Two hikers in Garin Regional Park, east of San Francisco, found out just how helpful their cell phone could be when they got lost after dark in a rugged area.
Lt. Dave Dubowy, a patrol watch commander in the Bay Area said:
"We tell people to always have a cell phone with [them]. Technology is wonderful now. The GPS capabilities make our jobs so much easier."
According to Dubowy, at least one hiker a week will get lost during peak months. He suggests that if you get lost while hiking, you should call 911 immediately for help. If you cannot find a signal, Dubowy recommends climbing to a higher elevation.
"Stay put after you've contacted police," Dubowy said. "It's easier for us to find you, rather than have you stumbling around in the dark."
The San Jose Mercury News recently reported on an uptick of interest in mobile payment systems that allow consumers to use their phones instead of debit or credit cards. Although not yet widely adopted, the idea is gaining traction.
A customer walks up to a coffee house counter, orders lunch, and pays the bill by lightly tapping the back of her mobile phone against a small receiver next to the cash register. Seconds later, a display message on the box screen approves payment, and the customer receives a text message receipt.
Face it: more often than not, you are on your phone when you walk into the coffeehouse anyway. Welcome to the mobile future!
Ever see a pothole or a tree that's fallen in the road and think, "Someone ought to fix that"?
Well, if you're in Washington, DC, you're in luck. All you need to do is snap a photo with your PDA and using the city's DC 311 mobile app, pair it with a GPS location. You then upload it into a local government database. This also works for graffiti, broken parking meters and any other public nuisance.
Other cities from New York to San Francisco have also moved to harness the power of mobile consumers. The practical result, as CNN reports is that:
[T]ech geeks transform banal local government spreadsheets about train schedules, complaint systems, potholes, street lamp repairs and city garbage into useful applications for mobile phones and the Web. The aim is to let citizens report problems to their governments more easily and accurately; and to put public information, which otherwise may be buried in file cabinets and Excel files, at the fingertips of taxpayers.
San Francisco and other cities are trying to develop a national standard for municipal government data. That way, a mobile app that tracks, say, bus service in San Francisco could also be used in any other city. That could enable cities that cannot afford to develop their own mobile apps to benefit.
San Diego-based West Wireless Health Institute announced this week the clinical
trial underway on a new remote heart monitoring system using Band Aid-like
patches to send readings through a Bluetooth connection to the patient's
smartphone. From there, data are transmitted to a doctor's office where
physicians are alerted to irregularities. The patient and doctor have access to
up-to-the-minute monitoring of heart rhythms, body temperature and breathing
rates-- all key elements in life-saving diagnostics. Where else is the savings?
Your wallet. An estimated $21 billion in emergency care and nursing home costs
are saved every year just by remotely monitoring patients who have had
congestive heart failure, diabetes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Now that's a Band Aid!
On Thursday, Mobile Future released a statement on the Public Policy Institute of California's survey showing that the percentage of Californians with Internet access and a home broadband connection grew last year despite tough economic times. While there is much good news in the report, it shows some disparity in broadband access, particularly in the Hispanic community, but the study does not address the increasing use of wireless technologies in minority communities. Read Mobile Future Chair Jonathan Spalter's take on the survey here.
The medical world is always one to be on the cutting edge of
new technologies so it is no surprise that 64 percent of doctors nationwide are
using smartphones in their practice.
Over time, the emblematic pager will be a thing of the past-a distant
beep dating any medical drama TV show.
According to a recent Washington
Post article, mobile devices are quickly becoming pivotal instruments in
doctor-patient interactions. From
pulling up instructional diagrams to researching drug-to-drug interactions,
smartphone technology is arming doctors with vital information at their
fingertips. This means doctors can make
smart, informed decisions instantly, with the patient by their side. Thankfully, it also means they can show us
something to decipher often tedious medical-ese.
Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist at George Washington
University, gives a
pretty amazing first person account of how the smartphone can make a difference
in a life and death situation:
One Saturday afternoon... Reiner was
having lunch at a deli when his BlackBerry began to beep. It was a patient's
EKG, sent to him by an emergency room physician. Reiner pulled up the graphic on his handheld
device and saw that the patient was on the brink of a severe heart attack. He rushed to the hospital to perform
surgery.
Real-time data can make all the difference when seconds
count. I'd like to see a pager do that!
A coalition of
state and national officials including New York City Mayor Michael R.
Bloomberg, has devised a way for New
York City to cut taxpayer costs, stimulate the local
economy, and create jobs. The group says the implementation of new technology
will allow water meters to be read wirelessly and will help individuals and
businesses save millions of dollars each year simply by raising customer
awareness.
Wireless water
meters will enable more frequent and accurate readings of water usage, allowing
customers to identify and cut out any wasted spending. Experts hope that the
estimated 90 million dollar a year savings, based on a ‘modest 5-10 percent
reduction in water use' will be recycled into the local economy.
"This program is
the first in a series of initiatives leveraging this state-of-the-art network
on a citywide scale, creating significant cost savings for taxpayers and
agencies alike." - Department of Information Technology and Telecommunication
Commissioner Paul J. Cosgrave
The new
technology will use radio signals to report water use every six hours. Usage
and costs can be tracked by individuals or businesses online, helping to
identify leaks and waste more readily. The switch over to wireless water meters
will cost the city an estimated $250 million dollars, and the installation will
be free of charge to property owners.
While New York City
is currently the largest city in the world to embrace this technology other
cities like Tallahassee
are also using smart-metering programs for utility customers. If
successful, it is likely more cities will be implementing similar digital
monitoring systems
Robert Scoble recently blogged about his take-aways from SXSW 2009. South by Southwest Interactive is a yearly "festival" for tech enthusiasts and bloggers to network, share best practices, and discuss what is hot in the interactive sector. In Scoble's opinion, it was all about SMS and location this year.
Some folks are probably wondering why I'm covering this news or what's the big deal about these perspectives from Austin. Well, two years ago, a little micro-blogging service called Twitter essentially took off after the festival. I was covering a telecom conference shortly after SXSW and all the buzz was about Twitter. Accordingly, I joined the service back then. Fast forward to today and almost everyone's on it and it is the social network with the most impressive acceleration in growth.
With that in mind, I see huge growth opportunities in the mobile space as we move from navigation to awareness. In some cases, some mobile applications are incorporating location into their products. For instance, when I live stream with Qik, I have the immediate option to opt-in my location for other Qik users to know where I am and Google maps has now synced in Latitute. Scoble mentioned Foursquare being the hot product at SXSW but I haven't had the opportunity to demo it. Specifically, Foursquare is an application "that helps you keep up with your friends, but exposes you to new things and challenges you to explore cities in different ways."
In any case, I look forward to exploring more apps and products in this space. I believe that Scoble's insights from Austin are on the mark and this sector is going to get really hot.
It is hard to believe but another CTIA show is around the corner. As always, I'm excited to attend this year's show and demo the latest in mobile technology in Las Vegas.
As you know, we are very excited about all of the apps and ways you can share your life with your family and friends via mobile. Some of these applications require not only stronger networks but the capacity to deliver the experience that consumers want when utilizing such a service (for instance, live streaming via wireless). Accordingly, future spectrum policy is going to be extremely vital and the government must make sure that adequate spectrum is in the pipeline for service providers to be able to handle adoption of these unique applications that are here and on the horizon.
With that in mind, here's one panel at the seminar that looks to address and discuss the demand for more spectrum:
Panel IV: Satisfying Demand: Sources for More Spectrum and Processes for Obtaining
4:15 pm – 5:20 pm
This panel will discuss likely sources for more commercial mobile
spectrum in the United States, the types of formal and informal
processes that can help identify and then make such spectrum available
for commercial use, lessons learned from the AWS clearing process and
other issues that must be considered to expedite the process and avoid
another 12 year gap in spectrum allocation.
Panelists:
Julius Knapp, Office of Engineering and Technology, Federal Communications Commission (Invited) Larry Irving, President, Irving Information Group Dale Hatfield, Adjunct Professor, Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder David Taylor, CEO, Capitol Solutions Michael Calabrese, Director, Wireless Futures Program, New America Foundation Ambassador Janice Obuchowski, Founder, Freedom Technologies
Look forward to seeing you in Vegas and stayed tuned for some more 411 about the show!
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