Facebook App Puts Public Inside Foster Care System

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Each year, more than half a million children come into contact with the foster care system in the United States. Of those, 80 percent suffer from severe emotional problems, according to a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Less than 50 percent receive their high school diploma, and far fewer go into any type of post-secondary education. Those are some of the statistics, but what’s it’s like to walk in their shoes? What’s it like to face the tough challenges and choices these young men and women deal with on a daily basis?

New Smartphone App Aims to Prevent Date Rape

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A recently released iPhone app may help teenagers and college students take a stand against sexual violence, according to Nancy Schwatzman founder and executive director of the app's developer, The Line Campaign, Inc. The app, called Circle of 6, uses GPS and text messaging to alert friends to your location if a date goes bad, or worse. “It is clear that there is a real need, and excitement about how young people can harness the technology they are already using,” said Schwartzman in a recent press release for the new iPhone app. More than 19,000 users have downloaded the app since its release last month. Schwartzman said that by the end of the year, she hopes that the application will be downloaded by an additional 10,000 teens and college students. The Circle of 6 application uses a number of pre-installed short message service (SMS) notifications, which are mapped to six friends or family members on a user's smartphone. Using the phone's GPS friends and family can locate the user.

FBI Releases iPhone App to Help Locate Missing Children

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A missing or abducted child may be one of the most frightening possibilities a parent can imagine. And in those first moments of panic, when every second counts, providing an accurate description of the missing child to authorities is critical. That’s where the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) first smartphone app intends to help. The app, “FBI Child ID,” is free for iOS devices such as the iPhone or iPod Touch and stores important identifying information about your child such as height, weight and hair color. Using the camera on the handheld device, parents may also snap a picture of their child.