[Pls review] secQ.me, a new mobile tracking app

Hi All AndroidPIT Members

Do allow me to take couple minutes of your time to introduce my company secQ.me, and our android app "secq.me" which we just put to Android Market couple weeks ago.

The Background
Every year, in Malaysia, there are many woman and children gone missing, or being forced into unwanted situation (such as being rape, or kidnap, or worse killed). Often, when those situation happen when least expected, such as One, taking a Taxi home at late night, picking Car from Car Park, waiting someone, or even just cycle to school.

There are many mobile security/tracking service in the market (e.g life360,EAR http://www.ears.my/) ofter aid for user when facing emergency, almost all the app require user to take our their phone, launch the app, and trigger a "panic" button during emergency. However, most often then not, when unwanted situation happen, we found that one is in abilities to call for any help, because:

• We panic, or have hurt our self, we unable to take out our phone to call for help..
• We being after by bad people, or threaten with knife/gun, and we not able to take out our phone to trigger for help.
• Our phone is lost or out of battery, or being force to turn off..

And when we finally have the opportunity to trigger for help, it's usually too late for our friend or local authorities to do anythings..

What if there is a service that will automatically trigger help to my emergency contacts, my social network (such as Facebook and Twitter) when I in danger, and allows my contacts, and my friends to continue track where am I, even I unable to push the "panic" button when emergency occur.

secQ.me - The service
Hence our inspiration of secQ.me service (Malaysia Patent PI 20094798, other country patent pending), we offer individual user (especially for woman and children) an guardian angel that provide watchful eye to user, should user is in any emergency, even without a mobile phone, user's emergency contacts will get notified automatically.


Please check a short presentation and demo for our service, we submitted for YTL Global Developer Challenge at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6UVyxSaxsk

A complete write up about our App and it's features at our blog at http://blog.secq.me/about

We just upload our application to Android Market at 21/Jan/2011, we very keen to know your view about our app, and how we shall further improve it. We would appreciate if you could download our app, give it try, and provide us constructive feedbak.

Here's are the steps to activate and use our services
1) Download secQ.me android app from Market, keyword “secq.me”, or at AndroidPIT : https://www.nextpit.com/en/android/market/apps/app/com.secqme.client.andrioid/secQ-me
2) Register your account from the Android App or our web Portal at http://secQ.me
3) An activation email will send to your email account, click the activation link
4) Once activated, login to our portal, and configure your emergency contacts, and link with your SNS (Facebook & Twitter) setting
5) Verify secQ.me Android app by key in your email and your register event pin
6) Start using the services

BTW, all new sign up account will have 10 sms credits, which is use for notification purpose..


Many Thanks!
James Khoo
Founder of secQ.me
You safety, our priority!

Hi Douglas

Thanks for your comments,
One of main reason I created this app is few years ago in Malaysia, there is this lady who on her way to take her car in open car park, she been kidnap at the car park, raped, and murdered. Her body is discovered three days later. Her parent only know she went missing few hours later because she always work late. She just turn 21 that year..

I do agree with you, when emergency do occur, we often don't have capabilities to call for help. Hence why the secQ.me is build on principal on prevention by pre-register a possible risky event with us. So, base on above example, our user should register event with us "Going to ABC CAR Park to pick up my Car", event duration 10 minutes.. if user fail to confirm his//her safety with us at 10 minute, his/her friend/family will get notify..

Some additional example:

Cindy's story
a) Ms Cindy working late, she needs to take a Cab home.
b) Due to recent increase crime rate against woman, she is very concern about her safety
c) She started secQ.me android app, and pre-register event with us, for example, "I am taking a taxi home, taxi number WRE1234" (either enter Text or Voice message)
d) She also needs to enter duration of the event, for example, 30 minutes
e) Once event register, the secQ.me android app will constantly report Cindy location to our central server. Please note that Cindy could pre-register the event way before she hop in the cab.
f) at the end of the event, i.e. 30 minutes, an alarm will trigger, and remind Cindy to confirm her safety with secQ.me server, if Cindy confirm her safety with us, nothing will happen.
g) if Cindy fail to confirm her safety, secQ.me server will assume Cindy is in danger, and will notify Cindy's friend and family
i) Cindy friend and family will able to track Cindy latest location, and find out event detail from secQ.me tracking page.. they know that Cindy taking taxi home, what is Taxi number, and if Cindy manage to snap a picture of the Taxi driver during the event registration, they could download the picture and report to local authorities for help (Check out a sample of secQ.me tracking page at http://secq.me/mainportal/tracking.jsf?trackingpin=4JAAHH)

What if in the middle of the journey, Cindy find out the Taxi driver has detour to somewhere else, our app allows Cindy to trigger emergency on top of pre-register event, Cindy's emergency contact will get notify immediately.

In the coming version, we plan to allows user to trigger emergency by simply shaking their phone

Jimmy's story
a) Jimmy needs to drive home during bad weather at late night, he pre-register event with us, and enter event duration of 1 hour
b) secQ.me start track his location..
c) If somethings bad happen, Jimmy friend and family will get notify, and they will know Jimmy's latest location from our tracking page, and assist accordingly.


Do check out our demo video at you tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6UVyxSaxsk

One of biggest challenge I see for our service, is we needs cultivate our user to have habit pre-register event with us (For example, meeting up someone u just know online, going to a "bad" area", taking a bus home", and etc), in hoping when emergency do happen, there is still a chance on rescue user base on user register event), and till now I still don't have good idea how we should go about this.. any suggestion?

Cheers
James Khoo

Hi Douglas

Thanks.
FYI, in terms of notification, we support the following channels:
a) Email
b) SMS
c) Facebook or Twitter

User could turn on or off any notification channels easily at our portal at http://secq.me

Cheers
James

A quick update on secQ.me android app..

We just uploaded secQ.me v 1.2 to Google Android Market, at PIT, here are some changes
1. Fixed Camera Bugs when taking picture in Portrait mode when Froyo phone.
2. Added Auto-Focus function when taking picture
3. Added secQ.me service still running reminder, the secQ.me app wil remind user the tracking service still running at 60 minutes (if user forgot to confirm or end the register event with us);
4. Improvement on tracking service to preserve phone battery
5. Some other bugs fixes

If you have downloaded our app, please do an update.

Thanks
James Khoo
secQ.me Founder