Tech Tuesday: 911 texting coming soon
BY ROBERT EVATT World Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
12/11/12 at 3:33 AM
In a world where text messaging almost seems like ancient technology, it was a surprise to be reminded that you can't text 911.
While it may seem like a somewhat frivolous option to have available, texting can be an alternate way to contract emergency services in cases where lines are busy, calls are dropped or a voice communication could endanger a person, or for some people with disabilities, says the Federal Communications Commission.
That's why AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, the 911 Association and the Association for Public Safety Communications Officials International have agreed to work together and have submitted plans to the FCC to create the standards, technology and procedures to introduce the capability to the United States.
The plans include a target date of May 15, 2014, for national rollouts, though that doesn't guarantee Tulsa will have that capability on that day. Remember that it has taken a while for LTE technology to become available here.
At the very least, the group plans for 911 services nationwide to be able to bounce back a text letting you know that "text 911" isn't yet available in an area. The target date for that is June 2013.
Google+ does the math
Remember Google+? Google sure would like you to, so the company has broadcast a bunch of numbers detailing the popularity of this social network.
A marquee number - provided in a blog post by Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering at Google Inc. - is that Google+ has more than 500 million members. By any metric that's a lot - it's significantly more than the entire U.S. population.
But Google's numbers for its social network have always been a little hard to define. In the same blog post, Gundotra said 235 million people are logged into Google services such as Gmail and Google Search monthly, while 135 million people use Google+ itself monthly.
That last number places Google third behind Facebook, with 1 billion monthly users, and Twitter, which claims 140 million. On the bright side, it seems to indicate that Google+ has a fairly dedicated core group of users, and that the service hasn't been completely abandoned.
Original Print Headline: 911 Texting Coming In 2014
Associated Images:
Contacting emergency services via text message could be an option beginning in 2014. Tulsa World file
|
