My recent count -- as of 2 p.m. -- shows that at least 88 people digg the idea. Good news for Rosa Zheng, the UMR researcher involved in the project.

The same acoustic waves that dolphins and whales use to communicate when they are thousands of miles apart can be used by humans to transmit information wirelessly, says Dr. Rosa Zheng, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UMR. Her research focuses on shallow water communications, a tool needed for environmental monitoring and other efforts. Shallow water communication is faced with additional challenges because signals are affected by waves and reflections off the ocean’s top and bottom surfaces.

PhysOrg and DailyWireless.org picked up on the UMR news release over the holiday weekend.

Posted by Mindy Limback at 02:03 PM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Blogworld has been buzzing about ImThere, an innovative mobile social networking service. Now the service has caught the attention of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, snagging a spotlight in a recent Random Play feature.

UMR student-entrepreneur Benjamin Roodman is CEO of this new networking service that connects subscribers to information about events -- such as concerts, CD launch parties or indie film festivals -- via text messages over their cell phones.

Here's how it works: Users log on to the website and create profiles based on their musical tastes and other interests. Users can post photos in real time taken with cell phones from concerts, write reviews of events and get a text message with a list of events happening in the area, based on their interests.

It's a handy little service to use when you're in the St. Louis area but I'm looking forward to early April, which is when Ben tells me Ramped Media will launch ImThere nationwide. When that happens, I'm so there.

Posted by Mindy Limback at 03:42 PM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While the so-called old media has been slow to pick up on our recent news item about student-entrepreneur Benjamin Roodman's cool mobile social networking service (ImThere), the blogosphere is all over it. Which should come as no surprise, since it involves techie gadgety and connects Internet and cell phone technology. That's the sort of thing bloggers jump on. The mainstream media? Not so much, apparently. Or not as quickly. We think they're missing out on a great story. ImThere could be the next YouTube.

Here's a roundup of blog coverage from the past couple of days:

• A MySpace for the mobile generation, from Smart Mobs, the blog of Virtual Community author Howard Rheingold.

• Tracking friends around music venues, from Wired's blog for music fans, Listening Post.

• Missouri student goes mobile..., from Textually.org.

• One of Ypulse's two mobile social networks to watch. We think it's really the only one to watch, but we admit a slight bias.

Posted by Andrew Careaga at 10:07 AM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Years ago, those groovy mod rockers the Who sang about "going mobile." These days, UMR student Ben Roodman is putting a new spin on the idea with the launch of ImThere, a social networking service that integrates the Internet with cellular telephone technology.

Roodman, a senior computer engineering major from Chesterfield, Mo., is the the CEO of ImThere, which could become the MySpace of the mobile world. It's a social networking
service that connects subscribers to information about events -- such as concerts, CD launch parties or indie film festivals -- via text messages over their cell phones.

ImThere is the first service launched by Ramped Media, a company Roodman co-founded in 2006. He describes ImThere as "a user-driven site that allows people to find things to do, by using either their cell phone or the website."

"We want to be on the forefront of mobile Internet technology,” Roodman says. “Text messaging is the medium that’s going to allow us to get to that point.”

Roodman and company -- which includes some fellow UMR students and one recent grad -- are piloting ImThere in St. Louis with plans to expand it to other markets later this year. Keep tabs on how things progress for this budding entrepreneur at the Ramped Media blog.

Posted by Andrew Careaga at 11:05 AM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Sprint Nextel CEO Gary Forsee, a 1972 civil engineering graduate from UMR, talks about the future of multimedia content on cell phones and other handheld devices in this interview published today on Forbes.com.

Posted by Andrew Careaga at 01:48 PM | Permalink | add to del.icio.us| Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)