Patrick Barnard, Associate Editor at TMCNet has an article on SquareLoop's LBS cellular messaging system:
Virginia based SquareLoop recently made news here at TMCnet when it announced that it was testing a location-based cellular messaging system which can deliver emergency messages to users’ cell phones in the event of a disaster requiring evacuation.
The company claims that with its new technology, municipalities can deliver critical - perhaps even life-saving - messages to citizens in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. The messages, which can be differentiated based on geographic location, can tell people where to go and what to do while they are in the process of evacuating an area.
Testing of the software began last month in the city of Manassas, Va. - with the blessing of Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner.The testing, which will run through March, consists of delivering test LBS alerts to volunteer emergency responders from the City of Manassas. The system will be used to deliver AMBER alerts, evacuation messages and traffic congestion information to emergency responders’ standard wireless phones (which, in this case, consist of Motorola and RIM Blackberry phones on the Sprint iDEN network). The messages will be beamed to specific geographic locations within Manassas city limits. (more and interview)
I wonder how they set up the profiles? For example, if I don't drive and I don't leave the house, do I need to know that there is a 4 hour delay on a bridge? Oh and one of the responses from Joe Walsh, SquareLoop’s vice president of operations, was:
A: There are a lot of instances where this is useful and one of the biggest is to alert people when NOT to evacuate.
I hope a big red DON'T PANIC lights up your mobiles screen. heh.
Check out SquareLoop's website -
SquareLoop provides a unique location-based services (LBS) platform for the distribution of emergency alerts, premium content, and marketing messages to mobile devices.
SquareLoop provides the only method for Location Based Messaging (LBM) that maintains subscriber location privacy.
Really? The only one? Let me know if you know of another...
Technorati Tags Location Based Services, LBS, SquareLoop, Joe Walsh, Emergency, Evacuation, Patrick Barnard, TMCNet
No comments:
Post a Comment