Category: Apps

Did mobile games being played by rail dispatcher cause German train crash?

| April 15, 2016

An investigation has revealed that before the collision that killed 11 people, a smartphone game was played.

An investigation is currently underway regarding the head-on rail collision in Germany in which 11 people were killed, and prosecutors have stated that a dispatcher had been playing mobile games on a smartphone shortly before the crash.

The dispatcher has remained unnamed at the time of the writing of this article but has been arrested.

The dispatcher was arrested on suspicion of negligent homicide as it is believed that mobile games may have been distracting the individual who was required to pay attention in order to avoid the collision and the deaths of nearly a dozen people. The crash occurred on February 9, close to the town of Aibling. Both trains had been crowded with commuters when they collided, making this one of the worst railway accidents that have occurred in the history of the country.

Prosecutors assert that the male dispatcher was playing mobile games on his smartphone for “an extended period of time.”

Mobile Games - Image of Train CrashThey stated that this occurred until shortly before the crash occurred. Regulations for rail dispatchers prohibit the use of personal cell phones while on the job. The statement said that “Due to the close timing it must be assumed that the accused was distracted from controlling the cross-traffic of the trains.”

The suggestion is that the mobile game apps were distracting to the dispatcher and led him to send the wrong signals to the trains. Once the dispatcher realized what had happened, he pressed the wrong combination of buttons in order to make the emergency call, failing to properly alert the train drivers.

When questioned, the dispatcher admitted that he had been playing mobile games, but he denied that this caused him to be distracted. So far, investigators have not been able to discover any technical problems that could have either contributed or caused the collision between the two trains, according to the statement from the prosecution. This is only the latest in a growing number of cases accumulating worldwide which have associated mobile gaming with situations of dangerous distraction.

Mobile payments rolled out in NoWait app

| April 14, 2016

The smartphone application for restaurant waitlisting is making it easier to complete the dining experience.

NoWait, a restaurant waitlisting service, has already established a popular smartphone app that allows diners to be able to “line up” digitally at nearby participating restaurants where they do not have reservations and the application is now rolling out their mobile payments service to boost the available convenience.

These services are meant to shrink the amount of time needed to get a meal without having to wait.

The mobile app has rapidly been increasing in its popularity over the last few years. It offers diners a range of different features, but it also provides a subscription-based suite of tools to restaurants. This allows the businesses themselves to be able to manage their waitlists, server rotation, seating, reservations, and many other important factors. By the time of the writing of this article, there were already nearly 4,000 restaurant companies that had signed on to use this platform. Among them, several are very large chains, such as Buffalo Wild Wings, Chili’s, On the Border, and First Watch, among others. Now, the app is also offering mobile payments.

The mobile payments are available in both the Android and iOS versions of the NoWait application.

restaurant app - mobile paymentsThe mobile app currently seats more than 25 million diners every month. This is a staggering amount of growth over the same figure in 2014, which had been just over 5 million per month. At that time, it had only just finished its Series B financing round at which time it brought in another $10 million.

It has already seated over 250 million diners who have used the application in order to join the line to wait for a table. The application is appropriate for both smartphone and tablet users. It has been downloaded more than 3 million times and NoWait is predicting that by the end of this year, there will have been about 5 million individual diners who will have headed out to restaurants by way of this mobile application.

By adding mobile payments, the goal is to be able to complete the entire dining experience over the smart device.