Nokia develops a mobile phone for those fearing kidnapping

Barry Fox, a patent applications trawler, revealed that Nokia has filed an application for a mobile phone, specially designed for emergency situations such as kidnapping. What is different about the device is that it pretends to be off, while actually helping its owner in danger. There is a dedicated key, which puts the handset in fake switched off position and triggers a sequence of emergency actions. The phone camera takes a series of time-stamped snapshots or video clips, the microphone picks up sounds. Afterwards the whole data together with a pre-recorded emergency message is encoded with GPS infotmation and sent to a service centre or trusted friend. More over all this information is stored in the phone's memory for future transmission in case the reception is lost for any reason. To avoid accidental false alarms, the emergency call can only be halted by entering a personal code.

Source: U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (via NewScientist.com)