YOUR CHEATING HEART

Cheating spouses, tardy employees and the like now will have an easier time covering their tracks with a new mobile phone application that can help reinforce alibis using fake background sounds.

SounderCover, manufactured by Germany-based Simeda, allows users to download various pre-fabricated sounds to use as alibis when stretching the truth. For instance, late for work? Call your boss from home with the traffic jam sound playing in the background to pretend you're already on the way. Or deter a long-winded friend with a fake phone ring 15 seconds into a call — suddenly, you're too busy to talk. Other options include the background noises of the dentist office, streets, parks, heavy machinery, thunderstorms and even circus parade sounds. Users can also add their own pre-recorded sounds to the mix.

The Symbian-based application sells for about about $12. Currently the product works only with Nokia phones on GSM networks, but Simeda CEO Liviu Tofan says the company plans to expand the offering to work on other makes and on CDMA networks soon. Simeda has partnered with New York-based Cargo to offer the product in the U.S., but it's offered on the Internet as well.

The application, Tofan said, was developed by accident.

“Actually, it all started when we were talking about video telephony and how to help people avoid revealing where they are, because it's known that people are reluctant to reveal that,” Tofan said. “In the case of video telephony we are using the immediate surroundings. And simply starting from this discussion we came up with playing with the background sound of a normal voice call.”

Tofan, who hasn't used SounderCover in his own life except for demonstrations, says he doesn't see the harm in stretching the truth a bit in the wireless realm.

“Just imagine what would happen if we all kept telling the truth all the time. I mean, we always find pretext and pretenses for not telling the truth,” he said. “Actually, I think SounderCover plays a positive role because it helps people stay within the social convention instead of being rude to somebody and saying I don't want to talk to you now. People would make use of a convention like “It's noisy,” or “I don't have time now because the other phone is ringing” and rather stay polite and social.”