Here's What's Awesome: Elephant Text Messages, Bank Robbing 2.0

Welcome back to Here's What's Awesome! Each week we toss a few links your way to go just that much further into the world of the new. Get someplace comfortable, sit back, and join us:

GTR, elephant coming
If you're looking for innovation in mobile communication, Kenya's not a bad place to look - I often see stories of new media experiments there using mobile phones. On the other hand, keeping your subsistence farm safe from raids by hungry elephants in Kenya is still tricky. So how can the former help the latter? By using elephant text messages - that is, attaching devices to elephant collars that send text message warnings to nearby farmers that an elephant is heading their way. Rangers also receive the message and they head the elephants off, encouraging them to look elsewhere for food. This appears to be working well for both farmers and elephants, who have been on a collision course as human population grows and elephant habitat shrinks - over time the elephants avoid the farms, keeping them from being shot by farmers, while people have a lower risk of their crops being wiped out. No word on whether the two sides will share ringtones, though. [SFGate]

Crowdsourcing Becomes Crimesourcing
Craigslist makes a pretty constant effort to warn people against scams in their online classifieds, but I think even they couldn't have imagined a robber using the web's "power of crowds" to mask his getaway:

a Craigslist ad was placed last week, offering road construction work at $28.50 per hour in Monroe, WA, a city northeast of Seattle. About a dozen men replied to the ad, and all received instructions to show up outside a Bank of America wearing a yellow vest, safety goggles, a respirator mask, and a blue shirt.

As the men gathered outside the bank within the proper attire, however, another man wearing the same getup used pepper spray on a guard transporting cash from an armored truck into the bank. The suspect grabbed the duffel bag, ran 100 yards to Wood Creek, and made his getaway (floataway?) on what police believe to be an inner tube.

As new technologies grow and mature, so do the ways that people attempt to use them for less-than-honest purposes - which is why, for example, we're now seeing attempts to send spam to iPhone users. As the web gets deeper into crowdsourcing, we can expect to see more of this activity - not necessarily ending with an innertube getaway, though. [ArsTechnica]

The V-Chip for Cars?
At age 16 the state gave most of us licenses to drive, but our parents added a few extra conditions to that newfound freedom. In my case, I had to say exactly where I was going and with who, and I had to be back by curfew. Now whether you're parent or child, everyone realizes these deals are really bound by the honor system, that once a teen gets those car keys, Mom and Dad can't make him or her drive safely or avoid untoward destinations.

Until now. Ford is now offering MyKey, a system that acts sort of like a V-Chip parental control that blocks certain TV channels and shows. When a teen driver uses a MyKey, the car has limits on both speed and stereo volume, and bugs the driver if he/she isn't using a seatbelt. It's unclear if MyKey will really help younger drivers stay safe, but some of them seem ready to try - polls show teen drivers were willing to accept MyKey's limitations if it meant they could use the car more often. [Autoblog]

Now it's your turn. Share an awesome link in the comments, or at least share a story about a time you took the car somewhere your parents didn't approve. We won't activate the Word of Mouth MyKey until you post.

(Photo by iaindc)