Syrians download new app that gives them signal anytime they are about to be hit by a missile

The technology was designed by Dlshad Othman, who is originally from Syria

A 27-year-old software engineer claims to have developed an app which tells people in Syria if they are about to be hit by a missile.
The app allegedly tracks when a Scud missile is fired and by using a formula involving trajectory and speed, it can calculate where it is likely to land, he says.
Warnings are then sent to people who have downloaded the app telling them to seek shelter. 
The technology was designed by Dlshad Othman, who is originally from Syria.
Mr Othman attended a conference hosted by Google in New York this week where he spoke about the device. 
Emails are then sent to the website www.aymta.com which tracks the position of the missile and where it is likely to land. 
Mr Othman said he believes his website is the one of its kind in Syria. The word 'aymta' is Arabic for 'when'. 
The engineer said he remembered a friend posting Facebook in north Syria that a missile had passed over head which gave him the idea for the website. 
He says the website took him two months to design and it was officially launched in June.

Information is gathered by seven spotters who are located in the hills outside Damascus. 
The spotters are all volunteers and according to Mr Othman it takes eight to 12 minutes for a missile to reach a northern target. 

Technology: The engineer designed the website www.aymta.com (pictured) which tracks missiles

The activist fled Syria in 2011 after fears he was going to be killed. He had been serving in the Syrian Army. 
He now lives in Washington D.C. and is hoping to adapt the app for other countries.
This week residents in a town besieged by President Bashar al-Assad's forces appealed to the world to 'save us from death' in an open letter describing desperate conditions and suffering.
Hundreds of men, women and children in Mouadamiya had died and thousands had been wounded, they said.
Mouadamiya, on the southwest outskirts of the capital Damascus, was occupied by anti-Assad rebels last year and the government has been trying to win it back since then.

'Save us from death': The residents of Mouadamiya begged the world for help as the country remains in turmoil

'For nearly one year, the city of Mouadamiya has been under siege with no access to food, electricity, medicine, communications, and fuel,' said the letter, distributed by the opposition Syrian National Council today.
'We have been hit by rockets, artillery shells, napalm, white phosphorous, and chemical weapons,' it said.
The writers, who did not give their names, said they had managed to find enough power to run a computer and connect to the internet to send the letter.

Conflict: President Bashar al-Assad speaking here during an interview 

The SNC said nearly 12,000 people face starvation and death in Mouadamiya. About 90 percent of Mouadamiya has been destroyed, few doctors remained, and residents were eating 'leaves of trees.
The government says the residents of Mouadamiya are being 'held hostage' by terrorists, the term it uses for armed opposition groups. It denies using chemical weapons.
United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said last week that despite the government evacuating 3,000 people this month, thousands more remain trapped inside Mouadamiya.
She said that United Nations teams had been denied access.
Local doctors say hunger has become severe in recent months.
More than 100,000 people have died during the war, which started with peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule in March 2011 then escalated into a civil war with sectarian overtones.
Western powers have mostly backed opposition forces while Russia and Iran support Assad.
Moscow and Washington are planning to hold peace talks in Geneva next month but the warring parties have not expressed a willingness to compromise.
Culled from DAILY MAIL