Software maps sex offenders
A Boulder company can help determine how close you and your child live, work and play near a registered sex offender. Centrus, a division of Group 1 Software (which itself is a subsidiary of mail and document management giant Pitney Bowes Inc.) developed the NeighborhoodTrac Family Protection System. By cross-referencing a state’s sex-offender registry with technology used to pinpoint locations on websites such as MapQuest, a parent can determine how close a previous offender lives in relation to their home, child’s school or playground. The system is being used in connection with Florida’s sex-offender registry. Anyone can go to that state’s sex offender registry website, type in an address and choose a radius of up to 5 miles and view a list of registered offenders, complete with photos and addresses. Click on the proximity or “Map It” links to see a MapQuest image of where the offender lives. Before this software, residents could only search registry databases using a city, state, ZIP code or offender’s name, which sometimes returned hundreds of results across great distances.
“It gives me everyone that’s nearby. In order to get back people that are relevant, I would have to do multiple searches, and I might not know those ZIP codes,” said Centrus vice president and general manager Steve Walden. Centrus donated the software and maintenance services to the state of Florida, following recent child abductions and subsequent murders. “In the case of Jessica Lundsford, it was a neighbor across the street,” Walden said. “Had a system like this been in place, you could have known that.”
Timely wake-up call a wrist away
To improve on the traditional alarm clock – which, if it jolts you awake from a deep sleep, could leave you feeling drowsy during the day – an Atlanta company called Innovative Sleep Solutions has designed an alarm wristwatch called the Sleeptracker. Available at www.sleeptracker.com, the $149 watch, which resembles a Timex digital, houses a device called an accelerometer that monitors your sleep pattern to determine your most comfortable wake-up time. You set a window of time in which you would like the alarm to sound, and the watch wakes you during a light-sleep period within that time frame. According to the inventor, Lee Loree, it is possible to chart sleep cycles by recording the speed and frequency of nighttime movements. The Sleeptracker stores and presents records of your sleep patterns so you can learn more about your tossing-and-turning habits. Because it beeps during a light-sleep state, its beeps can be relatively quiet and unlikely to wake the rest of the household. A potential bonus is that an alarm that goes off early in your time window will give you a few extra minutes to get ready in the morning. Actually getting out of bed, of course, remains a personal challenge.
