Cellphones have proved to be a great device rescuing people out of emergency situations. No body thought it could be a blessing when one do not have access to 'Radio', 'TV' or if there is no electricity either that the mobile alert systems can avert an upcoming radom situation.
In one of the situation, when fierce storms hit California in early January, submerging streets and felling power lines, Steve Livingston was prepared. Armed with a text message alert from the San Mateo County Office of Emergency Services, he dodged the flood and made it home safely. A few months earlier, when a surprise earthquake shook the region, Livingston, chief marketing officer of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based mobile transaction firm mBlox was in Los Angeles on a business trip. Alerted by a text message from the same service, he rushed to call his family back in Hillsborough, near San Mateo. "The pervasiveness of text messaging makes it one of the best ways to communicate to masses of people," he says.
As the Technology evolve these small gadgets are getting smarter with intelligent features in it. All one need to do is sign into the message alert system that could be life saving. Even the government is signing on. The Federal Communications Commission is developing a national mobile alert system for 2010. The messages, which will be distributed through the country's four largest carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile) will include "presidential" or national emergency alerts, weather and local emergency alerts and child abductions.
Moreover, the public companies are designing their own mobile safety network system. For instance, several phone makers, including Samsung and Asus, offer SOS functions that — with the push of a button — ping pre-set numbers with text messages that warn the sender is in danger.
Some firms are going further, viewing phones as the 21st-century equivalent of medical ID bracelets. Marina Del Ray, Calif.-based developer MyRapidMD Corp. is one. Its Emergency Service Profile software application is designed to be installed on cellphones and relay basic information about its owner to first responders. Users submit data including blood type, medications, allergies, emergency contacts and a photo for identification purposes. The information resides on their phones where it can be quickly and easily accessed, even in areas without cellular reception. If the phone is broken, emergency workers can call a 1-800 number and access the data remotely.
"It's not meant to be a full medical history — just key data for those first 15 minutes, when people most need that information," notes MyRapidMD President Mark White.
