instruments has announced their first Bluetooth watch, known as either the BT Watch or the rather less snappy, CPC TR-006 ver.1.0.
If you get an SMS or email on your phone the watch can alert you, and if your phone’s ringing, you won’t have to rummage about in your bag or pockets to see who is calling – the number will appear on the watch.
Now, much as we like the idea of cool high tech toys buzzing away on our wrists, we have to say that this watch looks more than a bit silly – it’s so big you may as well strap your mobile onto your wrist and be done with it!
We reckon it would be cool to have text messages, news headlines, RSS feeds, football scores and other short bursts of info appear on your watch – particularly when you’re stuck in a dull meeting. 
Samsung has announced the world’s first 8GB Hard Disk embedded smartphone, the SGH-i310, which is expected to start shipping in Europe during the second half of this year.
The smartphone seems pretty pocketable too, measuring 111.9 x 48.5 x 19.8 mm and weighing 120g.
The Big Six handset suppliers increased their rottweiler-like grip on the global mobile phone market, accounting for 84 per cent of all sales in Q4 2005.
There was a veritable tango of phone flogging going down Latin America way, with sales reaching nearly 102 million units in 2005, a maraca-shaking 40 percent increase from 2004.
In a reflection of the growing convergence between phones and digital cameras, Sony Ericsson have declared their new K800 and K790 phones to be worthy of the Cybershot brand.
To help share your photographic masterpieces, Sony Ericsson have struck a deal with Google to enable easy photo blogging with the search engine’s Blogger service.
Sony Ericsson have also announced two additions to the K series along with a new phone in the Z range.
EntertainmentMusic Player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ support)
More flexible than a Russian athlete in a vat of oil, Samsung’s double-flipping DMB phone offers a novel twist on the clamshell format.
As well as the DMB functionality, the Samsung SPH-B1300 serves up the usual advanced mobile feature set, complete with a two megapixel digital camera and built-in MP3 player.
We can expect more details about the Samsung SPH-B1300 to be revealed at the CeBit 2006 show in Hannover next month.
According to a new survey from Virgin Mobile, mobile telephone text messaging has become so popular in the UK that millions are complaining of injuries to their thumbs and fingers.
Despite the agony, it seems that Brits are prepared to go through the pain barrier to keep bashing out their texts, with more than twelve per cent admitting to sending 20 text messages a day – with a seriously obsessed ten per cent blasting out as many as 100 texts a day!
Designed to highlight the very real problems of RSI, Virgin have sponsored a very useful site, 
As a recent sufferer of RSI (brought on by long hours sweating over a hot Logitech as I try to bring you, dear reader, the latest stories), I strongly recommend you try out some of the exercises. 
So, it’s Monday morning, you’ve sat down at your desk, powered up your PC and then slunk lower and lower in your chair as a fresh tide of spam rolls into your inbox.
If musing over updated spam graphs are your thing, check out the 
We covered