Smartphones, like many consumer products, arrive in the US on giant container ships, vessels that are leading killers of endangered whales that play crucial roles in the climate and ocean health. Now a high-tech initiative called Whale Safe is detecting the huge marine mammals off the coast of San Francisco and alerting ship captains to slow down to avoid deadly collisions. Launched on Wednesday, Whale Safe aims to create "school zones" for imperiled blue whales, fin whales and humpback whales in busy shipping lanes, according to the project's managers at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California at Santa Barbara and at the Bay Area's Marine Mammal Center. Speeders are caught by satellite surveillance and cited online. That gives consumers the opportunity to see, for instance, if that cruise they're contemplating is operated by a company with a history of ignoring sea speed limits.

Smartphones, like many consumer products, arrive in the US on giant container ships, vessels that are leading killers of endangered whales that play crucial roles in the climate and ocean health. Now a high-tech initiative called Whale Safe is detecting the huge marine mammals off the coast of San Francisco and alerting ship captains to slow down to avoid deadly collisions. Launched on Wednesday, Whale Safe aims to create "school zones" for imperilled blue whales, fin whales and humpback whales in busy shipping lanes, according to the project's managers at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California at Santa Barbara and at the Bay Area's Marine Mammal Center. Speeders are caught by satellite surveillance and cited online. That gives consumers the opportunity to see, for instance, if that cruise they're contemplating is operated by a company with a history of ignoring sea speed limits.