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Samsung Releases GPS Phone
To save everyone from downloading that PDF file, here's the relevant section (innovative capitalization and punctuation in the original):
"America's First GPS Enabled Wireless Phone Designed to Support Location Based Services of the Future Imagine having a phone that can use GPS technology to provide you with....
- Driving directions
- Traffic service
- Entertainment/services location
- 911 emergency location services
- Location of family/friends
Location services for 911 calls are not currently available. While these services are not available today (or) (are still under development), this leading edge phone has the technology required to support such network based services upon their launch.
Settings
The settings allow you to turn the Position Location ON or OFF. If the option is turned OFF, the Sprint PCS Network cannot locate your position using the Position Location feature. This option is automatically turned ON when an emergency call is placed, then turned back OFF when the call is completed.
To turn Position Location ON or OFF:
1. Press for Main Menu.
2. Press for Locator.
3. Press for Settings.
4. Read the Position Location disclaimer by using the Up & Down arrows.
5. Press to display the Setting screen.
6. Press the Up or Down arrows to cycle between the available choices.
7. Press to Save and exit.
We all knew this was going to happen. It begins, wearable, trackable equipment... It can turn itself on? That can't be good.
Jim
I'll bet you could hack the phones to relay a different GPS coordinate than they're located at. Imagine prank calling someone and they do a trace, only to see that you're somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean...
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
They could combine a GPS-enabled phone with a scent-detecting device. At some point in time, it'll detect the presence of burning bud and have a pizza delivered to wherever you happen to be.
Ooohyeah.
Notice that the story says America's first GPS cellphone. Having said that I'll bet that >80% of Slashdot readers are from the US, 10% are Canadian, and then 10% "Miscellaneous", so get use to a fair number of US-oriented posts.
Moe finally tracks Bart prank calls cuz he used Homer's Samsung phone with GPS enabled on by default. :)
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Of course we're all waiting for the day when even more is integrated - and it'll come fairly soon. It takes very very little more to add a voice recorder, an MP3 player, and user programmability (via something like Java). You could program it to track your kids and phone in their location every 15 minutes. Haha, the heck with privacy from the phone companies, how about the parents???
It will take a bit more for a fully functional computation device - that'll take some seious improvement in user interface technology for small devices. We're still a ways away from big displays on an ever shrinking device - I think it's time for the paradigm shift to kick in away from LCD displays - and cell phone technology is just the incentive. As long as those patenteers stay away from monopolizing good ideas!
How about offering one of those to Osama bin Laden and his followers? Don't they need one to keep in touch with each other?
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
Okay, you have a Samsung phone that can pinpoint your location (should you choose to let it)...
In Portland, OR (I used to live there), they have some of these electronic billboards that can cycle through a set of animated advertisements. Imagine having a number of these everywhere, that could automatically change their ads based upon who happens to be standing around or driving by...
Scary or kinda cool (from a tech standpoint anyway)?
-----
"You spilled my egg... I needed that egg."
And with a bit of work could lead the cops to your stolen phone/goods. Would be nice to have a GPS modem as well for tracking stolen hardware.
make Linux, not Microsoft. sin(beast) = -0.809016994374947424102293417182819
Since many (most?) Slashdot readers are in the US, this seems to be a perfectly appropriate article. Also the first sentence even states that
"...Samsung today announcing the release of 'America's First GPS Phone.'"
It's not like anyone's trying to pretend this is some totally new tech that's never been seen. It's just new to us.
---
Carbonite
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
privacy concerns need not worry. According to the manual (p122, large pdf file)
the user does have the ability to turn the 'Position Location' off.
I'm one of those with privacy concerns, but this phone does nothing to allay my concerns.
I want to use the nifty features but still have my privacy. Why does the deal have to be "use the feature and be abused by having the information used without your knowledge?" Why can't seemingly smart people figure stuff like this out?
The Nobel Prize (that's like a +1 Informative) in economics was awarded today in part for the research that showed how one side of a transaction having information that the other side doesn't have can tilt the balance so far that the market fails. I'd like to be able to walk into a shop and negotiate a price that is not based on full knowledge of my movements (perhaps at a competitor) being revealed.
yes, I could turn off the service, but that is a Luddite response which has nothing whatever to do with protecting privacy. Please God, make people smarter: privacy entails a lot more than checking "Jedi Knight" on the census form, or being able to unplug a solid state disk drive when the black helicopter people come through the front door. It's about being able to enjoy the fruits of the modern economy without being abused.
If it's an evil plot, rest assured it isn't a corporate one. The FCC's requirements for E911 service are putting a whole lot of pressure on the cell providers, who face stiff fines and executive action if they can't use their phones to track you by 2005. If you think that the FCC is overstepping it's bounds with this one (I personally thing a regulated spectrum is an overstepped boundary, but that's just me) you know what to do.
I rejoice that there are owls.
I find it strange that this phone boasts that it's the world's first GPS-enabled phone, yet the GPS features only take up two pages of text in the manual, and one of those is the title page.
... it turns them back on for the duration of any emergency calls. Aside from 911, how would the phone know what constitutes an emergency phone call?
Also, the manual mentions that if you've got GPS features turned off
"Hi we're just calling to let you know, Vinny and 'Low Blow' McGurk are on they're way to break your legs at the corner of 99th St. and 101st Ave, please stand by"
crazy dynamite monkey
I think that tracking should always be on! It would help prevent terrorism!
Prehaps congress should institute legislation which requires all cell phones to have GPS technology built in. And digital music protection, just to be safe.
who wants to step up to the plate and give me ONE irrefutable reason why ANYONE would NEED a GPS-Enabled Cell Phone?
Because you just got hit by a car/had a heart attack/(something in danger of dying or loosing consciousness)/had a stroke/are having a seizure and you use your cellphone to call 911, but pass out before you can tell them where you are, or you simply don't know where you are.
Wow you're gonna get flamed for this one...
In case you've been living under a rock, it's now madatory that all cellphones have GPS tracking capability because of the number of people who have phoned 911 on their cellphone and 911 hasn't been able to track their locations so the emergency people can get there to save their lives.
And it does have usefullness... I have a GPS hooked up to my laptop in my car, and it displays on the map exactly where I am. IT's 1 step away from being able to tell me to "turn left in 500m" and give me all directions, and I never get lost anymore. Someone gives me their address and I immediately know how to get there. Having it in your cellphone can provide the same benefits.
If God gave us curiosity
A five-minute reading of any basic book on Astronomy will teach you how to find your location anywhere on earth, day or night.
If it's that easy, I'm sure you wouldn't mind explaining it to us. Please demonstrate how to find longitude and latitude with just astronomical knowledge, both night and day.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
is that tracking is turned on by default. Why do I think this?
I'm sure I'm NOT the only one (by far) who thinks this way, but here goes anyhow: They have a huge opportunity to collect detailed market data if they leave it on by default. For now, this probably isn't a huge deal, but you can bet they'll get very good very quickly at mining the data.
Next thing you know, you wake up one morning to a mailbox full of pizza coupons (sent by various partners to your cell provider), due to the fact that you skipped into a Pizza Hut the night before to say hi to a few friends.
Just FYI, I'm not trying to be truly extreme here. I personally love the possibilities opened up by this technology (gotta get me one of those). I'm just typically a bit wary of the marketing implications of anything like this. Thoughts? Flames? Please send on, I'm looking for other perspectives here.
There's an AIM chat client. But if the person you're chatting with sends to you while you're composing a message, you lose the message.
The voice dial feature uses a completely separate phone book from the regular dialer. So you have to put in some numbers twice.
Despite all the connectivity features, you simply have to enter phone book info by hand, period.
There's a handy little button to turn the bell into a vibrator, so you won't get lynched if your phone rings in the movie theater. Except that button only controls voice calls...
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I think it's safe to assume that the GPS part will never do anything really useful. Maybe someday, Sprint will get it together enough to have the phone say, "Hey, you want Szechuan? The Blue Lotus is 2.3 kilometer's NNE!" But I'll lay money they'll never get this tied into your Mapblast account!
Here's one. Recently while traveling, my mom fell down and broke her leg. Since I didn't know the area, I called 911 and asked for the location of the nearest hospital, figuring I could give them my exit number and have them guide me in. Interestingly enough, they had access to know the Cell node I was calling in from and after being told the highway I was traveling on, said, "OK, in about 5 seconds you should see such and such a sign, exit there..." and guided me in. I can see a situation where people in more serious situations could be benifited. Also there are times when you have an emergancy and can't talk, like a robbery. Most cell phones now have a "Push and hold" emergancy code (usually the 1 key. push and hold it for 3 seconds and it auto-dials 911). Combined with GPS, this could be very useful. Also first on the scene of an accident, instead of giving confusing, and possibly wrong location info to fire/amb/police, they can read your GPS loc. Handy.
/.er :)
The privacy problems are of course, left as an exercise to the
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Here is a thought. Have people voluntarily turn on the GPS tracking feature (not me). When the user makes a call, have Sprint monitor the strength of the signal and the location of the reciever. If you do this enough, with enough people, you can make an accurate map of signal strength across the country.
Then, when RadioShack tells me that SprintPCS will work in XX area (which I know is not the case most of the time), I can show them a map and say, "In fact, no. Look at the map!"
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Ah well, I'll answer for you: you can't.
To find longitude and latitude, you need 1) an accurate clock, 2) a sextant, 3) a book of astronomical tables, and 4) a calculator (or more tables). Given that you need to carry all that, I think carrying the GPS is a little easier.
Apparently someone didn't watch the movie "Longitude". Pretty good movie, actually. :)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I read an article in Wired a while back that the folks over at MIT's "Oxygen" project are working on a way to use these phones as a type of realtime cursor. They say that with an electronic compass and GPS (military grade), you would be able to point your phone at a building and the phone could tell you information about the building. The example they cited was a restaurant where the phone gave you the menu for the restaurant from out in the street, and offered you the chance to make a reservation. I thought it was pretty cool.
Of course, if I think about it hard, maybe that isn't such a great idea. I can just picture what the cell phone would say about my house in five years:
Address: 1313 Mockingbird Lane
Phone: 699-555-1212
Type: Residence
Owner: LDOPA1
Currently: Masturbating
I don't think I want that to happen...
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
How does this crap get modded up as "Insightful"? Try "Uninformed".
As a previous poster pointed out, the GPS features is required by the FCC for the cases where several lives could have been saved if the dispatcher only knew where the caller was.
1) Paper maps don't help you when you're dying of a heart-attack and can barely stand up.
2) Paper maps don't help you when your house is on fire and you'd rather the dispatcher just figured where you were and sent help there.
3) Being able to buy a paper map doesn't help you when you can barely stand up because you've been stabbed in the back.
Gee whiz.
Mmmm.. Donuts
If I remember correctly, the first commercial GPS cellphone was the NaviTalk by Garmin . It was released a few years ago, and was recently updated.
-john
Since many phones are used in cities, RF propagation is not the same when you have dozens of buildings to reflect RF from. And you can't really use signal strength as a distance indicator, either, because signal strength can be dependent on which cell tower the steel in your car is blocking the signal from reaching.
There's just too much noise (RF) to depend on this anywhere line of sight degrades. Not to mention the long stretches of freeway out in the country where one tower may be the ONLY antenna that can reach the cell phone, regardless of strength.
John
John
As long as the bet is based on American currency, right?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
It would have been pretty sweet if I could have called my cell provider, asked them where my phone was, and sent the cops to pick up the perps and my vehicle.
That LoJack thingie is a good idea, but GPS location under *my* control for *my* property is something I'd definitely buy.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
More interesting are the issues around release of location information, how would /. Readers respond to these questions?
Would you be prepared to release your location when making calls, in much the same way that your phone number is currently released. Your location could only be read by those with appropriate equipment. We will probably be required by law to release this information on all emergency services calls (999, 112 911)?
- No, I would not want my location released at all. (except emergency calls)
- No, Normally not released, but I would be able to release it by selecting an option when making a call.
- Yes, but only to services approved by (My network operator).
- Yes, released on all calls, except when I specifically specify not to release the location.
- Yes, released on all calls.
Would you want the location of callers calling you (who have released their location) displayed on your phone display?- Yes, display the grid reference of the caller.
- Yes, display the direction and distance of the caller from my current location.
- Yes, display the nearest town name to the location of the caller.
- Yes, but only if the information was provided free of charge to me.
- No, I would not be interested in this.
. Would you allow the release of you current location to a caller who is calling you?- No, I would not want my location released at all.
- No, Normally not released, but I would be able to release it by selecting an option.
- Yes, but only to services approved by (My network operator).
- Yes, released on all calls, except when I specifically specify not to release when answering the call.
- Yes, released on all calls.
.
Would you allow the tracking of your phone to enable (My network operator) and other companies to extract statistical information on your movements for providing information on traffic congestion and other services. All identification information would me masked so it would not be possible to identify you from this data?- Yes. I would trust (My network operator) to manage this information securely.
- Yes, Only if I then had access to the traffic information.
- Yes, but I would want to select who received the information about me.
- No, I would want to opt out of this sort of service.
- No, I don't think (My network operator) should collect or release this information..
Would you want (My network operator) and other companies to send you information messages about events happening near to you?- Yes, only when I requested them.
- Yes, as soon as they happen and I am in the area.
- Yes, but I would want to select which companies information I receive.
- No, I would want to opt out of this sort of service.
- No, I don't think (My network operator) should collect or release this information..
Would you be interested in a find a friend service. The network would look thorough a list of your friends numbers to see if any of them were near you. Only friends on your list would be able to find you?"1 step away?"
It tells me turn left in 50/40/30m etc (countdown)
via the screen and also SPEAKS the intructions.
I'm in Canada, so the mapping software that I have is patchy at best and doesn't support the text features, but I know that there are ones that do =)
Yes, it is quite cool and fun! Great toy indeed.
If God gave us curiosity