OT New Technology, this is pretty cool!

BillyBoy wrote on 5/21/2005, 8:19 PM
Just clicking on forums to see what's happening and I see my provider, Wide Open West, added a pop up above the forum page to provide a link to a Amber Alert* which I'm reposting below. It isn't that Amber Alerts are that new, rather that the technology is now in place to insert a notice that one is in effect in your area and if you happen to be on the web you now get notified. First one I saw on the web, has anyone else seen this in their area?

Amber Alert Issued for 2 month old Illinois boy
Posted: Saturday May 21, 2005 8:34 PM CT

The Chicago Police Department and the State of Illinois issued the Amber Alert after an agrivated Assault at 3956 West 56th Place in Chicago.

Fernando Torres, 2 months old. He's wearing a white shirt with brown pants and white socks. No further information is available on the description at this time.

There are two suspects in this Amber Alert. The first is a 25 year old Hispanic 5 feet 6 inches tall, 165 pounds with black hair, brown eyes, and a medium complexion. He is wearing a black shirt with yellow lettering and dark pants. The second suspect is a male Hispanic is 25 years old. There is no further information on the description of the second suspect at this time.

The vehicle in this abduction is a small white 4-door passenger vehicle. No further information is available on the license plate at this time.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Chicago Illinois Police Department at 312-747-8380 or dial 911.

* For those that may be in the dark a Amber Alerts:

http://www.codeamber.org/

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 5/21/2005, 10:02 PM
nevermind
TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/22/2005, 5:54 AM
Thet is pretty cool! They shoul add something like that to weatherbug.

Nice to see a company using popup's/adds for something to benefit a human being!
Randy Brown wrote on 5/22/2005, 6:46 AM
Good job (on biting your tongue) John : )
Randy
Chienworks wrote on 5/22/2005, 11:35 AM
If my ISP started inserting ads on my screen i would switch to a different ISP by the end of the day, and i would make sure that even the CEO of the old ISP knew exactly why i wasn't going to be their customer anymore.
BillyBoy wrote on 5/22/2005, 12:51 PM
An Amber altert isn't a "ad", its a notification by police authrorities, mainly to alter the community some crime involving a child has taken place, and that the authorities fear the child's life is in danger.

The idea is to let the community know. Illinois is pretty good with Amber Alters. The two major cable TV outlets in the Chicago Area, ComCast And WOW, (WideOpenWest) flash Amber alters on the TV, with them appearing as a crawl regardless what station you happen to be watching. They do the same thing for storm warnings, mainly to notifty that a severe storm capable of producing a tornado or damaging winds and been confirmed on radar or seen by a trained spotter.

I mainly was interested if others have seen web based Amber Alters in their area. Guess not.
RichR wrote on 5/22/2005, 3:13 PM
not in NJ. It's a good idea though
Chienworks wrote on 5/22/2005, 3:27 PM
I don't care what it is. No ISP has my permission to start "adding" to what i want to see in my browser windows. I won't have it.
John_Cline wrote on 5/22/2005, 4:19 PM
Randy,

It's getting more difficult, I'm biting my tongue so hard it's bleeding!
filmy wrote on 5/22/2005, 6:17 PM
>>> If my ISP started inserting ads on my screen ...<<<
Kelly, an Amber Alter is not an ad it is a lot more serious than that.

I think this is a brillant idea. Actually I believe NY is supposed...I should say required to by law... to put up Amber alerts statewide. I think this would be awesome for providers to start doing it but the problem is that not all ISP's are "local". For example what would AOL do? In my case I have earthlink and "local" access is provided via RR. There is no "local" Earthlink network here. And I know when Amber alerts do go out it is supposed to be statewide yet I am not so sure "local" TV and radio scroll them as required by law unless they are "local" - for example a few nights ago an Amber alert was put out in the Manhattan area around 10:15-ish and it never made any "local" TV. To me I think this is total BS because you could drive from the city to Canada in a matter of a few hours and you figure that by the time the child might be reported as missing and the police get there and you fill out the paper work and by the time radio and TV statewide starts broadcasting it it might already be 2 - 3 hours later. it is somewhat like the EBS - when I was working at a radio station a few years back we were part of the statewide EBS network and it came out turn to do the east coast test - on my shift no less. I hit the button at a certian time and, in theory, all radio and TV stations up and down the Eastern seaboard were supposed to go to the "This is a test..." deal. However not all did - it was because they didn't have to do it "instantly", they had to do it within a set time frame. Same with the Amber alert - they don't have to do it instantly but they have to do it withing a certian time frame.

Either way - BB this is cool news. Thanks for sharing.

Randy Brown wrote on 5/22/2005, 8:28 PM
Just take deep breaths and count to ten (thousand) John : )
Randy
TorS wrote on 5/23/2005, 2:41 AM
I have filed a complaint about how John Cline, backed by Randy Brown is bullying the original poster in this thread.
Tor Salomonsen
MyST wrote on 5/23/2005, 4:29 AM
I must admit, I can't figure out what that's all about myself.

Mario
FuTz wrote on 5/23/2005, 5:05 AM
Basic (if my understanding is good):
Your child gets kidnapped.
You got a picture of your kid? You give it to authorities.
Amber Alert is launched to find your kid back. Info is passed everywhere.

One of them kids have been found recently here after 2 days with AmbAlrt.

Think about your milk crate with those "missing children'" pics on it but ten times more efficient. It will be on TV, on these big animated pannels on highways, everywhere...
There's Big Brother, and there's Big Amber... if they're married, I don't know. But they sure are relatives.
Laurence wrote on 5/23/2005, 5:22 AM
The chance of finding a kidnapped child alive decreases exponentially with time. Amber alerts are good and neccessary. If they take a few bytes of bandwidth that is fine with me.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/23/2005, 6:56 AM
I agree with chien that it would get annoying if, for exmaple, it popped up every time I went anywhere on the web, but this would be a great thing to put in weatherbug, AIM, etc (have it optional like everything else).

That would probley be the only emergency I let weatherbug alert me about. It got pretty annoying to keep getting "snow advisories/warning" for 3 inches when I like just south of buffalo!
Chienworks wrote on 5/23/2005, 7:01 AM
Exactly. If this is something that *i* can decide to subscribe to and turn off whenever i want, then it's ok. Having it appear automatically without my choice is completely unacceptable.
BillyBoy wrote on 5/23/2005, 7:12 AM
For those interested, the kidnapped child was found Sunday in a garbage can by a woman walking her dog, alive and well and apparently unharmed.

http://www.nbc5.com/slideshow/news/4518657/detail.html

I was interested in this story and while off topic I shared it for two reasons. The area where the kidnapping took place was less than a mile from where I grew up and it was the first time I saw a Amber Alert used on the web where the actual warning was automatically inserted. I simply wanted to see if others have experienced Amber Alters off the web.

I'm saddened that anyone would attempt to use this story to attempt to start another fight in this forum or object to a banner on their TV or a pop up appearing on their browser altering them of a tragedy. Its a pretty sad world if some get upset discussing technology being used to help find kidnapped kids, yet don't seem to mind the endless announcements of "contests" or other off topic fluff.