Dark Zones – Tragically Lost In Joshua Tree’s Wild Interior

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In June 2010, Bill Ewasko traveled alone from his home in suburban Atlanta to Joshua Tree National Park, where he planned to hike for several days. Ewasko, 66, was an avid jogger, a Vietnam vet and a longtime fan of the desert West. A family photo of Ewasko standing at the summit of Mount San Jacinto, another popular hiking destination in Southern California, shows a cheerful man with a salt-and-pepper mustache, looking fit, prepared and perfectly comfortable in the outdoors.

Ewasko left a rough itinerary behind with his girlfriend, Mary Winston, featuring multiple destinations, both inside and outside the park. His first hike, on Thursday, June 24, was meant to be a loop out and back from a remote historic site known as Carey’s Castle, an old miner’s hut built into the rocks. Carey’s Castle is so archaeologically fragile that, to discourage visitors, the National Park Service does not include it on official maps. Winston, a retired mortgage broker, was worried about that particular hike. From what she had read, the site sounded too remote, too isolated. She so thoroughly pestered Ewasko about his safety that, when he arrived in California, he bought a can of pepper spray as a kind of reassuring joke. Don’t worry, Ewasko told her. He would be all right.

Read More from the New York Times Magazine Here

 

The history of mobile technology — and its future

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Although mobile phones may seem like a distinctly twenty-first century innovation, the history of mobile technology spans much further back than you might think. At the dawn of the twentieth century, a farmer in Kentucky was tinkering with the wireless phone that he had invented. By the 1920s, radiophones let passengers on ships contact people on land. Our desire to have mobile conversations, it turns out, has been with us for over a hundred years. Here’s how mobile technology has shaped the world we live in during that time and how mobile solutions are poised to influence our future in the coming years.

The history of mobile technology: Early beginnings

Right after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, inventors began working on a mobile version. As Motherboard notes, Bell himself tried his hand at it in 1880 with the photophone, a telephone that could transmit speech using light. A short while later, in 1908, a Kentucky-based farmer and self-taught electrician named Nathan Stubblefield patented the design of a mobile phone that was intended to facilitate communications among boats, trains and way stations. Although it didn’t catch on at the time, people never gave up their fascination with the idea of communicating while in transit.

Read More from mobilebusinessinsights.com Here

Google teams up with 911 to locate emergency callers more easily

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In an emergency, every second counts. So the last thing a 911 dispatcher wants to waste time over is establishing the precise location of the caller, because in those vital, wasted seconds, lives can be lost.

In a bid to address the issue, Google has been testing its technology in conjunction with a number of 911 centers to develop a system that helps to automatically identify the precise location of someone calling from a cellphone, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Throughout December and January, Google hooked up with 911 centers in Texas, Tennessee, and Florida, allowing the dispatchers to use the tech giant’s data to pinpoint the location of individuals calling on mobile phones.

As the Journal points out, such data is usually provided by the wireless carriers, but it can be inaccurate, leading to slower response times. According to federal regulators, getting first responders to an emergency scene just 60 seconds earlier could save an estimated 10,000 lives a year.

Read More from digitaltrends.com Here

Records lay out details in 2 North Little Rock homicide cases

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Court records show an argument at a North Little Rock apartment led up to the shooting death of a 58-year-old man earlier this year. North Little Rock police said they found Allen McGuire fatally shot on Jan. 19 at an apartment at 5120 Velvet Ridge Road.

Authorities earlier this month arrested 19-year-old Typaris Johnson and 17-year-old Shaquan Thompson in the killing and charged both with first-degree murder. Court documents show Johnson is accused of getting into an argument with McGuire and pointing a gun at him in the lead-up to the shooting. And Thompson, according to the affidavit, was seen getting a firearm from a bedroom closet, then leaving the room, before shots were fired.

After being called to the apartment building on a report of gunfire, police found McGuire sitting on a couch inside with a .45-caliber pistol in his right hand.

Read More from Arkansas Online Here

To find suspects, police quietly turn to Google

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In at least four investigations last year – cases of murder, sexual battery and even possible arson at the massive downtown fire in March 2017 – Raleigh police used search warrants to demand Google accounts not of specific suspects, but from any mobile devices that veered too close to the scene of a crime, according to a WRAL News review of court records. These warrants often prevent the technology giant for months from disclosing information about the searches not just to potential suspects, but to any users swept up in the search.

City and county officials say the practice is a natural evolution of criminal investigative techniques. They point out that, by seeking search warrants, they’re carefully balancing civil rights with public safety.

Defense attorneys and privacy advocates, both locally and nationally, aren’t so sure.

They’re mixed on how law enforcement turns to Google’s massive cache of user data, especially without a clear target in mind. And they’re concerned about the potential to snag innocent users, many of whom might not know just how closely the company tracks their every move.

Read More from WRAL.com Here