NYC residents to use cellphones as line of defense
The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, has announced a plan to equip the city's 911 centers with the ability to accept cameraphone images from its residents. If you see a dangerous situation, snap a picture, and send it to a 911 operator via MMS or email. Sounds good to us -- but it may not seem as cutting edge as you think. Several months ago we a mighty similar patent, but New York's system has the distinction of being... well, real. We do see a few problems with this: A) Quality of the picture, B) Convenience of taking a picture or placing a call and C) getting the perp to smile for us.[Via Cameraphone Report]
Filed under: Messaging, Multimedia, Misc
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Alan A. Reiter @ Jan 25th 2007 3:46PM
Thanks for the link to my www.cameraphonereport.com article. But the NYC system is "real" in the sense that the city is apparently ** going ** to do this but hasn't yet implemented it. As of when I wrote the article, the city hadn't signed any contract.
One of the more interesting aspects is the city is working on integrating camera phones with its 311 number that enables residents to call about non-emergency city services.
For example, if you see a pothole, graffiti, etc. and want to report it, you could be able to send, presumably, a photo or perhaps a video. The 311 aspect is supposed to be implemented after the 911 camera phone integration.