SJA Mobile & FBI Launch SMS Tipline

SJA Mobile today jointly announced with the FBI’s Washington D.C Field Office and Metropolitan Police an initiative which will enable D.C-area citizens to anonymously report crime tips via a novel new medium -– SMS. SMS, or “text messaging,” has up until now never been used before as a medium for crime tips.

Citizens in the D.C area can report a crime or homeland security tip by sending a text message with the tip to the number 50411. The 5-digit number to text to is called a “Short Code.” Currently the service is available on all major wireless carriers, along with several Tier 2 carriers.

SJA Mobile is in talks expand the service to several other major cities.

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It’s good to see that law enforcement agencies are finally embracing technology. I have several things to say about this:

• Danger on the road?
• What’s faster?
• What took them so long?

Danger on the road?

Research shows that text messaging while driving is more dangerous than talking on the cell phone while driving, since one needs to use one’s fingers and attention to send a text message. Though not everyone sending in a tip is going to be doing it on the road, I believe that encouraging SMS could lead to (at least) a few incidents on the streets.

What’s faster?

Do you text message faster, or do you talk faster? In another comparison, do you type (on a computer keyboard) faster than you can speak? I believe that one’s voice can contribute a greater amount of information in a shorter amount of time.

However, if the FBI or Homeland Security isn’t equipped to handle a large volume of calls at the same time — for instance, not enough operators — then SMS allows them to receive a large volume and go through that pile in sequence as it piles up.

Unfortunately, that also increases the likelihood that important tips are queued. I hope they use some smart filtering/searching technology (Google, perhaps?) that will allow them to see urgent tips more quickly.

What took them so long?

Why did it take so many years for law enforcement to finally embrace this sort of technology? It’s fortunate that SJA Mobile finally made it happen.

This post is brought to you by our friends at SJA Mobile.

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Jott

Make a phone call, record a message, and have it automatically transcribed for you and sent to your contacts (via e-mail), to your Twitter page or blog.

Sound futuristic? Far-fetched?

Not so. Jott does exactly that, for free.

Set up your account today with Jott, and start sending e-mails, posting to your blog, and making reminders for yourself with your voice. I started using this a few hours ago, after having learned about it from a recent episode of net@night, a TWiT podcast. Jott isn’t really for people that sit behind a keyboard and monitor all day, but rather for on-the-go use, such as with a mobile phone.

One problem is that importing contacts isn’t as seamless as possible, due to the fact that I’m using Geekie.org Apps (powered by Google) rather than the standard Gmail. I had to go through the process of exporting my contacts to a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file and uploading that to Jott.

Jott isn’t perfect. Sometimes, it can misspell words; for instance, “poll” was spelt as “pole”, a homonym. Subtle things like the D at the end of “noticed” might not be detected.

Try it out anyways; visit Jott.

If you’re a North American user (US or Canada), there’s a toll-free number that you can use once you’ve set up your account - 1-866-JOTT-123 (1-866-5688-123). Local numbers for a number of cities exist as well.

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Cheap VoIP services from Vbuzzer

Everybody’s talking about Skype and on Skype. But there are things about Skype that we don’t necessary like: connection fees for outgoing landline calls, inflexible Skype Credit amounts ($14 CAD and $35 CAD), and the fact that often, other people’s calls are being routed through your computer.

Don’t get me wrong… I do like Skype.

However, I prefer and use Vbuzzer for truly inexpensive long-distance phone calls, definitely cheap BuzzMe Toronto phone numbers, and the flexibility to integrate with a PBX system like Asterisk or 3CX.

Vbuzzer’s PC-to-PSTN calls are only 1 cent per minute to China, 1.5 cents per minute to Canada and the US, and 1.7 cents per minute to Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.

Vbuzzer also offers $2.26 USD / month landline phone numbers that can be forwarded to any other phone, ring multiple locations simultaneously, or simply for use with their downloadable software client (Windows only).

Currently, there is a $25 per year special offer to existing landline subscribers, for unlimited incoming AND outgoing phone calls to the Toronto area.

Vbuzzer is a Canadian company, so maybe there’s something nice about that. It’s run by a small business called Softroute Corporation. The $0.26 in the $2.26 / month plans comes from the 13% PST+GST applicable in Ontario.

They also offer other VoIP-based services including cell phone callback, calling cards, and easy-to-use PC faxing.

Take a look at Vbuzzer.

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