The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians is getting the word out about ICE, an acronym which stands for In Case of Emergency. ICE entries in your phone’s addressbook can help paramedics decide who to call if you’re hurt. The advice given is to “type ICE into your phone’s directory and include a name and number under the heading.” Always include an area code. Should you need to include multiple entries, call them ICE1, ICE2, and so on. You can also designate your next of kin with ICEWife, ICEMom, ICEDad, etc.. Make sure your contact has your basic medical information: blood type, allergies, and medications you’re taking. Source: Summer 2006 edition of the USAA Magazine.
Tag Archives: phones
A cool new service: GotVoice
GotVoice is a new service that will check your voicemail for you, convert it to MP3 files, and email it to you. This is great, because I’d been looking for a way to archive important phone messages. Say someone calls you up and says they got married. Wouldn’t want to have that archived, to play it back to them years later at their wedding anniversary? Or your brother calls you up to tell you his wife just gave birth to a baby girl? Wouldn’t it be cool if that message could be kept forever? Well, with GotVoice, you don’t have to hold your cellphone next to your computer’s microphone. You can just let it do the work for you! 🙂
Is it me or do these logos look similar?
Just had a look at a new handheld phone review from Engadget Mobile called the Helio Kickflip, and the logo looked very similar to something I’d seen before… Could it be? Well, here they are, side by side, for comparison purposes.
The logo on the left belongs to the phone, and the one on the right is the FeedBurner logo. I’ve been using – and loving the functionality of – FeedBurner for several months now. Photo of Helio Kickflip packaging courtesy of Engadget, and FeedBurner logo courtesy of FeedBurner.
What do you think?
clearTXT: text messaging for online learning systems
clearTXT is a really cool product that works in conjunction with online learning systems like Blackboard, or by itself, and allows for permission-based text messaging to those who want to get up to date information right away on their cellphones. I’ve used it in conjunction with Blackboard, and it’s a great product! The sign-up is easy: students pick their mobile provider, enter their number, choose what level of messages they want to receive (announcements, course-level alerts/news, special vendor offers/coupons) and they’re done!
For Schools: clearTXT delivers important school and class information such as announcements, schedule changes, emergency alerts, campus news, and grades directly to student and instructor cell phones and email addresses. Plus, schools can generate revenue from messages by striking ad deals with local vendors.
For Marketers: when working together with schools, can send marketing information, coupons, and discounts to college students interested in their products and services for just pennies per message.
For Government Agencies: allows people to select the types of information they want from a particular agency and have it delivered right to their mobile phones.
They’ve even got a completely free product called alphaTXT, that enables schools to deliver time-sensitive notifications, emergency alerts, and other important information directly to the mobile phones of teachers and students.
Cool stuff!
Minuscule headset powered by novel battery
I was in my car, driving back from lunch, when I got a call on my cellphone. I’m holding out on buying a Bluetooth headset, because they look ridiculous. So I still have to answer the phone the “old fashioned” way, by flipping it open and pressing Speakerphone. I know, what tough luck… But I realized that these wireless/Bluetooth headsets could be made really tiny, and could fit in the ear, if the battery could be made really small. Sure, it’d be a hassle to change the battery, but what if you didn’t have to? What if the battery charged itself? How could that happen? Well, let’s look at three existing technologies on the market today:
- “Perpetual motion” watches: you know, the kind that charge themselves from the movement/agitation of your hand. They’ve been around for a while.
- Microphones: both dynamic and condenser types… They use a vibrating wand or membrane to generate an electrical signal. They’ve also been around for a while.
- The balance pebbles inside your inner ear: okay, this is more like biological technology, but I do find it interesting that they can move and touch nerve sensors, generating electrical impulses that tell your body how to balance itself.
Given these three very interesting methods of generating energy or electrical impulses, why can’t we make a really tiny battery that can charge itself from the movement of our body, our body heat, or the vibrations caused by our voice? We could be charging the battery as we speak, as we move, etc.
This sort of battery could be used in a tiny headset that could be placed in the ear, or in some other fashion, but the point is, it would be really small, almost unnoticeable. I wouldn’t look like a geek, with a big Bluetooth headset strapped to my ear, a menacing blue light flashing on it, as if I were an android. I’m sure many of you share my feelings here. Instead, I would use a small device, no bigger than the tip of my small finger, or even smaller, that could go inside the ear, or hook right outside the ear canal with a thin wire that goes behind my ear. It would let ambient noise pass through unchanged, but would block it when I’d be using my cellphone.
Wouldn’t this be cool?
Are you interested in using this idea? Then please see my rules about using it.
Raoul Pop 