SMOG ALERTS ARRIVE VIA PAGER, CELL PHONE.Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer Los Angeles' troika of civic embarrassment - cell phones, pagers and smog - have joined to create a new service to alert the vulnerable to poor air quality. Three cellular and paging service providers said Friday they now offer customers smog forecasts and up-to-the-minute air quality status reports. Subscribers' pagers will beep and cell phones will ring whenever air quality or allergen allergen /al·ler·gen/ (al´er-jen) an antigenic substance capable of producing immediate hypersensitivity (allergy).allergen´ic pollen allergen levels reach hazardous levels, with information from the South Coast Air Quality Management District The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), formed in 1976, is the air pollution agency responsible mainly for regulating stationary sources of air pollution for most of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside County, and all of Orange county. . ``I hope it doesn't become a nuisance nuisance, in law, an act that, without legal justification, interferes with safety, comfort, or the use of property. A private nuisance (e.g., erecting a wall that shuts off a neighbor's light) is one that affects one or a few persons, while a public nuisance (e.g. but that's why you can have it on as a silent page,'' said Craig Whan, co-owner of Santa Barbara-based Outspoken Industries, which began advertising its $5.95-a-month Smogpager service for cell phones Thursday. ``This creates a daily awareness of the degree of your risk of exposure and untethers you from having to go out and get it yourself.'' Cell phone owners can also get ultraviolet index The UV index is an international standard measurement of how strong the ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun is at a particular place on a particular day. It is a scale primarily used in daily forecasts aimed at the general public. readings and general weather information from the National Weather Service via Outspoken. The South Coast Air Quality Management District solicited the companies to offer the service after it operated a pilot program and found that the service has a market in parents of asthmatic children, physical education teachers and doctors. The agency provides the information for free to Outspoken, Dallas-based pager company PageNet and Fort Lee, N.J. company TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) Refers to a program that remains in memory when the user exits it in order that it be immediately available at the press of a hotkey. Wireless because the air monitoring agency can't provide the important service itself. ``We don't own any satellites,'' AQMD AQMD Air Quality Management District AQMD Action Quake Map Depot spokesman Sam (1) (Security Accounts Manager) The part of Windows NT that manages the database of usernames, passwords and permissions. A SAM resides in each server as well as in each domain controller. See PDC and trust relationship. Atwood said. TSR Wireless will begin offering the smog and allergen alert service alone for free to its pager customers in two to four weeks, a spokesman said. PageNet charges $13.95 a month to add the alert feature to its pagers. Vice President of Communications Scott Baradell said it started offering the service two weeks ago but would not say how many people have signed up for it. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion