People can now report graffiti, potholes and broken street lamps to councils online and on the spot with their smartphones thanks to Kiwi-developed mapping software.

One of the applications is being used to help with the Queensland flood recovery.

FixMyStreet, a free application created by Christchurch web developer Jonathan Hunt, lets people use their PC or iPhone to report faults or incidents.

Mr Hunt said the application asked people to choose the address nearest to the incident or fault. “It then comes back to you with a map so you can fine-tune the location by dragging a marker. Then you fill out what the issue is and enter your contact details and you can also upload a photo,” he said.

People would receive a link via email and once they clicked to confirm it, the application would email the report to the right council, based on the incident’s location.

People had reported 200 issues since the site launched in September. The issues most commonly reported were graffiti, potholes, “footpath issues” and rubbish.

Councils already had email addresses for reporting issues but FixMyStreet let people pinpoint them on a map and post photos.

There were versions of FixMyStreet in about 10 countries and councils in Australia, and a few countries in South America and Africa had contacted him about setting up their own sites, he said. About 75 New Zealander had downloaded the iPhone application.

Wellington geospatial software firm Critchlow has also launched an application in New Zealand and Australia.

Government sales manager David Knight said the free NeatStreets application could be used on iPhones, Android smartphones and BlackBerrys, and downloads currently ranged between 50 and 100 a week. Users could take a photo of an issue, categorise it, type a message and send it to Critchlow, which would check and send it on to the relevant council either via email or, for a price, directly to their internal systems.

GPS-enabled phones would automatically give a location for the issue – based on where the photo was taken. People without this feature on their phones could mark the location on a map.

More than 2000 issues had been reported through NeatStreets in New Zealand and Australia.

An Australian search and rescue agency involved in Queensland’ flood recovery had asked Critchlow to develop a version for its staff so they could gather information about flood damage.

Wellington City Council spokesman Richard MacLean said staff took photos of graffiti and damage while out in the field. “If residents are doing the same thing it saves us the job.”

The council would have to review the business case before deciding whether to integrate applications like FixMyStreet or NeatStreets into its systems.

Source:http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/4623684/Phone-software-reports-street-faults-graffiti

Peep Wireless Technology (PWT), a Delaware-based company, has revealed a software app that turns a phone into a small cell tower (client/server viral transmitter/receiver).
The application will be revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show or CES in Las Vegas later this week. It is called PeepApp and will initially be available only for the iPhone. Later it will be made for other mobile operating systems as well.

Phones with the app, which operate as cellphone towers, or “seed phones” as the company calls them, in turn identifies and connects every device with Bluetooth, WiFi or other spectrum points which has PeepApp (i.e.: game boxes, pads, cafes, Bluetooth cars, PC’s and internet TV’s etc.) and cause the Peep Mesh to grow and grow around the world in a peer-to-peer manner.

Peep Wireless claims that this new network will mean that the consumer would never need to pay a phone bill again and all his email, internet and media access would be free forever.

For network operators PeepApp saves billions of dollars and years of build-out time, and doubles their capacity almost overnight. It creates instant, low-cost connectivity for even those places that femtocells and picocells cannot fill.

PeepApp is software based but the company will release a keyfob (key chain) item that is said to quadruple the range, scope and power of the PeepApp.
With the Peep technology, mobile devices connect instantly to one another over WiFi, Bluetooth, GSM, CDMA or walkie talkie channels that PeepApp constantly scans. No cell tower, base station or internet server is needed.

Phone calls, media sharing, texts, movies, media and data sharing can be free between all mobile devices. All mobile units act as nodes. They transport data traffic between all the other such devices in clusters.

Any phone call moves from one device to the next in segments, sometimes in different duplicate segments with the fastest segment of the duplicates being used until the call reaches its destination.

This viral mesh network growth can instantly span a vast area with no external infrastructure required.

This unique, proprietary technology offers the ability to interact with any phone anywhere in the world free of cost. Phones with PeeApp can move across any carrier system, via a legal “backdoor” technology that Peep has engineered.

Peep devices make voice and data calls by scanning and using the entire free spectrum adjacent to paid spectrum used by service providers and the company claims that it only takes a handful of people using PeepApps to provide network coverage across an entire large city.

The release of this app to the consumer has not been announced and the company plans to license PeepApp to other parties who will in turn bring it to market.

Source:http://telecomyatra.afaqs.com/news/?sid=2698_Software+to+turn+every+phone+into+a+cell-tower+