Emergency warning by mobile telephone

• US 20090124232A1
• Filed: 11/13/2007
• Published: 05/14/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: D'Arcy, John Joseph, Hans Joachim Von Der Pfordten
• Original Assignee: D'Arcy, John Joseph, Hans Joachim Von Der Pfordten
• Inventors: Von Der Pfordten, Hans Joachim, D'Arcy, John Joseph
• Application Number:
  US11/983,953
• Publication Number:
  US 20090124232A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/404.200
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72418 for supporting emergency services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/04 with alarm systems, e.g. fire, police or burglar alarm systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/10 including a GPS signal receiver

Abstract

Cell-phones with their control and voice bands and their wide spread presence plus the good coverage of the US by cell towers makes a pin-pointed alert broadcast to people end angered by severe weather possible, based on data-feeds from NOAA, or by other incidents. Alert-specific programs in audio, video and text are downloaded to subscriber cell-phones. Alert-specific code words trigger these programs in areas covered by selected cell towers. Persons of priority (P1 and P2 like head-of-households) having a roster of the cell phone numbers plus respective coordinates of their family members in their cell phone memory can view their dependent'"'"'s location on their display relative to the incident coordinates for aiding in a decision on safety measures. After an incident the P1'"'"'s and P2'"'"'s family roster in the cell-phone'"'"'s carrier'"'"'s memories and in the data center can help in family reunions and in rescue efforts.

Claims

1. A system of hardware and software employed to communicate wirelessly with mobile phones carried by subscribers in areas with emerging incidents, the system comprising:

a. a data center holding a first data-base DB1 of all subscribers and their families;

b. the data center also holding a second database DB2 of communication means including cell towers and satellites, in the vicinity and within wireless range of subscribers owning mobile phones;

c. the data center also holding a third database DB3 of pre-scripted software SW2 for specific alerts in audio, video and text and specific environmental landmark info to be downloaded to subscribers cell phones before an incident;

d. the data center also holding a fourth database DB4 of short codes to be broadcast, including coordinate info of an incident, to subscriber'"'"'s cell phones to trigger the specific alerts;

e. the data center also holding a fifth database DB5 for collecting a set of confirmed alert responders now expected to respond to an “

all clear”

alert, if negative, may be an indication of wide-spread damage; and

f. a set of cell towers which, aside from their regular function, can be addressed for pre-incident downloading of individual software SW2 from the data center to subscriber cell phones and for code word broadcasting to subscriber cond operating software residing at the data center to be down-loaded into the memory of a mobile phone of an individual subscriber.

2. A method for displaying an incident on the screen of a mobile phone, comprising the steps of:

a. obtaining the coordinates of the center and peak activity of the incident;

b. recording an alert broadcast time interval sequence of incident coordinates of the center of the incident for the calculation of incident speed and incident direction, referenced to true North;

c. obtaining an incident box drawn by drawing lines of the incident direction and lines perpendicular to the incident direction through the diagonally opposed corner points coordinates broadcast from the data center, the incident box separating a “

take cover”

inside zone from a “

stay away”

/“

pay attention”

outside zone; and

d. displaying a coordinate map of the incident box and its environment including landmarks to enable a cell phone carrier to recognize his GPS location relative to the incident.

3. A method for enhancing the reliability of an alert broadcast while minimizing cell-tower transmission times and supporting family reunions, comprising the steps of:

a. pre-scripting different alerts in audio, video and text, to be triggered by broadcast short code words each, and downloading this alert info to subscribing cell phones at low-traffic times prior to the incident;

b. broadcasting the code words for respective alerts with the present coordinates of the incident alert at least twice a short time apart to all family members to give them with enough time for evasive action;

c. displaying at least to priority persons P1 and P2 their location in relation to the coordinates of the incident, augmented by a display of pertinent landmarks;

d. relaying acknowledgements for receiving the respective alerts, generated by the downloaded software on a subscriber'"'"'s cell phone, on cell phone control channels back to the data center; and

e. using the responses of cell-phones to alerts back to the data center and comparing them to the potential absence of responses from the same cell-phone after an “

all-clear”

signal to determine areas of endangerment of lives and wide-spread damage as info to first responders.