The new smartphone application is meant to help guide people in English, Korean, and Chinese.
The Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company has now released a mobile app that has been designed to be able to provide tourists in the country with the information that they need in English, Korean, or Chinese, in case a natural disaster should occur.
Company officials explained that the mobile application will guide visitors to the country to safety.
The mobile app is aimed specifically at tourists and exchange students that are visiting from other countries and who don’t necessarily know the procedures in the event of a natural disaster while they are in Japan. A Japanese language version of the mobile application was already launched back in 2012. Since that time, it has been downloaded 500,000 times.
The new multilingual version of the mobile app will contain the same functions as the original Japanese version.
This smartphone app has been built with a number of different functions, including an important map feature that identifies evacuation centers that are located nearby. These features are available through the app regardless of whether or not the device is able to connect to the internet at the time, provided that it has already been downloaded.
The cell phones of the users can provide very accurate directions from precisely where the user is. They simply need to aim their mobile devices at the buildings that are located nearby. The application is able to recognize them and will provide them with evacuation center location details based on that specific spot.
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance has been able to come to agreements with seven different local authorities that are located across the country in order to publicize the positions of the evacuation centers by way of the Japanese version of the software. Now, the hope from the insurer is to be able to connect with a larger number of universities and regional authorities so that they will be able to take part in the multilingual version, as well.
The agreement that was established for the mobile app with the Narita airport operator located near Tokyo will help the insurance company to be able to offer guidance options around the airport for tourists to the area, as well.
These applications allow parents to see how their kids are using their devices, and can even remotely shut them off.
In South Korea, mobile apps that allow parents to be able to monitor their children have been growing in popularity and one in particular, “Smart Sheriff” has been standing out among the rest as it provides parents with the ability to watch their child’s smartphone activity, shut down applications, or turn off the entire device.
This app was created with funding from the South Korean government in order to let parents block pornography.
This app was meant to give parents control over the offensive content that their kids will be able to view online. That said, the features expand well beyond that and parents have taken notice. Smart Sheriff is one of at least 15 mobile apps that are available in that market to let parents monitor the smartphone use of their kids.
They reveal how long the mobile devices are being used, how often apps are being used, and which websites are accessed. Some of these applications will even tell parents where a child is located using the device GPS. In fact, some apps will send an alert to parents if certain specific keywords are searched for, such as “suicide”, “bully”, or “pregnancy”. An alert may also be sent if the child sends or receives a message that contain those terms.
So far, these mobile apps have been downloaded nearly half a million times (about 480,000) in South Korea.
These app download stats are only likely to rise. The Korea Communications Commission in the country decided, last month, that telecom companies and parents will be required to install Smart Sheriff or another one of these monitoring apps on the smartphones of anyone under the age of 18 years. The commission is the regulator for the entire telecommunications industry in the country.
This requirement will not apply to old smartphones that are already carried by people under the age of 18, but the majority of schools have sent out letters to parents, regardless, encouraging them to obtain and install this type of mobile apps to help to keep their kids safe.
