New relationship pairs leading Parental Intelligence system with top geolocation platform
REDLANDS, Calif. & ARLINGTON, Va. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — June 17, 2013 — uKnow.com, the leading creator of Parental Intelligence systems announced today that it has partnered with Esri, the world leader in geographic information systems (GIS) and provider of the powerful platform for next-generation location-based services, to launch a revolutionary new family locator service – uKnowLocate™.
uKnowLocate has been fully integrated into uKnowKids™, the industry leading service for digital parents as well as all of uKnow.com’s private label Parental Intelligence systems in use by leading Internet service providers, identity and reputation service providers, desktop security companies and others.
uKnowLocate is the first family locator service which combines location data from social networks popular with teens and tweens using Wi-Fi positioning systems (WPS), global positioning systems (GPS), and assisted GPS (A-GPS) from iPhones and Android devices into a single offering. In addition to enabling parents to see their child’s last location, uKnowLocate delivers a host of revolutionary features which parents can use to stay better connected to their family, to simplify digital parenting, and to keep their children safer online and on the mobile phone.
One of the most compelling features of the uKnowLocate app is its geofencing capability, powered by the Esri ArcGIS Online platform’s GeotriggerSM service. Parents sign into their uKnowKids account, access a Family Map and draw a virtual fence around a location of interest using their mouse (or finger on supported devices) such as the home, school, mall or a friend's home. They can then configure customized alerts which they will receive when their child arrives in or departs from the geo-fenced location. uKnowLocate also enables scheduled, recurring check-ins, one-time check-ins, on-demand location updates, and visual location histories.
In the past, location apps have been notorious for draining smartphone batteries which can lead the smartphone users to disable location services in an effort to preserve battery life. This creates a unique problem for parents seeking to locate their child because teens and tweens are often away from charging sources for longer periods of time than adults. uKnow.com has designed uKnowLocate with the specific habits of teens and tweens in mind. Leveraging Esri’s Geotrigger service’s proprietary “adaptive tracking mode” technology, uKnowLocate utilizes as little battery life as possible while still gathering the needed data.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with Esri and to leverage their unique geo-location features to create revolutionary, new services for our customers and their families,” says Steve Woda, president and CEO of uKnow.com. “Our new uKnowLocate features make the uKnowKids service even more useful for parents and will help to give them even greater peace of mind as their children grow to be independent users of technology.”
“We take great satisfaction in knowing that our platform is being harnessed by uKnow.com to provide parents and guardians with tools to keep their children safe,” says Robin Jones, director of Esri’s Platform Adoption Team. “uKnow has created an exceptionally useful suite of products for today’s busy parents, and we are proud to enable them with a new set of capabilities for tracking, monitoring and automatic notifications.”
About uKnow.com
Parenting is hard. Digital parenting is harder. uKnow.com makes digital parenting easier, and keeps kids safe from bullies and bad guys online and on the mobile phone. uKnow.com powers the world's leading Parental Intelligence systems for the parents of digital kids including uKnowKids™, Family Sense™ from XFINITY®, SocialScout™ from Identity Theft 911® and others.
About Esri
Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS technology, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at esri.com/news.
Contact:
Esri
Brian Peterson, 909-793-2853, extension 1-1283
Cell:
612-325-0470
Email Contact
or
uKnow.com
Callie
Harris, 703-348-5010 ext. 700
Email Contact
