Women's Safety App bSafe Helps Deflect Danger
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CREDIT: ARENA Creative |
One entrepreneur is using a spike in crime in New York City to promote her mobile safety app as she moves to the city herself. Norwegian software developer Silje Vallestad is behind an app called bSafe, which offers safety features for those walking the streets at night.
The city is experiencing a dramatic crime increase in certain neighborhoods. Murders in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn are up some 400 percent since last year, and a similar 400 percent increase in the number of rapes has occurred in Sheepshead Bay, close to Coney Island.
New York residents are invited to try out the premium version of the bSafe app themselves free for three months. Afterward, or if they live anywhere else in the U.S., the service costs $2 per month or $20 yearly.
bSafe comes with four main features. The first, called “Follow Me,” uses the phone's GPS to send the user's location to friends and family, who can track their progress home through a link to the bSafe website sent via text message.
The “I’m Here” feature allows the user to contact selected friends and family to notify them that he or she has arrived safely, and “Fake Call” can simulate a real phone call, providing an excuse to step out of an uncomfortable situation.
Finally, the SOS alarm is used for imminently dangerous situations. Pressing the big red button in the app not only sounds an alarm on the phone, but also notifies all those you have selected as guardians — the app’s word for your emergency contacts — on your contact list and sends them a map with your location.
