Blue Elephant on a visit at the Orange Cow. Children's Megaphone

Children's Day (June 1), the company MegaFon-Moscow said in a children's center, "House of Orange Cow". In addition to the good mood were present figures of elephants bright blue - hence the title of the article. Although it was not about cows and even elephants: MegaFon talked about new services based on a running system automatically determine the location of the caller (AOP). In this case, about the service "AOP-Family", which allows parents to remotely watch over their restless kids.

Simply call?

Logical question: why do all these difficulties, when you can just dial a phone number? There are several reasons. First of all - the calm and comfort the child, which (let's face it!) Control calls caring parents are not encouraging. The second - a call can reach the child on the street at the most inopportune moment, when extracted outside phone can simply select. The third - the child may not want to answer ... Yes, you can call themselves still five or so reasons why the request is automatically spent more convenient and practical than a phone call.

Actually demonstrate a working system was not, a full-scale test operation should begin in two weeks. It seems that the "Children's Day" was too tempting an occasion to announce the launch of this service. Especially because according to MegaFon's leadership within the company pre-running "AOP-Family" is already underway. From a technical point of view, no special revelations came, the anticipated direction of the development of services based on mobile positioning, we have already discussed. One can only rejoice that the next stage of development of such services in MegaFon is aimed primarily at meeting the needs of end-user (you and me). At first glance the "AOP-Family" can be implemented within existing positioning systems, however, the proposed scheme, there are a number of interesting opportunities and important technological innovations.

How it works

The main innovation "AOP-Family" - convenience and clarity of service.Interested parties can continue to use text messaging, but is much simpler and more practical to visit a special Web site and a map before your eyes see the movements of "supervised facilities." Or even to obtain the desired spot on the map of the city right on the screen of a mobile handset. Besides the obvious interface facilities provides a new service connection and simultaneous tracking of multiple objects (children) with individual settings for each.

Another innovation - planning inquiries, the frequency of which can now be pre-programmed and flexible. For example, two or three requests during the movement of pupils from home to school, one-two control request during school hours and then (after school) every half hour - you never know where the child can wrap on the way home from school. "Checkpoints" dityati all movements are recorded on a map. Recall: the current system today AOP fulfills only ad hoc requests "by hand" and does not provide for automatic saving of history. In the family of several children? Not a problem: for each of the "Trust" is created by an individual schedule of interviews and the system itself to this schedule should be - would the children mobile phones in their pockets or backpack.

Security - above all

Especially when it comes to child safety. Positioning System - a double edged sword in the hands of an attacker can lead to trouble. To exclude such a possibility has several levels of protection: blocking phone settings with password access, keeping the "black" and "white" lists. Ie You can disable the definition of coordinates with certain phones and / or hard-set phone numbers from which the spotting is allowed. In this case, the owner of the contract will receive a warning SMS-message on each attempt to position regardless of whether you have made a request is processed by the system.

Nearest plans

From June 1, MegaFon launched to select a group of volunteers for free testing system as candidates will be considered parents of school-age children. Since June 14, will start test operation, all comments and suggestions of testers will be studied and considered in the final set. At the same time will develop the principles of tariffing. According to Sergei Beshev (according to our data - the future of Commercial Director of MegaFon-Moscow), the service will try to make as accessible as possible, although the cost of the request until the price is higher than sending an ordinary SMS. The commercial exploitation of services due to commence in July and August and leadership MegaFon expects the popularity of the new service. According to statistics, about 15% of MegaFon's customers already use the service of AOP, and 70% are connected to the network subscribers are not opposed to "sound" of its location in the city.

At the end of the year is planned to upgrade the equipment of AOP, is currently a prototype of the modified system is undergoing testing and debugging at Ericsson - a developer and manufacturer of network infrastructure.After the upgrade will be possible to delineate on the map of an arbitrary area and receive SMS-warning on exit "object" beyond the limits of this zone. Very long run - a continuous transmission of information on the map in near real time. Currently being worked on in the company Mobilaris, but whether such a system is implemented in MegaFon we still can not say.

Just flicker

As part of the introduction of the "AOP-family" kids will be handing out the flicker - funny reflective figurines of kittens. Shine really well, no worse than road reflectors. According to the toy manufacturers will be readily visible in the headlights at a distance of 400 meters in European children wearing these "amulets" has become the norm. In MegaFon cute zverushek will distribute first testers, then all subscribers-parents. Multiple batches of toys will be sent to orphanages and other institutions. In September, promised to re-mass distribution of luminous kittens, it is possible that this simple, in general, the initiative will save lives and health of someone from the small population of Moscow.

Celebration at the Orange Cow "

The atmosphere of the children's center from the very first steps of creating a sense of celebration - no wonder kids driven here from all over Moscow. But we must pay tribute, and the Mega-Marketing: prepare thoroughly for the event, all details have been thought out - from pioneer ties around the neck (albeit green) until the present school wall newspaper, sometimes quite impish and hooligan. And finally, the real work of art: in the best traditions of socialist realism, collective photo management MegaFon-Moscow. I am pleased to share this wonderful photos with our readers.