‘Ting’: A PhoneGap based Android application for sharing personal and device information amongst social circles

The advancement in technology has led to the development of innovative things that only a few years back were mere fantasy. With the way technology is evolving, the dependency of people on it to solve everyday problems should not come as a surprise. One such problem that is a huge concern all over the world at present is personal security. At a time when the humanity of humans is at question, everyone is in constant fear of the whereabouts of loved ones. The application stores of different platforms are filled with safety applications that aim at being the personal watchdogs of the users. Having said this, these applications are lacking in a crucial aspect, the sharing of time critical information with others. `Ting-stay connected' is an application that focuses on PINGING vital information among a circle of users such that each member in a circle has the personal information of other members in their circle and can use this information to save the other from a tricky situation. Ting helps the users to stay connected by performing mutual tasks and continuous sharing of information such as current location, battery status and call logs with their trusted set of contacts without any interaction with the application. The application also provides a unique feature called EMERGENCY ALERTS which enables the user to inform family or friends about the problematic situations he or she might be facing. As the application is developed using Cordova and PhoneGap technology, it can be implemented in various platforms like IOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows easily. The paper focuses on the design of TING, its implementation and further compares TING with some existing popular personal safety software.