You're watching...
Jim Bender shows how Ping4 alerts you if you're in the vicinity of severe weather or breaking news
Also in this playlist...
Auto-advance: ON
Auto-advance
This transcript is automatically generated
You another issue.
Regarding staying alert when it comes to severe weather.
You know we all watch your local news when it comes to severe weather if you live in a tornado stricken.
Counties such as those in Dallas -- stricken by tornadoes recently.
They are glued to their weather radios to their local weather and a lot of people are turning to modern day outs on their iphones.
Or -- there.
They're they're Smartphones in order to you know exactly what to expect and when danger strikes.
Where to turn for help so I wanna join.
Well when a welcome Jim Bender.
He's -- president and CEO of paying for.
And he is joining us via Skype so if you're hearing that bit of a buzz there and that's because we are not via satellite where we live via Skype Jim thank you very much for talking to us.
About -- -- for once you tell us about it.
Well -- or is -- new highly personalized medium.
Which is the intersection of whatever interest you and wherever you are in the world.
And we're getting a lot of attention now produced -- because of the number of things but -- violent weather in the United States so far this year is going to be contributing factor.
We've had three times as many tornadoes so far 2012.
Isn't a typical year.
And 55 people have been killed so far this year by tornadoes and a lot of those people were killed in the middle of the night -- and actually.
And one of the problems that that we have we public safety is when a nighttime tornado hits there's just no medium to alert people.
But paying for turns out to be an ideal medium to alert people because we can actually wake up your phone in the middle of the night.
We talk with the National Weather Service and know and we said we're willing to donate this to you for free.
And they said well we can't accept -- we we gather weather information but we don't disseminate it.
So what paying for -- did was we said we'll look good for you that.
So now whenever there is violent weather -- will actually put an alert on your Smartphone if you're in the neighborhood that -- whether.
And so how is it that this works exactly I -- -- house pink for our where can you download or upload it rather and then when do you access that.
Well you can download via for free at iTunes or the drugstore so it -- it's a -- out.
It's so -- that we'll just sit quietly on your phone and I -- it.
But if a tornado should -- in your neighborhood or for that matter if you're in an area where there -- well fires.
A lot of times these wildfires take unpredictable turns.
And we can notify you in real time if you're if you're in danger that's particularly use those as it happened in -- -- middle of the night disasters.
And so these middle of the night disasters which are horrible for for especially tornado victims.
A lot of the questions are -- we go where and we evacuate as vacuuming too I mean is is -- -- media information that people can see if they want to evacuate and leave their homes for those who perhaps don't have basements and need to.
To seek lower ground.
Yeah it will.
The message that we can put out is a rich media message that Honda unique combination of pictures video.
And audio WAV file also.
You know a lot of police departments will start -- this is an emergency alert from the Manchester, New Hampshire police department for example and then whatever the specific messages.
That the future disaster management is getting life saving information out quickly.
So whether it's tornadoes in the midwest are well -- California.
Or -- epidemic in Haiti here Zimbabwe.
We can put these emergency messages out that will.
-- anywhere in the world and very precise locations.
Tell me about children there's something about this -- that that involves that the scariest possible scenario and that is missing kids.
Right well -- 2000 children -- reported missing to police every year which is over 700000.
Children are reported missing to police on average each year.
But last year there were only a 167.
AMBER Alert right so roughly 105000.
Reported missing children ends up becoming an AMBER Alert.
What what are paying for does is it allows local police departments.
When they had a missing child.
To put that information out help recover the child in the area where can do any good.
And does so for example if they can download a picture of the missing four year old -- they can put a ten mile perimeter around the shopping mall.
That the child was last seen -- And -- wake up every Smartphone with an alert saying there's a missing child is now a picture of her on your phone.
And when she was last seen ten minutes ago -- -- a yellow shirt red pants.
While yet you know because those amber alerts -- often on the Internet and you have to be on the Internet to do so if you have this app on your phone that's that you just mentioned that I wanted to talk about next.
Which is really cool is that in a wake up your phone and sleep mode so depending on the severity of the alert what are your sleeping overnight.
When you wake up first thing you're gonna see that alert you're gonna see the picture of that child that's missing right.
Yeah I think the nice thing about this Juli is wherever you are in the world you can get the alerts from the local authorities.
If you're traveling overseas the State Department could give you an alert if if let's say you're in Syria.
And the State Department decides it's no longer safe for Americans to be in Syria.
They could literally click and drag a box around the country Syria.
And wake up every Smartphone one minute they make that decision so that's the powerless we can put on alert -- on us.
All right well thank you very much Jim Bender we appreciated and it's called.
Paying for and that's PI NG and the number four are all one word so that if those with your.
You're droids are your iphone's wanna search for that app and it is free so that is that's good news.
In the -- that is being bored dot com if you want more -- -- dot com thank you very much Jim Bender thank you.
Thank you Julie.
