Nokia's cellphone for kidnap victims
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]
