Mobiles offer SOS service

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.

GPS ONIX 400

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is the only fully functional Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Utilizing a constellation of at least 24 Medium Earth Orbit satellites that transmit precise microwave signals, the system enables a GPS receiver to determine its location, speed, direction, and time. Other similar systems are the Russian GLONASS (incomplete as of 2008), the upcoming European Galileo positioning system, the proposed COMPASS navigation system of China, and IRNSS of India.

ONIX 400

Today, the autonomous recreational handheld navigator is often overshadowed by what we have in our cars: the sleek PNDs with the big screens, loads of maps, and streaming traffic updates — all of which are useless in the backcountry. God forbid if you drop one on a rock while you're hiking or taking a fast turn on your all-terrain vehicle. For these reasons alone the market for recreational GPS devices remains brisk, with unswerving devotion from millions of outdoor types. Along these lines, a plethora of popular products are available from Garmin, Magellan, Lowrance, Trimble, and many others. Their prices range anywhere from less than $100 to more than $400. All have good-quality features, but a few really stand out above the rest, such as the offering from Bushnell discussed below.

This is a product that really impressed me. The brainchild of Phil Gyori and Jason Luzar from Bushnell, the ONIX 400 is a second-generation Bushnell attempt at getting GPS right, and it succeeded. Based on the needs of a customer base that demands a hardy field solution, be it rifle scopes, binoculars, field optics, or GPS, Bushnell went beyond the typical mass-market features found in recreational GPS devices to create something new and extremely usable.

Out of the box, the ONIX 400 feels good in your hand and is obviously well thought out, with a load of features and accessories. What's unusual about this device is the planning that went on in the design stage. First of all, you can download maps and aerial photos of the areas you want to explore. This feature allowed us to spot hiking trails and other parts of the ranch, as well as determine our proximity to them and our ability to navigate to them.

Another great feature of the ONIX 400 not typically found in this class of device is XM satellite radio — very cool indeed. I initially thought this feature might be a bit too much, but when I discovered my GPS location could be tagged to the weather channel and that I would receive any corresponding weather alerts, it all made good sense. There is nothing like standing in the middle of nowhere and being able to watch Doppler radar (actually, I turned the game on instead). The ONIX 400's GPS acquisition times were fast, it exhibited good battery life, and it featured easy-to-understand instructions. The large color display also pops out at you, even in direct sunlight. Not bad, for a company that has created only two GPS devices so far, it's a good start..