AT&T is doing its part to reduce accidents and fatalities caused by people texting while driving by creating a mobile app to stop the illegal and dangerous activity. As part of its campaign, the American telecom giant also allowed participants at a Los Angeles hackathon to develop their own apps to solve the problem and announced a cash prize for the winner. After all submissions had been accepted and reviewed the winners were announced to be 11-year-old Victoria Walker and her partner David Grau, who is a creative director and designer. The team named the app Rode Dog and AT&T awarded the duo 20,000 dollars to complete the app and then publish it for public consumption.
The mobile app works in much the same way as seat belt alarms and makes a noise when it detects the smartphone owner using the device to text while driving. Rode Dog allows friends and family make “packs” or groups that will then monitor each other’s texting. If one of the “pack” members catches the other sending a text message while driving, they can cause a barking noise to permeate from the offender’s phone. This will not stop until they acknowledge the app and stop texting.
The young app developer and her partner also added a shop within the app so that users can change the dog bark to another animal noise like a chicken clucking. The safety app is not yet completed but the team is working on completing the app soon for delivery on iOS, Android and Windows Mobile. People who want to track the Rode Dog launch can do so on the webpage developed by the team that has a sign up form.
Source: LA Times