30 March,2009 09:05 AM IST | | Kaumudi Gurjar
A new mobile technology will send a message to your contact list alerting them of your whereabouts
A new mobile navigation software will make sure you're never alone in an emergency. Saarthy, which has been developed by city-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), will ensure that with the press of the emergency button on your mobile, a message specifying your exact location will be immediately sent to all the predefined numbers in your contact list, thus alerting them of danger.
According to Dr Medha Dhurandhar, head of C-DAC's Geometric Solutions Development Group, once the software is embedded in your phone, it saves route information and can alert you if you take a wrong turn.
It can even tell you where you are and read road landmarks. "The software has Geo-tagging facility. If you click an image and forget its location, it helps you identify the location, as it has the facility to store the latitude and longitudinal information," added Dr Dhurandhar.
Inspiration
The idea of the software came to the centre from the number of untoward incidents that happened to people working on night shifts. Said Dr Dhurandhar, "After a number of unfortunate events that have occurred with young BPO executives returning home from the night shift, we thought of developing this software."
It took two developers, Sanjeevan and S Thirumaran, six months to develop Saarthy, which is expected to be launched in a couple of months.
C-DAC is still negotiating on the pricing. Initially, only phones with Windows will be able to support the software. Saarthy will be available in English, Hindi and Malayalam.
Puneites are already excited about Saarthy. Said Smita Vaze of Sai Softech, "We often have to travel back home late at night. When you panic, it is really hard to search through the contact list for the exact number.
u00a0
The emergency key is a boon. But the alert messages should have some unique aspect so that the receiver would identify them as alerts and not ignore them as any other commercial message."
Sheetal Kashikar, who works in a software company, added, "It's good that the software is not dependent on a service provider.
If something happens to you, you are not going to be able to call for help. If the service is available at the click of a button, it would really be helpful."
Scary incidents
August 2008, Pune: A female employee of IBM Daksh was called out in the night on the pretext of company work and gangraped by unidentified persons.
2007, Pune: A female employee of a Wipro-owned call centre was raped and murdered on the old Mumbai-Pune highway.
2005, Pune: A cab driver threw acid on a 22-year-old girl working in a BPO when she objected to his advances.
