San Diego-based Jitterbug, the simple-to-use wireless phone and services provider, says today it has acquired MobiWatch, a startup in Waltham, MA, developing mobile personal emergency response services. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Jitterbug says the deal will provide its users with personal safety services that are intuitive, reliable and deliverable through its Samsung-made clamshell cell phone, which features a simple interface and keypad that especially appeals to seniors. As we reported in March, the business operates as a subsidiary of GreatCall, co-founded by wireless pioneer Arlene Harris as an antidote to the excessive complexity of many 3G smart phones. GreatCall operates as a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNA, an independent company that provides mobile phone service but does not have its own licensed operating frequency.
GreatCall officials would not comment beyond the press release. As MassHighTech reported last year, MobiWatch was developing a fob-like Bluetooth-enabled device that a user could attach to a keychain. In an emergency, the user would push the dime-sized button on the fob, which would launch the Bluetooth connection to the user’s cell phone to call an emergency response center. An operator at the center would determine the nature of the emergency, use GPS to locate the caller’s location, and contact the appropriate authorities.
Jitterbug says it plans to further develop the MobiWatch technology before bringing it to market.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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