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.

Let's Compare iPhone

Screen Resolution + Input Method

Because the iPhone uses a virtual ‘soft’ on-screen keyboard instead of the full QWERTY keyboard on the Treo, Apple has naturally used this additional space to increase the screen size

Operating System

The PalmOS has now successfully powered many generations of Treo smartphones while the OS X variant which powers the iPhone has yet to prove its mettle – particularly when it comes to telephony where Palm has had the benefit of a long learning curve.

Storage

The opportunity to have 4 or 8GB of permanent storage on the iPhone may prove appealing at first but the fact is that seasoned Treo users fully understand the higher benefits that an external SD card storage provides. For some $150 I can easily add an 8GB SD card for data storage on my Treo without limitation to the number of cards that one can use.

GSM + Wireless Data + Camera

While both the iPhone and Treo 680 share an almost identical Quad-Band radio with GSM/GPRS/EDGE support there is no doubt that Apple wins points here by adding WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 and a 2.0 megapixel camera. However, the use of WiFi is likely going to quickly drain the iPhone’s non-removable battery which is a consideration to keep in mind. Also, a 3G iPhone is planned for Europe by the end of 2007.

Battery

While the battery performance of the iPhone and Treo 680 are fairly similar with 5 and 4 hours of Talk Time respectively there is no doubt that the removable battery on the Treo provides significantly better power options for Treonauts on the go.

Dimensions + Weight

While the Treo 680 is some 15% heavier than the iPhone the fact is that I consider the additional weight of the full QWERTY keyboard, SD card slot and removable battery to be well worth it.

Comparison of Technical Specifications

Leaving these technical specifications aside the iPhone does offer some unique and innovative features that Treo could certainly learn from- the impressive overall look & feel of the user interface with very rich graphical elements which I have been yearning to see equally well represented on the Treo. The UI looks rich, inviting and user-friendly.

The iPhone’s “Visual Voicemail” which allows you to go directly to any of your messages without listening to the prior messages so you can quickly select the messages that are most important to you is a feature that many Treo power users have suggested for some time but which Apple is now first to implement.

With a full iPod interface inside the iPhone it is clear that people will be delighted with its Music, Movies and Photos capabilities. The Safari web browser looks extremely robust and has a stunning display for web pages. iPhone uses a rich HTML email client that fetches your email in the background from most POP3 or IMAP mail services and displays photos and graphics right along with the text (albeit it looks considerably more complex to use than on the Treo).

The iPhone’s “Widgets” like the Weather pictured here above are an absolute pleasure to look at and the iPhone’s “horizontal scrolling” is equally smart. Advanced sensors including an accelerometer detect when you rotate the device from portrait to landscape and changes the display orientation; a proximity sensor detects when you lift the iPhone to your ear and turns of the display while an ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the display’s brightness.

Other Comparisons

This is a great iPhone comparison matrix showing the iphone side by side other leading smart phones. It really gives you a good perspective how the iPhone compares on size, price, and features. Another good iPhone comparison can be found at www.iphonevsblackberry.com

Differential GPS

Trimble today introduced a modernized software package designed to continuously monitor and control Differential GPS (DGPS) broadcast sites for marine navigation, Trimble Coastal Center software.

Developed to provide network operators the ability to monitor and control multiple DGPS beacon stations from one central location, Trimble Coastal Center is built on an open architecture. It can address a wide variety of DGPS provider network configurations ranging from one site to hundreds of broadcast sites, Trimble said.

It can also adapt to different configurations and architectures within the same DGPS provider network. Operators can customize the configuration of monitors, alarms and reports by specifying the exact conditions to meet their particular needs, the company said. The software package has extended beacon almanac features and a high level of reporting capabilities; it is also the only beacon monitoring software designed using standards of the International Convention of Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), according to Trimble.

The Coastal Center software supports conventional communications systems such as RS-232 and 422, as well as modern network communication standards. Depending upon user network design and system requirements, Trimble Coastal Center software can operate on a single PC-based platform or it can be distributed across several computers. Users can view all beacon sites from any licensed workstation throughout the network.

Coastal Center also provides control station messages required under the RSIM 1.1 and the new RSIM 1.2 standards with a configurable alarming system that interfaces with e-mail and pager systems. It also combines event and message logging capabilities with XML-based report generation.

Navigon 2120

Consumers no longer have to break the bank to receive top-rate features in the increasingly popular GPS market. NAVIGON, the fastest growing GPS brand, today announced the retail availability of the NAVIGON 2100 max and NAVIGON 2120 max personal navigation devices (PNDs) in the United States and Canada. These devices provide exceptional and affordable value with top-of-the-line features, such as NAVIGON’s new DirectHelp(TM), a feature that pinpoints a user’s location and provides instant links to nearby services such as hospitals, pharmacies and roadside assistance. The devices also include a 4.3 inch widescreen and spoken driving directions via text-to-speech.

3G iPhone on its way..

The iPhone 2.0 update will be coming in a couple of months and the launch of a new 3G device to go along with the new software is a natural assumption. Most of us are contented with their iPhone, but the lack of 3G is a real bummer that results in using other Wireless devices instead of the iPhone to enhance the mobile productivity on the run. A 3G iPhone with the new firmware is going to be very tempting with its lucrative features and tough for anyone to resist. However, we will have to evaluate the features in totality in relation to other improvements in this Harry Potter magic wand. Will that have the right magic spell on it. For instance, its Bluetooth connectivity to a keyboard, A2DP Bluetooth support, and video capture capability before we finally make our preparation to transform into next generation 3G iPhone.

Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, has confirmed that there is a 3G iPhone in the works, although fell short of saying when we could expect to buy one.

"We are working on the next iPhone already, the one after that and the one after that", Jobs said.

Making the comments at the "Mum is no longer the word" press conference at the Regent Street Apple store in London, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple said: "You can expect a 3G iPhone in third quarter this year".

The news comes as a 2G EDGE-enabled iPhone will be available in the UK on 9 November.

Earlier, when asked why the current model didn't have 3G, Jobs blamed power issues saying that the 3G chipset would be too much of a drain on the unit's battery life which promises 8 hours of call time, but said that future models would have the technology.

Safari Browser of the iPhone

New research has concluded that the Safari browser of the iPhone 1.1.4 is vulnerable to attacks, which may lead to service denial and in turn, result in a system crash. This design flaw was detected by the researchers at Radware, an application delivery solutions company, earlier this week. The researches say the flaw triggers a series of “memory allocation operations on its memory pool”, which then triggers another different bug within its garbage collector.

To exploit Safari’s vulnerability, an iPhone user would have to open any malicious HTML pages that contain Javascript, usually as a social engineering tactic like e-mail phishing. The Radware researchers say that in a worst-case scenario, the users would experience a denial of service attack, which could result in crash of the entire Safari browser. Once the browser crashes, its malfunction could escalate to a point of paralyzing the entire iPhone.

iPhone reaching Canada

Canada's only major GSM cell provider, Rogers, is hoping to introduce the iPhone at the right time, while promoting a campaign for touchscreen phones at the company.

Rogers' campaign will most likely start in late May or early June, before Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in which it is widely expected that the company will introduce the 3G model of the iPhone.

Despite its reputation as having the highest-priced mobile data plans of any cellular provider in Canada, Rogers is also the most advanced. About two months ago, the carrier introduced an unlimited data bundle "that gives users both unfettered browsing on most of its devices as well as a set amount of MMS/SMS messages and voicemail." Rogers' also offers advanced 3G network features including "two-way video calling on supporting devices as well as 7.2-megabit HSDPA downloads on portions of its network. The 3G iPhone is understood to use a newer Infineon chipset that would support both normal HSDPA service as well as its faster variety on Rogers."