Now, fish using your mobile
The fishermen of Veerampattinam will soon have a mobile phone enabled intelligence system that will tell them everything from where to fish to when to venture home because the weather could turn ugly. M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) is working on on a solution to provide real time information on mobile phones using CDMA. The features:
1. Weather updates to help the fishermen decide whether or not to venture out
2. Information on fish concentration to increase catch
3. A GPS capability is also being worked on, which would make rescue operations easier.
The pilot project involving 10 fishermen is running on the Tata Teleservices Ltd , whose coverage extends to a range of 15-20 km off the coast, covers about 80% of the fishermen’s requirement. “It is currently in Phase 0—we hope to move through four phases over a period of one and a half years. By November this year, we would like to perfect the application, and make about 100 phones available across the coast,” says Parag Kar, senior director of Qualcomm in India and SAARC.
The cost of the handset is estimated at less than Rs 2,500, and would be subsidized by Qualcomm and MSSRF.
[Via]
Now for the weather department to better it’s accuracy.
Filed under: Ideas & Innovations, India, Mobile, eGovernance