Amber alerts were created after the 1997 kidnapping and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman.

Now a technology debuting in 12 US states will extend Amber alerts to mobile phones, e-mail and handheld computers, and could also be used to transmit weather and terrorism alerts.

The system relies on a simple broadcast technology that takes the information into a Web portal and reconfigures it for different types of broadcast.

With the new system, people with mobile phones can sign up for Amber alerts in with county or state authorities. The text of an alert can be shot immediately to local TV news programs’ Web sites, with automatic updates.

Found on Textually.