Wednesday, January 17, 2007

"hello, where are you?" - a question of the past?

It seems that the Tokyo Police has listened to my friend Michell.
A while ago he had expressed his wish that mobile phones showed the caller's location (in addition to the ID they currently show). Well, that's an information that the Tokyoites won't need to provide anymore (at least when calling the police). According to the Japan Times, calls to the emergency number will be tracked automatically. The report says that "...the system will shorten the time it takes for officers to reach the scene. Callers often do not know their exact locations and, if they are panicking, cannot give clear descriptions of their surroundings for police to find them."
This will indeed be far more efficient, but at least in one aspect this technology will not be welcomed. I guess most movie buffs will agree that police thrillers are going to lose a little bit of drama. No more scenes of victims desperately
trying to tell the operator their whereabouts.
PS: speaking about location, I'm blogging from myhotel in London on my way to Singapore.

2 comments:

mz said...

nice implementation! never struck me how relevant this could be for rescue services, etc.

Nelson said...

yeah, it's going to be very helpful. But I don't see this being extended for all types of calls (not because of technology issues, but mainly because of privacy issues).