Emerging Emergency

Twitturly filters and tracks news

Twitterly, a Twitter apllication, scans for and tracks links people are talking about and then groups them. It's an excellent way of tracking hot news stories on Twitter and has disaster intelligence gathering applications. Twitter is rapidly becoming a prime method of following breaking news events. Link

Friend tracker launches

Sniff is a mobile phone service that lets users track the location of friends and family and is launching in the UK this week. Already available in Scandinavia with 100,00 users Sniff will cost 50p ($1 approx.) Link

"Flaws stir debate on storm alert systems"

The theft of copper wiring is amongst the problems facing sirens dating back to the 1950s and one in four sirens in a Mississippi county does not work... amongst the revelations in a USA Today story Friday. Link.

D Block realistic?

The Wall Street Journal Thursday suggests the FCC is looking at a free wireless internet for its next auction. The FCC also need to come up with a plan for its failed D Block auction -- maybe more clearly defined than the previous one. Qualcomm was the only bidder. FCC need to also address whether the price was too high for a private/public hybrid where the private sector has to give up its expensive build-out in an emergency.