Technology has come a long way in history, and now, a single piece of technology that fits so smugly into your pocket of your handbag has the power to do so much. We use this one device as a music player, as a camera and as a tool for connecting ourselves with many of our friends. These devices now come equipped with Ambient Light Sensors, Proximity Sensors or the Accelerometer. But the most important pieces of hardware in your smartphone are your Global Positioning System and your Mobile Network. And because of these features, your smartphones can turn into a very helpful safety device. Although smartphones aren’t always one hundred percent effective when it comes to safety, they provide a great platform as a tool, and paired with people’s own sense of security, they can become very helpful. We talk about a few applications on your phone that will help keep you and your family safe but it is highly recommended that users get acquainted with the applications first so that it does not come as a new experience during the unlikely situation of an emergency.[break]
Most of these applications work on the principle of connecting you with a group of emergency contacts, and when anything goes wrong, you with one tap send a voice mail, a text message or an email to all of your contacts about your current location. These applications record your location via various means like the GPS locator, our mobile data and your Wi-Fi information if you are connected and the message forwards your location to your emergency contacts so that they can react immediately. Some of these applications also come equipped with a feature like a rape-horn, where the cellphone makes a loud noise alerting anyone nearby. But for most of these applications to work properly, you will definitely need an active Internet connection on your phone which is easily accessible in today’s age of 3G and 4G mobile data or at least some balance on your phone to send an emergency message with. So it is probably safe if you reserve a bit of your balance for these emergency situations. Apart of these emergency situations, these apps will also help concerned mothers and fathers track their sons and daughters, which may limit their freedom, but losing a certain part of that freedom for safety should hardly matter. These applications help you connect with your family and act as a map for tracking your family members should they ever fall into an emergency situation.
Life360 (iPhone, Android, Blackberry)
Life360 is a wonderful application if you want to keep a sharp eye on where your family members are. This application keeps track of all of your family members and connects you through a virtual map, pinpointing where they are. This application works through a GPS, Wi-Fi and Mobile Internet Connection to identify your location and informs all of your family members. It is multi-dimensional in the way that it can be used as an emergency locator when women are being stalked by a personal stalker, a sexual offender, or it can also be used as an emergency alarm during a dangerous health issue.
Guardly (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone 7)
Guardly, in contrast to Life360, acts as a personal medical diary as well to its location services. What is good about this application is that, in a state of emergency, it will make a call to your emergency contacts with your name, your current location and the type of emergency that you’re facing so that your close ones can come prepared to help. It helps you specify contacts for specific emergencies; for example, it can configure it to place a phone call to your doctor in the case of a medical emergency. In addition to that, it will also help you specify frequent locations like school, health club or a restaurant you frequent, making it easier for your friends and family to track you. It also acts like a medical journal because it provides a profile page that you can fill up with all of your allergic information, your blood type and your doctor’s information, so that if any health-related emergency should occur, any doctor can act immediately.
bSafe (iPhone, Android, Blackberry)
bSafe is another application that is extremely useful because of its timer feature. If any girl is in a threatening situation, this application will help you time a fake call scaring off any potential threat. It also offers a feature called Timer Mode, which is an automatic alarm system. This automatic alarm system works in a way that you set up a timer and if you don’t log back in within that timed state, the application will automatically send an emergency message to all of your emergency contacts.
There are a few of the best applications that help keep girls safe in the urban world. In today’s world of virtual social connections, safety has also come easier and girls should keep these applications handy whenever an emergency situation arises. But technology and applications are only tools; it is up to us as men to start acting as men and make sure that no women has to ever make use of these applications. All of us have special women in our lives who mean the world to us; maybe it’s a mother, a daughter, a sister or just a very close friend. It’s up to us to make sure all women feel loved and safe and that they don’t have to spend all of their time looking over their shoulders for a threat. We all want to be loved, we all want to be happy and we’re all connected as human beings; so let’s start acting like one by respecting each other, and that way no girl has to walk around scared of men anymore.
The writer is The Week’s much loved tech guru. Email us your tech queries at theweek@myrepublica.com and we’ll have him answer them for you
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