At Home: What’s Your Number?
Admit it: you keep an alternate email for those try-me-free sites that you know are going to fill your inbox with spam. But what about giving out your phone number? Forget telemarketers; simple privacy is a bigger issue than possible annoyance. It’s of particular concern for those navigating the dating scene.
But there’s a new solution. As the CBC reports, new Toronto-based company Tigits ?offers temporary telephone numbers? in an effort ?to make telephone numbers more private? and ?personal experiences like dating a whole lot more secure.?
The president of Tigits dreamed up the idea ?after suffering through a few dating nightmares,? including one in which he told reporters he ?wasn’t comfortable giving out [his] number.?
The service provides users with an ?anonymous second phone number linked to their wireless or home phone.? The number provides anonymity for both incoming and outgoing calls, and can be changed quickly if necessary. For further privacy, users have the option to use a voice prompt to screen callers.
Other companies are taking interest. Communications giant TELUS International president Jeffrey Puritt told reporters that Tigits ?has the potential to quickly become a mainstream offering.?
In the future, Tigits looks to provide the ability to send and receive text messages through the temporary numbers.
Around the World: Give Me A Lift
Urban legends of dumb criminals abound. Those who leave their contact information with their victim. Those whose deliberately ridiculous behaviour gets them nabbed for DUIs. Those who rob crowded gun shops. But not all the stories are questionable. Recently, a pair of German thieves made their own place in dumb criminal history.
As canoe.ca reports, the ?would-be thieves called in their own crime to police . . . after they could not escape from a broken-down elevator.?
The thieves, who had entered an office building and were attempting to rob a destination on a ?higher floor,? decided to take the elevator. Unfortunately, the elevator ?became stuck,? and the two were trapped.
After one of the thieves ?injured his hand attempting to pry open the door,? they used the elevator’s emergency phone to call for help, telling the emergency operators that they ?wanted to break in? but had ?gotten stuck.?
The thieves were arrested shortly after their rescue.
