"911, Wh@'s ur emergency?"

The 911 system is planning on going multi-media. The FCC has announced plans to update the 911 emergency system, which will include allowing users to send texts, photos or videos. The enhanced system would be able to make use of geo-location services to automatically pinpoint a user’s location to cut down on response time.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said that these changes have been in the works since the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. The new system, dubbed “NG911,” is in the planning stages, but there’s no timetable for its deployment. At this point, the FCC is just trying to get the technical standards ironed out, and to find out where it will get the funding to develop it.