Nokia's cellphone for kidnap victims
By Evan Blass 
posted Jan 18th 2006 5:45PM
posted Jan 18th 2006 5:45PM
Barry Fox, unflappable trawler of the FCC website, reports from New Scientist that Nokia has recently filed an
application for a cellphone with covert emergency detection and broadcasting features. Unlike the emergency feature on
your keyfob, which sounds a loud alarm and notifies potential kidnappers that you're a fighter, the Nokia phone
pretends that it's off when it's actually using every available sensor to suck in data about your location and captors.
Simply triggering a recessed panic button puts the cellie into "fake sleep" mode and tells it to capture as
many pics, vids, and sounds as it can. The captured data is then encoded with GPS info and immediately sent to a call
center or trusted friend, or stored for future transmission if a signal is not readily available (since you need to
reenter a coverage area at some point for this device to be effective, we can safely rule out T-Mobile as a potential
carrier). Keep in mind that this is just a patent, not a working product, so your safest course of action is still
living inside your panic room 24/7.[Via New Scientist and Smart Mobs]
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That Nokia is ugly. But most Nokias are ugly...
Worst. Photoshopping. Ever.
HA! Poking fun at Tmobile always makes me LOL. I love you guys. Good show!
Don't you mean "Worst. MSPaint job. Ever."?
Yeah but will they pull a Sprint and refuse to give the cops the info?
Maybe the worst photoshop but the hillarity (
if such a system does ever prove to be helpful wouldn't having a patent on it be morally incorrect. do these companies have no ethics.
What's up with all the hating on T-Mobile? Coverage is great where I live... better than the rest, actually. Oh, and Bobak, did you JUST figure out that the vast majority of large corporations are completely unethical?
i used to own a Sidekick 1. Odd that i hardly get any coverage when im only 1 mile from Danger's Main office..
So people who plan to get kidnapped will buy this phone? I don't think I understand the target market.
The T-Mobile joke doesn't bother me, but to be fair they have very good coverage in the Portland Oregon area, as well as in Seattle.
You know what Nokia should make? A cellphone that burns like the one that happens to the device in Mission: Impossible whenever someone punches in the wrong code; to prevent profitability in theft.
Wow my phone (Nokia 6670) is a saving phone? Cool...
I'll remember that next time I get kidnapped for 1 million dollars.
I thought that this idea was pretty decent at first, but then i began to think.
In order to find out the target market we tend to look at what age group is most vulnerable to kidnapping. It is my belief that the majority of kidnappings happen to children under the age of eleven. If my estimation is somewhat correct I then ask another question. How many people under the age of eleven are walking around with cell phones?
If you're under 11 and a potential kidnapee, then you probably do have a cellphone. Think about kids in Colombia and such places, where the children of wealthy people are often kidnapped.
Okay, let me completely redirect the comments here with a (possibly) stupid question...
What's with all the cracks on T-Mobile's coverage? My phone works in all the same places that any other GSM phone works. If the answer is "Well, you get dinged for roaming charges", then I guess the real question is, what kind of chump ass loser pays roaming fees in this age of National Coverage plans? I was just on a road trip with a friend. I've got T-Mo, he's got Sprint. We drove from Chicago to Marquette, MI, I had service almost the whole time, he almost never did.
Please, clue me in.
Well, there was that carjacking incident in Atlanta some years back. The victim, wife of a pro athlete IIRC, pocket-dialed 911 and then found reasons to describe the crime, the car and passing landmarks in her conversation with the carjackers. She was spectacularly rescued.
Maybe Nokia will make a phone for children, like the Firefly (is that what it's called?)
If so, this would be a pretty good selling point. Though there is a good chance the crooks will know about this.
Frank-
T-Mobile just has a bad reputation from several years ago when their coverage wasn't so great. But now, especially with 850mhz roaming agreements, their coverage is extremely competitive with all of the other national carriers, and T-Mobile has even won awards for the best call quality in several regions. And in Chicago (I'm a Chicagoan too :-) ) T-Mobile is considered one of the best carriers.
Just to give you an idea, though, if you and your friend went to Marquette two years ago, your coverage would've stopped once you passed Green Bay.
Oh yeah, cuz kidnappers would never figure out how to throw a phone out the window into a river etc or jsut take the battery out.
sounds like a good idea to me. it has the potential to save lives, and be a big selling point for the paranoid (victims and mothers?).
I agree, Tmobile just plain stinks. So does sprint.
I agree with Chuck. What's with the lack of love for the T? Where I live it's the only phone that works. Sprint, Nextel (Before it was Sprint), Cingular, and Verizon all can't hold up to T-Mobile in my area.
I agree with Chuck. What's with the lack of love for the T? Where I live it's the only phone that works. Sprint, Nextel (Before it was Sprint), Cingular, and Verizon all can't hold up to T-Mobile in my area.
I agree with Chuck. What's with the lack of love for the T? Where I live it's the only phone that works. Sprint, Nextel (Before it was Sprint), Cingular, and Verizon all can't hold up to T-Mobile in my area.
I agree with Chuck. What's with the lack of love for the T? Where I live it's the only phone that works. Sprint, Nextel (Before it was Sprint), Cingular, and Verizon all can't hold up to T-Mobile in my area.
Umm.... WTF? ^^^
T-Mobile used to be called one2one in the UK but we used to call it one2none since that was more accurate...
How about making a phone that when you press a secret key combination, it fires a 9mm copper jacketed hollowpoint bullet right into the brain of your kidnapper, thus ending the hostage situation. The phone could then automatically dial 911, and in thirty minutes the cops can show up to draw a chalk line around the kidnapper's body and then take a report.
um, i think there is a serivce like that, only it works on any phone.
its called 911?
"13. I thought that this idea was pretty decent at first, but then i began to think.
In order to find out the target market we tend to look at what age group is most vulnerable to kidnapping. It is my belief that the majority of kidnappings happen to children under the age of eleven. If my estimation is somewhat correct I then ask another question. How many people under the age of eleven are walking around with cell phones?"
Where I live, each and everyone.
And then, kidnapping children is more or less an American phenomenon... no if I lived in the States I wouldn't let my children walk around freely either.
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