From the Wired Epicenter blog:

This September, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine will launch the MyHeartMap Challenge, a contest to track down hundreds of automated external defibrillators (AED’s) throughout the city. These lifesaving devices automatically diagnose a person having a heart attack, and if necessary, deliver an electric shock to get the heart beating normally again. AED’s are all over the place: the local gym, gas station, or hotel. But most people don’t know exactly where they are.

And the article goes on:

The idea is to “create the first comprehensive log of AEDs all over Philly,” according to the Penn Medicine news blog. That map would then be available in an emergency – if you called 911 they could tell you exactly where to find the nearest device, or you could look it up immediately on your cell phone.

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The RailBandit transit scheduling application appears in a mock-up on a BlackBerry phone.

RailBandit may look familiar.

Since we reported on the original iteration of the mobile train scheduling software in March - called TrainLogic before it changed its name - the Princeton-based team has been hard at work updating the application. RailBandit’s staff has doubled — to two — and they’ve added a bevy of features and support for more devices.

“We’ve added enhancements to the product that has made it take off,” Barry Engle, RailBandit’s new marketing co-founder tells Technically Philly. “We really want to grow this thing.”

RailBandit now features support for U.S. transit lines in more than a dozen cities, including Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore and San Francisco. Version 2.3 of the transit software dropped in September, with support for most BlackBerry, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG devices. Windows Mobile support is there with a little customization, if you gotta have it.

Trip planning, which previously could only be arranged 24 hours or fewer in advance, can now be executed up to two weeks ahead of time. The application boasts real-time service updates and delay alerts for a handful of operations, including Philly’s SEPTA, PATCO and NJ Transit lines. Users of the software can easily link to Google Maps of station stops, as well.

Engle says that RailBandit has tripled its number of users in the last four months, when the company first started unveiling its 2.0 features.

On an aside, the team is keeping an interesting blog following big transit news stories, too, like this fascinating piece about the secret one-minute delay that New York City commuter trains utilize to give commuters an extra 60 seconds to catch trains.

A six-month subscription to RailBandit costs $7.50 for six months. The two-man crew is currently eying expansions to other mobile platforms like Android and Apple’s iPhone OS.

A quick read of Ben Franklin;s bio will tell you that Philadelphia is home to many American firsts. Now you can add another: the first iPhone-exclusive comic.

According to the publisher, StopWatch Media, “The Carrier” is the first comic available only on the iPhone. That is, it was not also published in print or online. [iTunes link: paid, free]

“The Carrier” is a story about a man who awakes in Thailand to find a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist and must figure out the origins of the briefcase while he regains his memory.

“If you are a fan of the Borne movies, you;ll love it,” says writer Evan Young, who lives near South Street.

The story takes full advantage of all the features available in a programmable, GPS-enabled device. The story’s 35 chapters unfold in real-time. If chapter two takes place 45 minutes after chapter one, it will be available on your phone exactly 45 minutes after you view the last panel of chapter one.

The application also utilizes the iPhone;s push notification system along with the reader’s GPS position to customize messages that relate to the development of the story.

“As you get further into the story you will be invited to a restaurant in your area or a coffee shop,” says programmer (and Evan’s older brother) Geoffrey Young.

The push notification the reader receives when chapter two is available.

For example, when the reader unlocks the second chapter, he or she receives an email and a notification telling him or her the current weather in London compared to wherever they are currently located (see right). The location of the next chapter? London.

Geoffrey says that StopWatch uses the Yelp API to “invite” readers to local restaurants, Yahoo for traffic updates and GeoNames for the weather information.

Despite the new way of presenting the comic, the application did have its challenges. When drawing a comic on the iPhone, none of the art can overlap into adjacent panels as they can in print. The limitation is one of the many reasons that some comic book fans aren’t as receptive to the new form of consumption.

“I find it interesting that many people want to recreate a print experience, and that’s not how we wanted to handle this at all,” said Geoffrey. “We wanted to create this as a new experience.”

“Sometimes the idea flies over some people’s heads,” agreed Evan. “More so to those in the comic industry than those outside it.”

The application has seen a “moderate” amount of downloads with readers downloading the app from as far as Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Hong Kong, and StopWatch offers a free “lite” version for those who are unsure of paying the six dollars.

“You can’t do this on a Kindle [e-reader],” said Geoff, “You would need something programmable and with an Internet connection.” He pauses for a beat and then continues; “I guess we could launch it on [Google] Android for the one person I know with an Android phone.”

Every Monday, Technically Not Tech will feature people, projects, and businesses that are involved with Philly;s tech scene, but aren;t necessarily technology focused. See others here.

Disclosure: StopWatch provided TP with a promo code to download the application for free.

You already know the prepaid market is thick and crowded.

That’s particularly the case for Philadelphia, the largest market in the country that has opened the floodgates to no-contract, unlimited plans, as you can well guess by the advertisements from Metro PCS, Cricket Wireless and Boost Mobile that line SEPTA trains.

As Verizon and AT&T take hold of valued contracted customers, T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel, the parent of Boost, are fighting over lower-margin prepaid plans, so the fight is only spreading.

The competition has at times raged hotly, as even Shawn Glisson, a Boost PR spokesman can admit. But then, Glisson, who had a run with former legendary West Chester electronics and 1980s home computer innovator Commodore International, knows a thing or two about Philadelphia.

He’s now based in the Irvine, Calif. headquarters of Boost, now an arm of Sprint-Nextel, but after the jump, he handicaps the prepaid battle in Philly, tells us what’s next for the market and says something nice about Cricket.

Interview edited for length and clarity. [Full Disclosure: The author is a Boost Mobile customer]

Why has Philadelphia become the battlegrounds for the prepaid battle?

Well, it is, Philadelphia is only one of two major markets that have all three of the big no-contract unlimited competitors, the other being Las Vegas.

…There are a couple things. The demographics lend themselves quite well. The non-contract business used to be focused on individuals who were quite young with no credit and immigrants perhaps, even though now [the market has] matured to cover a large swath of people. The city has some of the best universities and a large educated class, but also a large working class of varying demographics, and that’s part of the attraction.

Has the city government been particularly compliant in letting prepaid carriers come into Philly?

…Well, we’ve been in the Philly market since 2005, so I can’t answer that. For Cricket and Metro, well, the new spectrum auction for� new bandwidth probably helped them enter into the market.

So, it’s a competitive market. Give us your sales pitch on why Boost can be different.

There’s value and quality and the combination about service. J.D. Power recently selected Boost Mobile one of the top [prepaid carriers] when it comes to customer service. That’s a quality network with superior customer service.

Players in the market, including Boost’s parent Sprint, though, have been losing money fast. What’s next?

In the wireless industry, the prepaid space is the hottest market. The industry trend is that prepaid will proportionally outgrow the contract customers. Prepaid already dominates Europe and has half the Asian market. North America is really the anomaly.

…It’s from the American love of credit and buying the future. That, and in past years, the handsets were so expensive, so you’d be buying handset with a contract added on, now even high-end handsets are reasonable so that trend will change…

For years it has been said it would dominate the industry, so you want to be competitive in that space. Look at our grandparents. They changed their behaviors [because of the Great Depression]. Now look at where we are today. Customers will make that turn, and prepaid will have that value.

So who’s your biggest competition?

Well, can I say something you may not have thought of? We have found… we’re competing against the land line companies, too. Instead of having a land line and a cell phone, now you can have an unlimited plan. So, being a replacement for the land line, Comcast and Boost are going head to head.

Where will prepaid go next?

Well, it has been about the densest urban areas for the market’s beginnings, in Los Angeles and Miami, Atlanta, New York and Philadelphia. More and more you’ll see the market reaching out to suburban areas. [Because of demographics and other limitations] that’s where we began, but prepaid is more mainstream now, so there’s this bigger and untapped market outside the urban setting. Historically, West Chester and King of Prussia wouldn’t be targeted for prepaid for core markets. You’ll see that more.

And, we’re watching Sprint buy Virgin Mobile [for the prepaid market] and you’ll see more acquisitions and mergers like that from corporate perspective. The other arena is that, at one time, the no contract service was focused on really basic service, but you’ll see the broad selection of handsets and more and more other offering for things like data services and software service come that historically wasn’t in the prepaid space.

Say something nice about Cricket Wireless.

Well, we’ve enjoyed subscriber growth and Metro and Cricket have too, so I think there is a benefit from the three of us all elevating the knowledge and awareness of prepaid. That might be benefiting the whole market, and, if I can say this, the consumer too.

Every Friday, Technically Philly brings an interview with a leader or innovator in Philadelphia�s technology community. See others here.

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

It was often a place for trivial discussions of various, loosely-tethered topics from the perspective of largely anonymous vistors who often identifited themselves as Philadelphia police officers, their family members and supporters.

But Domelights, the public yet registration-required online community forum targeted for Philadelphia police, also became known for viscous, ugly and arguably racist, misogynistic and homophobic comment threads. Facing a law suit from a black officers group, the site — which is run independently of the city’s police force — was taken down.

At time of writing, the site now features only a purple background with a single, small message: “Until further notice, all Domelights.com services (i.e. forums, galleries, blogs) have been suspended. Thank you. McQ.”

McQ, of course, is an unindentifed Philadelphia police sergeant at the center of the controversy, which follows a rash of allegations of racism against general police institutions. After these allegations, the city took swift action against the relatively low traffic site, denying access to the site on city and police computers, as the Inquirer reports.

The Inquirer also reports that Rochelle Bilal, the leader of the black police group — which is called the Guardian Civic League — has taken on a security force due to threats left on a Domelights forum before it was shut down. No word yet on what action the civic league may take now that it appears their wishes — to have Domelights taken down — have been answered.

[Full Disclosure: While I never posted a comment on the site, I did occasionaly visit it for sheer voyuerism]

After the jump, regional VC investment rebouds, a video interview on reshaping Philadelphia’s future and seven other tech stories you don’t want to miss, including our best read piece of the week.

Ordered by an incredibly complex algorithm rendering importance:

• The Philadelphia Busuiness Journal reports that the amount of venture capital investment rebounded in the second quarter regionally, as it did nationally.
• Peter Key of the Business Journal reports on the 25th anniversary of the first modern cell phone call in Philadelphia.
• The San Jose Mercury News reports that corporations are becoming silly with Web security in the wake of the hacking of Twitter’s company data. Philadelphia’s own of Daring Fireball didn’t take too kindly to Tech Crunch’s reporting of the Twitter internal documents.
• The Business Journal’s Jeff Blumenthal, ever the Eagles fan, interviewed Ron Jaworski for a piece on the former quarterback and current ESPN commentator’s new business venture but made sure to get one good piece of Big Green information.
• The Associated Press reports on a new Twitter account for Jerusalem’s Western Wall, which allows Jews the world over to send their prayers in 140 characters or fewer. Not to be outdone in the crossroad of religious and needless technology, McClatchy reports on a California teen who launches an iPhone application that lets users give out their own prayers and read those of others.
• Plan Philly reports that local and national planning experts will meet at the University of Pennsylvania next week to discuss the development of a comprehensive plan for shaping the city’s growth as an environmental and business friendly region for the future. Below watch their interview with Penn School of Design Dean Marilyn Jordan Taylor.

• Our Most Trafficked Story of the Week: Ten Philadelphia iPhone apps that don’t exist but should

Every Friday morning we make sure you didn’t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

In photo, from left to right: Jack Huston, CEO of VIP Wireless; Aaron Horne, Philadelphia Inspector of Northwest Detectives; Mike Patterson, Philadelphia Eagles; Michael McCloskey, Philadelphia Chief of Police and Edward Williams, COO of VIP Wireless

Boost Mobile opened its first exclusive retail store in Philadelphia on Friday, with all the pageantry of city police middle management and Eagles defensive tackle Mike “PhatPat” Patterson.

The opening came a day after a deadline Boost imposed on itself to correct lingering problems with a delay in its text messaging delivery.

The delays were blamed on the company’s more than three quarters of a million new prepaid customers in the quarter, which beat analyst expectations, according to Sprint’s first quarter financial results.

Boost has led an advertising blitz on the city.

The store near-ish to the Logan neighborhood of North Philadelphia at Broad and Olney is another step in a battle for low-income cell phone users� between Boost, Metro PCS and Cricket, which entered the Philadelphia market in March. Philadelphia is the most populated region with those three largest prepaid mobile carriers.

At Friday’s store opening, Eagles player Patterson, who is still breathing hard after that 98-yard fumble recovery against the 49ers in 2006, presented on behalf of Boost a $10,000 check to the Philadelphia Police Department, benefiting the John Pawlowski Family Memorial Trust Fund.

In February, Pawlowski, who was 25, was shot and killed at the Broad and Olney intersection.

The retail store was developed in partnership with Boost�s national distributor VIP Wireless. The store will sell the company’s complete product line-up, phone accessory items and other merchandise.

There are at least 19 Cricket Wireless-owned stores in Philadelphia, according to regional company spokesman Jeffrey Bodzewski. There are at least 20 Metro PCS locations.

All of that ended quickly.

Last week, we reported City Council created quite a buzz by unanimously passing legislation that would have made illegal the use of mobile devices while driving — unless using hands-free technology. That has some fuming.

PennDOT has called the bill� a violation of the state Motor Vehicle Code, saying cell-phone use legality cannot vary county to county, according to the Daily News.

On Monday, the state House approved legislation which included a provision that would withhold state funds from municipalities that were not in compliance with that vehicle code, according to a press release from the office of Rep. Dick Geist of Altoona, who introduced the provision.

There’s little doubt that’s a swipe at Philadelphia and the funds in question could be state gas tax, which gives Philadelphia in excess of $90 million per annum.

The state House Legislative committee struck down its own cell phone ban last week, but it did pass a bill that would give police the right to fine anyone who was driving carelessly due to mobile phone use. Careless, of course, would be determined by the police officer.

I reported from the Harrisburg state capital for a time, and if I only learned one thing, it’s that legislators outside of Southeastern Pennsylvania hate nothing more than the sway of Philadelphia. They don’t take kindly to our city passing its own laws that interfere with their politicking. That’s why Mayor Michael Nutter, with declining popularity, is going to figure out the political pitfalls before he moves ahead city council’s ban. He’s balked so far, but the bill could have new life if the Nutter administration thinks it can hold water — which it might not.

Don’t worry, though, as ITWorld reported, (h/t to WHYY) more than 20 cities will soon have access to a new TV broadcast format that would allow tube watching easier from the car.

It’s a helluva school project.

While completing MBA degrees at Drexel University in 2006, Chuck Sacco, Doug Bellenger and two others founded PhindMe Mobile, with vague plans on improving the mobile Web-based interaction between businesses and their customers.

Since then, two have bailed and now CEO Sacco and COO Bellenger are leading a small team crafting the future of mobile Web direct-to-consumer advertising.

Sacco, who did his undergraduate work at St. Joseph’s University, has a few technology startups in his past and has learned from them, he said.

“For me, it�s always been about having platforms where you can plug in functions and take them into new markets as the world changes,” he said.

PhindMe, has to be an example of that – one on which Sacco was willing to bet. He and Bellenger put in about $80,000 of their own capital to launch, and last June they borrowed nearly $225,000 more from friends and family, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. They launched in October, and they say they’ll break even as early as June – helped by the national attention they’ve gotten in advertising communities.

Below see how the South Jersey native – who says he has “always considered Philadelphia as home” – describes PhindMe’s future and for whom the alumnus of St. Joe’s and Drexel cheers in Big Five basketball.

Transcript of interview was edited for length and clarity.

1. Tell us about PhindMe Mobile and why we should be paying attention.
   PhindMe Mobile is part of what is an emerging $8 billion mobile web content market.� That market is the massive shift of information from one media – PC-based Web – to another – mobile-based web. But it�s more than just providing a way to get good, relevant content accessible on mobile devices. It�s providing businesses with a way to leverage that content to improve their marketing to an increasingly mobile consumer.
   Since we built a platform to scale in a big way, we�re not going after a small number of big projects. And we�re not trying to be seen as a development tool. For us, it�s really about how to do we make it as easy as possible to get as many businesses using our tools as possible.� It should be as easy as email or blogging.
   
2. So what do you offer customers?
   We have evolved quite a lot since our initial concept. At that time, we were just looking at how to use the GPS feature on cell phones to help consumers find local business information. Even though only a few years ago, this was before the iPhone, before text messaging really took off, and before a lot of the mainstream interest in social networks. Our focus was providing timely and relevant information about any business to consumers.
   From our original concept, we evolved the business model a couple of times, eventually figuring that the core problem for consumers was going to be the lack of readable and actionable-information content about businesses. While businesses have a lot of web-based information, very little of it is natively useful on a cell-phone Internet browser, largely due to the differences in the medium – remember the old adage “the medium is the message.” So we set out to solve that problem by giving businesses a tool to help them deliver content to consumers in a way that is easily digestible and actionable.
3. What is PhindMe’s relationship to Drexel?
   We are big fans of Drexel, especially their LeBow School of Business. Because the original business concept grew out of an MBA class project that later was entered in their business plan competition, we have a strong affinity to Drexel. They have been big supporters, and moving our business into their Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship was a natural choice. We get access to great physical resources, advisers and students who have been a big part of our progress.
4. OK, you’re a big fan of Drexel, but you did your undergrad at St. Joe’s. So, who’s your horse in Big Five basketball?
   I guess my heart is still with St. Joe’s when it comes to basketball. �St. Joe’s has had some great teams over the years, and hopefully they will approach what Villanova has done recently.
5. What is the future of technology and marketing? Can Philadelphia be a major player in it?
   Marketing in the future is going to be mostly about technology. Marketing is a funny business. While there will always be the creative elements, marketing firms are by their nature not very scalable. The big firms can squeeze out margins consistently, and a lot of that has to do with the fact they use technologies in the right way. So I�d like to see Philadelphia focus in that area, determining how we can make marketing a more powerful engine for the economy.
6. What’s your take on the region’s innovation culture?
   The Philly tech scene is emerging as an amazing resource for entrepreneurs, investors and service providers alike. I�m almost getting tired of saying �it�s getting better� because I think it�s getting to the point where it is better. But it is also different. We can�t be like Silicon Valley because this isn�t Silicon Valley. That�s OK, and actually good, because what it means is that we can differentiate on the things that make us unique – people, geography, schools, etcetera. Those unique qualities seemed to have been better defined over the past couple of years by the community.
7. What is the future of PhindMe Mobile?
   Our future is less about cool new features and more about ensuring we have the most efficient ways to distribute our products. Right now we are really focused on generating leads, creating new customers and providing them a great set of tools. Hopefully you�ll see some new distribution deals for us where we get our products into the hands of some big players and become known as the new standard for the mobile web.

Every Friday, Technically Philly brings an interview with a leader or innovator in Philadelphia�s technology community. See others here.

It’s on.

Technically Philly reported Wednesday that Cricket had the world’s largest cell phone outside the the Shops at Liberty Place. Yesterday, Boost crashed the party.

Less than a half hour after Cricket’s promotional team set up its cell phone and surrounding activity for Thursday’s lunch-time crowd, a flatbed truck – depicted above – hauling a Boost Mobile advertisement and playing an endless loop of Boost boosting began circling the Market West corridor.

We can’t confirm that it ever actually drove down the 1600-block of Chestnut Street, crossing Cricket’s path, but the truck’s presence was most certainly known in the dreary drizzle of a Center City afternoon.

Everyone knew this was going to get serious when Cricket announced it was joining the crowded prepaid mobile field in Philly. Now it has.

If anyone sees anymore of this nonsense, let us know. Think Metro PCS will join the fracas?

Expect some more detailed analysis from Technically Philly.

If you see something related to tech happening in the region, e-mail us or send a photo from your mobile device to info@technicallyphilly.com!