TRAI recommends 112 as single emergency number for India
The telecom regulator has proposed a single number, 112, to be used for all emergency phone calls across the country including for police, fire and ambulance, modelled on the lines of the all-in-one emergency number 911 in the United States.
If the proposal is implemented, the government will integrate all existing emergency numbers – 100, 101, 102 and 108 – into the proposed helpline number 112.
“This new number may be popularized extensively through a public awareness campaign by the government,” Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a statement.
The regulator also said that the existing emergency numbers could be retained as secondary numbers. If any call is made to these numbers, the call should be directed to the new single emergency number 112, TRAI said.
Even if outgoing call facility from a phone has been debarred or the service has been temporarily suspended, users will be able to make calls on 112 from their mobile or landline phones, according to the proposal. An SMS-based access to the new emergency number, in which telecom operators may be asked to provide location information of the device from where SMS has been sent, can also be provided, the regulator said.
TRAI has also recommended setting up of public safety answering points (PSAP) to handle distress calls. Under the new system, the government may set up a response management system under PSAP which will coordinate dispatching of emergency service.
The proposed PSAP will have various systems including a facility to automatically direct incoming calls to a free call taker and location-tracking system with an interface to plot incoming location information on a map, showing all nearby landmarks and resources. Response resources such as PCR vans, fire engines and ambulances should be fitted with GPS to transmit location information to a PSAP.
Free mobile apps may take a toll on your smartphone
Free mobile apps with ads drain your smartphone’s battery faster, cause it to run slower, and use more network data, scientists have found. When compared to apps without ads, the researchers found that apps with ads use an average of 16 per cent more energy. That lowers the battery life of a smartphone from 2.5 to 2.1 hours on average.
Researchers at the University of Southern California, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), and Queen's University in Canada said that a phone’s central processing unit (CPU) is like its brain – and ads eat up a lot of that brain power, slowing it down. Apps with ads take up an average of 48 per cent more CPU time.
Since the ads themselves are content that has to be downloaded, apps with ads cause smartphones to use much more data - up to 100 per cent more, in some cases. On average, these apps use around 79 per cent more network data.
The researchers compared 21 top apps from the past year – culled from a list of 10,750 that had been in the top 400 of each of Google Play’s 30 categories from January to August of last year. They then measured their effect on phones using analysis tools loaded onto a Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone.