Whether it be caused by a rapidly spreading virus or nuclear war, we gave you a head start on surviving the apocalypse. Those gadgets might keep your person safe, but what about your sanity? You'll need the Internet, of course. Thankfully, there's the Network Relief Kit, which, according to Make Magazine, guarantees you'll be able to check Facebook even in the event of a terrible disaster. Best of all, you can carry the kit on your back. (Portability, as you well know, is crucial when running from zombies.)

The lightweight laptop runs on a rechargeable, solar-powered battery and connects to a satellite, hovering high above Earth. You'll have to pay a regular subscription fee (ideally, before the aliens put the final nail in the economic coffin), about $1 per minute for voice calls, and anywhere from $3 to $6 per megabyte of data.

That's right, they were all the rage during the Cold War, and now, Popular Mechanics reports that the bomb shelter biz is 'booming' once again. There's bound to be a model that fits your needs, too. If you live in a rough 'hood, let Hardened Structures install an exterior on your pad that will stand up to an AK-47. For those worried about that crazy little guy in North Korea who likes to wear platform shoes, there's the Ark Two compound. It's made of 42 school buses, thousands of pounds of concrete, and it can hold about 170 of your closest friends and advisors. There's even a budget bomb shelter, for these tough economic times. The Mini Blast Shelter is basically a metal road culverty, but bury it and hop inside and you've got yourself some protection when the end comes.

After dropping some change on a shelter, you'll be the craziest coolest guy on the block. When 2012 strikes, those same neighbors that are snickering behind you're back might come knocking. If the whole apocalypse thing doesn't happen soon, at least the kids will have a real neat clubhouse. [From Popular Mechanics]

What's a country without emergency sirens to do? That's the question Germany has been pondering ever since its sirens were dismantled at the end of the Cold War. The country has long used a satellite-based system that broadcasts warnings via TV and radio, but not everyone watches TV or listens to radio. So, over the years, they've considered everything from using cell phones to smoke detectors, but nothing's really stuck.

But now, some researchers at Germany's INT believe they have found the perfect solution, according to Oh Gizmo!. Car horns. Yes, cars will honk when disaster is near. Starting in September 2010, all new German cars will be equipped with a system called eCall. It's similar to OnStar, but if a disaster is about to strike, the system can trigger even parked cars' horns to sound. Since the system uses GPS, it can activate horns in specific areas, too. So only certain neighborhoods will think there are hundreds of car thieves outside.

Motorola has created a new cell phone technology that could warn users when a disaster occurs, even if most of the network is not working, according to NewScientist.

Here's how it would work: In the event of disaster, a functional cell phone outside and nearby the disaster area is alerted. Using Wi-Fi, this phone creates a peer-to-peer network with another phone and passes along the alert. The process is repeated over and over, until as many phones as possible have been alerted of the disaster.

The Emergency Alert System already uses television and radio frequencies to alert folks when disaster strikes. However, Motorola engineers believe their technology would prove much more efficient, since many folks may not have access to radio or television during a disaster. The company filed for a U.S. patent in late May, so there's no word yet on how soon this system could be in place.

Microsoft is distracting itself with yet another non-Windows, non-Office product. This time, Microsoft appears to be trying to take on Facebook and Twitter with an alert- and message-oriented social networking tool called Vine.

Currently in beta testing in Seattle, Vine is squarely aimed at sharing emergency information and news feeds. A Vine widget sits on your desktop and displays a map of your community, news and alerts, and the statuses of connected friends and family. Vine seems to, more or less, combine an RSS feed reader (with information tailored to your specific locale), a status update system (like Twitter), and messaging (like Facebook) into a singular, pretty, Live Search Maps mash-up.

From the demo videos on the Vine Web site, it's clear that Microsoft envisions this as a tool for use during emergencies and moments of crisis. But we have to wonder if we need an emergency-only social networking tool. Sure, some the features are neat, and the idea of tying news alerts and updates from friends and family into a map-based tool sounds useful, but we're pretty sure you can do all of the same things with a Twitter-and-Google-Maps mash-up.

The tragic events that took place in Mumbai last week have catalyzed widespread discussions concerning consumer technology and its evolving role on the world stage.

Far from a militarily equipped force, the terrorist group that struck Mumbai last week coordinated the attacks with devices readily available to the public, as the Wired Blog points out.
Communicating from their attack boat via satellite phone, the terrorists used a GPS system to navigate their way into Mumbai, where they kept in constant touch with each other via cell phone and in constant touch with media coverage via the Internet. The group even made their statements through e-mail, using one of many publicly available, untraceable remailer programs.

While the attackers used technology to conceal, victims and witnesses used it to expose. As the BBC reports, Twitter erupted with activity during the attacks.

Anytime something terrible happens in the world, there is always some jerk looking to make a buck off of other people's sympathy and good will.

So keep alert, as you're bound to get at least a few e-mails soliciting donations to aide victims of the recent earthquake in China that has claimed the lives of 50,000 and climbing. The FBI on Wednesday offered the following list of tips to avoid getting scammed, many of which we've covered before, but it never hurts to review:

• Do not respond to unsolicited (spam) e-mail.
• Be skeptical of individuals representing themselves as officials soliciting via e-mail for donations.
• Do not click on links contained within an unsolicited e-mail.
• Be cautious of e-mail claiming to contain pictures in attached files, as the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders.
• To ensure contributions are received and used for intended purposes, make contributions directly to recognized organizations rather than relying on others to make the donation on your behalf.
• Validate the legitimacy of the organization by directly accessing the recognized charity or aid organization's website rather than following an alleged link to the site.
• Attempt to verify the legitimacy of the nonprofit status of the organization by using various Internet-based resources, which also may assist in confirming the actual existence of the organization.
• Do not provide personal or financial information to anyone who solicits contributions: providing such information may compromise your identity and expose you to identity theft.

And remember, most of the above tips are applicable to pretty much any e-mail scam, so hold on to them! [Source: NBC News]

China may not be a leader when it comes to Internet acceptance, given its history of trying to block anything online that doesn't quite jive with its political message. Thankfully, the country has apparently not chosen to block instant-update site Twitter, a Web site that has become a bit of a sounding board for those who experienced the 7.8 earthquake that struck the nation early on Monday.

Though plenty of news about the quake has been coming steadily from established news sources such as AP and Reuters, it hasn't always covered up-to-the-minute specifics about each and every affected area, and here's where some non-traditional, online information/social-networking services are coming in handy. According to some blog reports on the BBC and Silicon Alley Insider, many English-speaking students are using Twitter to post first-hand, post-quake experiences, which are helping those on the outside understand what's happening there. Users casperodj and inwalkedbud have been two of the most prolific earthquake twitterers, posting some frightening updates such as the one pictured above, as well as some later, more reassuring ones.

By enabling people to post quick updates from cell phones, computers and other mobile devices, Twitter has gained popularity and is gaining a reputation for being a fun way to keep up with friends. Critics call it a waste of time, but this perception is changing since increasingly Twitter is being used as a way to keep in touch during disasters, when sometimes traditional forms of communication or media are not available. Case in point, last year's wildfires in Southern California, when residents used Twitter plus Google Maps to share information about affected areas and shelters.

Twitter has a long way to go before it'll be considered a reliable news source, but during such debilitating disasters, the service is certainly proving its worth among those looking for instant updates. Let's just hope the power doesn't go out next time there's a crisis, which would make using cell phones and Wi-Fi challenging. [Source: twitter via dot.life and Silicon Alley Insider]

This week's horrific bridge collapse in Minnesota demonstrated once again that our country's cellular networks -- relentlessly boasted about in TV ads -- are useless during times of emergency. As family members desperately tried to reach loved ones in the frantic aftermath of the structure's crumble, they found themselves unable to connect. The networks were so overloaded with calls, they simply choked. They did the same thing last month when a steam pipe exploded in New York City, which blanketed one Manhattan neighborhood in dirt and debris, and brought back with it flashbacks of 9/11 (another time the cellular networks failed us). It was the same song and dance during Hurricane Katrina.

These failures might have been OK ten years ago when cell phones were still something of a novelty to the average American. But in today's day and age, as we increasingly abandon traditional landlines in favor of mobile handsets, the dependability of these networks is crucial. Failure is unacceptable. Those ads featuring the nerdy "Can you hear me now?" guy are quite frankly insulting.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any official solution in the works. There's been no plea from FEMA or mandate from the FCC to the cell networks to have a contingency plan in place during emergencies. And if they're not obligated to spend money on improving their networks, do you think the cellular carriers would ever bother? Of course not.

The answer, it turns out, isn't so far-fetched. It would be relatively easy for providers to implement, and might even make them some money. In an article written in response to Hurricane Katrina a full eight months before the Minneapolis tragedy, scientist and author David Brin proposed an emergency system in which cell providers adopt peer-to-peer technology similar to that used by file-sharing programs on the Internet. Instead of phone calls being routed through cell towers, they bounce from phone to phone until they get where they need to go. Brin also suggests limiting this peer-to-peer system to text messaging in times of emergency. Voice calls eat up a lot of bandwidth and can easily overload a system, whereas text messaging uses packet switching, like the Internet, which breaks messages up into smaller, more manageable pieces before sending them. By circumventing overloaded cell towers and limiting communication to low-bandwidth text messaging, it is possible in times of tragedy for the cell networks to deliver on the promises of coverage and reliability that they make in their ad campaigns.

The peer-to-peer component of Brin's proposal would definitely benefit cell providers when there isn't a state of emergency. By routing voice calls from phone to phone to phone instead of through towers, it would be possible for networks to extend into the further reaches of those regions where cell coverage is still spotty or non-existent. That would certainly result in more customers, and it would definitely make it harder to snicker at the TV when AT&T promises more bars or boasts about fewer dropped calls.

For now, however, this is just an idea put out there for debate on the blogosphere. Until the government compels cellular providers to adopt this or a similar emergency backup system, we're stuck with the same infrastructure that has failed us time and time again. Fortunately, there are a couple of things you can do during the next emergency situation to help you better communicate with loved ones. The first is to try text messaging instead of calling. As we said, text messaging requires much less bandwidth than voice, and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, was one of the only ways survivors found they could communicate. The other was push-to-talk. In the days following Katrina and the New Orleans levy breaches, Sprint Nextel users found that, though voice calling was down, they were still able to communicate via the push-to-talk walkie-talkie functions of their phones. This is because push-to-talk is not routed through cell towers, but is direct communication between two phones.

For more on the technical how-to behind Brin's proposed emergency system, read his full blog post.

Related Links:

• Cell Text Alerts to the Rescue
• SMS Tsunami Hoax in Indonesia