You’ve heard the cautionary tales about dialing 911 on your cell phone. A call about missing children in Illinois gets routed to Canada. A stroke victim in New York is only located after a grueling eight-hour search. Locating 911 calls in 2014 is a byzantine process that involves generating a fake phone number—but a Next Generation 911 system that integrates text and video is in the (somewhat) near future, if we can only can get our collective shit together.
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If you’ve ever taken a lunchtime stroll in Lower Manhattan, you’ve seen them: Sightseers (and locals, too) with their eyes raised skyward, watching the construction of One World Trade Center. Annoying to some, but revealing to photographer Keith Goldstein—whose photo essay Looking On captures the craning.
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The view from the base of New York City’s annual 9/11 memorial, Tribute in Light, captured by AP photographer Mark Lennihan last night. Now in its 12th year, the installation lights up the sky over Manhattan with 88 high-powered searchlights. [AP]
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While Google has practically blanketed New York City with eye-level imagery, few would doubt that there’s still ground left to cover. The search giant is filling in some of those gaps with new Google Maps galleries for a trio of historic areas. A collaboration with Historypin lets the curious glimpse photos and videos of regions affected by Hurricane Sandy; those who want to visit the 9/11 Memorial, meanwhile, can see Street View panoramas of both the North and South pools. Google is also expanding its Street View coverage of Central Park to include its many legendary trails, not just the roadways. If you’ve been meaning to pay a virtual tribute to any of these three spots, they’re waiting for you at the source links.
Source: Google, Historypin
The NYPD is saying that a 5-foot long airplane part of a 9/11 plane has been found in an alley near the World Trade Center. The landing gear part, which came from one of the airplanes that crashed into the Twin Towers, was found three blocks from Ground Zero. It’s incredible given that it’s been more than 11 years since the tragic event of September 11th. More »
Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.
So I’m driving home the other night after a decent day of work, looking forward to a little run, some dinner and maybe a movie. Taking my normal north-south route along Crescent Heights, I listen to Tame Impala to calm the nerves and enter another mental state.
I’m at one of those intersections in which two lanes become one because of a parked car in the right lane ahead. I, being in the right lane, gun it a bit at the start in order to get some distance from the guy on my left.
He’s having none of this, apparently.
Turns out my car is faster, though, and I edge him out. I see him wave his arms frantically, shaking them and then applauding.
Filed under: Transportation
We’ve been hearing about new capabilities for emergency 911 services for years, but it looks like the industry is ready to move as one to make text-to-911 a reality across the US. The Big 4 wireless carriers, as well as The 911 Association and the Association for Public-Safety Communications Officials International has submitted an agreement to the FCC that outlines plans to work together on standards, procedures and technology deployments that will provide a “seamless introduction” of the tech across the US.
They’re not guaranteeing it will be available everywhere in two years, but the specific signposts noted are support for bounce-back notifications by June 30th, 2013 that tell texters when the service isn’t available in their area and a “commitment” to nationwide rollouts by May 15th 2014. So far, efforts to make your thumbs more useful in an emergency have been disjointed, but a concerted effort by industry giants should let you avoid busy signals and dropped calls at the worst possible time sooner rather than later. Check out a press release from the group, as well as a word from the FCC, which will consider the proposal on December 12th, after the break or the agreement itself in PDF form at the source link.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile
Source: Voluntary Text Commitment (PDF), FCC
Verizon’s certainly at the forefront when it comes to involving text-based emergency services with mobile devices in the US, and thus it’s natural for rival AT&T to have to keep up in this department — much like with those Long Term Evolution rollouts. The good news is that AT&T has announced it’s partnering with the Tennessee administration in hopes of taking advantage of the state’s “next-generation” 911 IP infrastructure; one which has been in the works for a few years now. Naturally, the trials are limited to AT&T subscribers in The Volunteer State, and for those folks the text-to-911 process will be as self-explanatory as it sounds, with the Rethink Possible carrier taking care of all the backend work by sending such messages to emergency call services. While it’s indeed only a small chunk of the country, it’s definitely a step in the right direction — that said, only time will tell how efficient this solution can be.
Continue reading AT&T teams up with the state of Tennessee to start text-to-911 trials
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless
AT&T teams up with the state of Tennessee to start text-to-911 trials originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 05:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Talk about having a stinking problem – it seems that during an alleged drug deal, a man dialed 911 by accident using of all things, his butt. Yes sir, the part of your body which has one of the softest bits of flesh, and is used to cushion and support most of your body weight whenever you sit down, proved to be the undoing of this alleged drug deal. Justin Kryzanowski, a 24-year-old male from Pennsylvania, was responsible for this unwanted call to 911, where the police claimed to have listened in to the entire operation. The Scranton Times-Tribune also claimed that the police managed to trace the “offending” cell phone back to Kryzanowski’s home. Read more about this mis-adventure after the jump. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Xiaomi Phone 2 to come in 3 variants , Xiaomi Phone 2 could see August 16 debut with super strong packaging,
I’ve never been a fan of those car company branded bikes, like BMW and Ferrari, but this design is kind of interesting since it’s supposed to be made not just for looks, but for speed. It was created by the Netherlands-based designer Bastiaan Kok and was inspired by the Porsche 911.
The bodywork of this bike mimics the iconic lines of the famous sports car. It’s got an integrated headlight, as well as a curved top tube and a rear wheel fender that comes complete with a taillight. The handle bar is low, kind of like a time trial bike, and there’s even a place to store your helmet.
It’s supposed to be built from lightweight alloy, but I doubt that this would work well since most high-end bikes are made out of carbon fiber. The design has disc brakes, and that’s a good feature because as fast as this is supposed to go, you’ll need to stop quickly not to crash.
For now, the 911 Bicycle is only a concept, so you probably won’t be seeing one on the road any time soon.
[via designboom]
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