StreetSafe brings its personal security software to BlackBerry

If you haven’t read Gavin DeBecker’s Gift of Fear, I suggest you stop reading me and go find a copy. (Of course, Oprah once featured the book and called it one of her favorites, so I’m sure plenty of people have already read it.) It was one of the most illuminating books I’ve read this year. In it Dr. DeBecker discussed our survival instincts and how we sometimes ignore them, to our detriment. Yet it’s often difficult to differentiate between a legitimate survival signal and run of the mill paranoia. The company PeopleGuard has developed an app that allow people to indulge their random paranoias while at the same time providing assistance if it’s truly needed. The StreetSafe app provides a valuable service for anyone who lives in a questionable area. When you fire up the app you’ll see two sliding buttons. The green one activates the Walk With Me feature. This connects the user with a representative from PeopleGuard — whom they are are supervised by off-duty police officers. This is for reassurance and peace of mind. If you make your trip without incident, that’s it. But if you do need assistance, the Walk With Me representative can have help sent your way. They have your GPS coordinates, after all, plus enough personal information to help law enforcement and medical personnel. The red button activates a silent alarm, which acts as a 911 call. There are just some instances where dialing 911 isn’t possible or safe. Using the app to spring a silent alarm can come in quite handy depending on the situation. The only downer is the universal one: you need a data signal. There are just some areas with spotty or no reception. StreetSafe works on a subscription plan. A month of service costs $19.99, but users can pay quarterly and save $15 or pay yearly and save $90. This is clearly not for everyone, but for people who want peace of mind it’s a decent idea. The app is available for BlackBerry OS versions 5, 6, and 7, but PeopleGuard notes that it’s on limited devices. You can download the .jad files from the StreetSafe website and sideload them onto your BlackBerry using Desktop Manager. It should be available in App World soon enough. Via BerryReview.

About the Author

Joe Pawlikowski is the Senior Editor at MobileMoo.com and has been covering the mobile industry full time since 2007. When he's not writing about the tech scene, he can be found discussing his personal love - baseball (and more specifically the New York Yankees) as well as writing on his personal blog.