Tag: EMERGENCY

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

How exactly this slipped through without getting picked up by the media we're not exactly sure, but it appears that southern San Jose, California and the surrounding area recently fell victim to a cyber-attack that crippled some of the city's infrastructure. Just after midnight on April 9th, someone (or a small group of someones) climbed down four manholes and cut fiber-optic lines serving the ...

Researchers at Germany's Ilmenau University of Technology are developing flying quadcopter robots that can be used to form a self-assembling ad-hoc wireless network in the event of disaster. Built with off-the-shelf parts (including VIA's Pico-ITX hardware and a GPS unit) the robots are designed to provide both mobile phone and Wi-Fi access -- and they can do it far more quickly than a ...

The London City Police -- or Bobbies, cuz that's infinitely cuter -- has launched a new service whereby the citizenry can drop an SMS (text message) to the law in an emergency instead of calling it in. The new SMS service is replacing the typetalk and textphone systems for people with speech and hearing difficulties. Of course, the service is open to all city residents by just SMSing 07940 500 ...

Uh oh. At about 10pm pacific time, a 3-alarm fire (about 66 firefighters responding) was reported at Apple's Valley Green Six building on Apple's Cupertino campus. The site, which is just down the road from the Infinite Loop HQ, is said to be an R&D building by Apple personnel -- Apple has not confirmed this. The fire seems to be under control with no reported injuries although it's too soon ...

Here's a survival product combo we never thought of: an LED flashlight that talks you through the basic steps of CPR. The high-efficiency LED in an ultra-compact AAA battery-based design will talk you through an important emergency skill while the world crumbles around you. The whole flashlight measures 4-inches in length and sports push-button on/off and CPR read-off -- all for $35. Images of ...

The FCC has already given its stamp of approval on a system to modernize the US's ages-old emergency broadcast infrastructure, relying largely on voluntary participation by the nation's wireless carriers to help get the word out to their subscribers in the event of a crisis. Left open, though, was the question of exactly who would be responsible for taking the reigns at the federal level, ...

Shiny Shiny may have picked up on this wind-up LED lamp specifically for festival season, but here in the States we aren't lucky enough to have such a thing. Still, this lamp could come in pretty handy while camping or during a black out. The lamp will last 48 hours when fully wound on 'night light' or 'safety light' mode, or four hours in 'ambient' mode. Getting there shouldn't take too long ...

Late last year, we reported on news that an amazing 82 percent of Americans owned cell phones, with 250 million of the things in use. Now comes an Associated Press (AP) report that says that three out of 10 Americans either prefer their cell phone or rely on it exclusively. The numbers come as part of a federal study -- by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), no less -- which also ...

These days, every cell phone sold through a U.S. carrier contains within it a locator that enables emergency services to find you should you dial 911. Even if you have an older phone that lacks this feature, your cell phone carrier can still determine your location relatively accurately based on which cell towers your handset is hitting. During an emergency, that knowledge is comforting, but ...

Three years ago Jay LeBoff got snowed in and lost power for four days. During that time, LeBoff was forced to rely on a cell phone as his only way of contacting the outside world for emergency purposes. But without power to recharge the phone, he would have been up a certain creek without a paddle if the battery gave out. The experience, and a little bit of environmentally-friendly ...

Operators at the Black Hawk County Consolidated Communications Center in Iowa are starting to freak out, as a cell phone has been repeatedly calling in to the center's 911 emergency help line. Almost 400 times last week the phone called in, with no one on the other side. Attempts to call the phone back have been fruitless. After some investigating they found that the phone number had been ...

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 ...