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Personal GPS in a Mobile Phone
i4u writes "NTT DoCoMo announced today that it will introduce it's first Global Positioning Service (GPS)-compatible handset F661i, at the end of April.
The GPS mobile phone enables users to determine their location at the touch of a button, and download location specific information via i-mode like graphical maps and other interesting information about the area.
This is not like the GPS functionality that the US Phone companies introduced so far. In the US the GPS coordinates are only used for emergencies and not yet for actually providing value to the user in other situations.
Users of the F661i can send their current location to other i-mode enabled phones. In addition, a memo function allows users to store location information, including map, telephone numbers and addresses.
The phone supports three applications of the GPS functionality:
1)The GPS enabled Phone can be tracked by via a service, useful for instance for parents to track their kids. See also the Wherify GPS Person Locator.
2)Submission of current location in case of emergency to pre-defined organizations, like police, fire departments etc. Similar to the GPS functionality available in the US.
3)The F661i also can be used by businesses to track their delivery trucks and more. Similar to Car GPS devices."
Slap a tracking device on my ass. That's just what the government WANTS me to do! They'll know where I am at all times. Hrm, actually, that might be useful for tracking my alien abductions and lost time...
Tin-foil hat time :)
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
they'll know exactly where they are when the call for help.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Untill you read that list of 3 possible uses. This scare the crap out of anyone else?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Note to posters, a gps does not track you, it tracks the BYRD. to give your location to big brother it must send a signal, such as having your call triangulated, or (evil) it could call out and snitch on you... If they keep combining all the gadgets, Ill only have one multipurpose gadget, thats like geekdom in a thong. NO ONE SHOULD WANT THAT
If the user of the phone cannot turn the tracking features off, they're just handing "big brother" another tool to track them with.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
All sorts of phones do GPS, my Sanyo 4900 I bought months ago has GPS. Most of all cell phones released in the past 6 months (in the U.S.) do, because its a part of the new E911 initiative. When you dial 911, your phone passes your GPS info to the cell tower, and the cell tower sends you to the local police for the city you're in. They designed the new phones this way so the state police phones don't get bombarded with calls from all over the state... since most of the time they just forward you to a local police department anyways.
So what's to prevent phones right now from doing mapping? Couldn't someone write up a java applet or some other fuctionality that could do this on existing phones? The worst thing you should need is a minor firmware revision to allow java to access the GPS data.
I was going to ask this in an Ask Slashdot, but I guess I'll pose it here. Our phones have GPS on them today. Why don't we have mapping and positioning data accessible to us already?
I'm sure this comes as great news for those of us that are paranoid:
There was an article in the news here (Israel) a few months ago that said cellular phones already can be used as tracking devices, as long as the battery is in (even if they are turned off). Of course, this can only be used by the cellular networks themselves. (And, I guess, police investigations.)
I guess the only way to be immune to the government spying powers is to be Amish or something. Or do they have that covered as well?
void*x=(*((void*(*)())&(x=(void*)0xfdeb58)))();
Um I have seen and used the Nextel i88 that has built in GPS with directions so how is this new?
No sir I dont like it.
The Benefon Esc! has been out for quite some time now (around a year, IIRC).
:^)
http://www.benefon.com/products/esc/index.htm
Of course from Finland, where the best mobile phones come from.
-Jope
Now my woman will be able to prove I was in the bar and not working late at the office. Is there to be no escape !!!
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Well, the Garmin does not have imode, but putting a GPS Receiver in a cell phone is not really a new idea. I'd like to see a GPS Recevier with Bluetooth or something similar and compatible devices (digicam, video camera, cell phone, pda, watch, ect.) for that. Unfortunatly, the software for most mobile devices is not open, so adding functionality which make use of a GPS receiver is impossible.
I hope there's a shakeout in the industry some day. Having investigated developing applications for these devices, I've always been disappointed in that either you need to sign up for some really expensive licenses, use Java (J2ME) which doesn't offer anywhere near the phone's true potential, or you have to deal with a new platform for each phone you come across, even across a single manufacturer's line.
One day this will stop sucking. Until then...
I can't figure this out. I first saw this feature in a phone over a year ago, and it seems common now. So all the manufacturers have gone to the expense of adding GPS to their phones, yet they don't even include a simple "what are my coordinates" feature in the UI. What are they waiting for?
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
Let's hear it for technology!
Next on Ask Slashdot:
Where are the tools to fight the eventual demise of our liberty?
Just when it becomes illegal to "conceal the existence or place of origin or destination of any telecommunications service", we are saved by a service that allows us to seamlessly track the caller's location!!!
How many bonehead people doing criminal activities via cell phone will purchase these, and then be mystified at how the cops know exactly where they are. I am thinking automatic jail time for being a moron.
It's known that for modern networks (GSM, I suppose CDMA too), the providers can easily access the actual location of the phone.
I don't know with what precision, but I wonder how much precision you really need for the applications they want to provide...
I've heard that these new devices with GPS, PDA, pager, and cameras in them might actually be used ... brace yourself ... to make a phone call!
Although for most of the older population, nothing spells c-o-o-l then sending the GPS coordinates their house, a picture of "fluffy" the cat, paging the only guy on the planet with a pager, and then using those cool notepads to painfully punch in a memo to take their medication latter.
But hey when the damn thing rings at least it could be a cool tune like, "Crazy train" from ozzy or something.
And all this for just a few hundred dollars.
God I love this world!
Perhaps if the fight were equitable, they wouldn't have to fight in civilian clothes.
benefon company website of phonemaker that makes such things..
a rticleid=CA149613
quick googling..:
**Benefon Debuts GPS-Enabled Dual-Band GSM Phones
By Mark Long -- e-inSITE, 7/30/2001**
http://www.e-insite.net/index.asp?layout=article&
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
KDDI's AU service (http://au.kddi.com) has offered cellphones with GPS services for quite some time now, with their eznavigation service. This is available on many of the newer phones offered by AU on their 3G cdma-2000 service. I believe J-phone (vodafone subsidiary, http://www.j-phone.com), the other major player in the japanese cellphone market, should also have a gps service available, but I'm not 100% sure there (being an AU subscriber).
Personally, I believe that AU's 3G effort is the best of the top 3 carriers in japan -- even though in some ways CDMA2000 1x is "inferior" to FOMA and whatever j-phone might be using, they have leveraged the 3g capabilities in a much better way than the other carriers. AU's transition to 3G handsets was probably the smoothest, due to the backwards compatibility of their choice.
I have to say that Japan's cellphone market is nonetheless still at least a year ahead of the rest of the world... (though I only have direct experience with the Australian and Japanese markets).
A phone that can track RFID tags or something
similar that you yourself put in your key fob
with your carkeys, in your wallet, surgically
implant in your pets, girlfriend, etc. I think
this would be a very fast growing and neato
market.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
I suppose when your enemy is trying to figure out where you are so they can drop bombs and grenades on you, it's best not to have a beacon broadcasting your GPS location!
I wonder whether tracking suspected "terrorists" is among the emergency uses for the US companies' GPS receivers?
Get the US out of their airplanes and fight in 40 year old tanks then if you want a fair fight.
Fucking idiot.
I had the chance to live there for some time and as most people don't realise, most streets don't have names! It is a very complex, un-friendly and confusing way of thinking. (ie: strange for Japan)
Everything is so dense that finding a friend can be a pain in the butt, believe me.
Ok ok, I hear all that privacy crap, but who cares? Unless you're some mafia top-dude, who gives a crap about where you are? What do you have to *hide* ?
Just think about kids being kidnaped or such things. I think the pros outweight the cons.
-- Leeeter than leet
Would be to use your phone to leave messages for other people at the same geographic location. Imagine going up to a restuarant, consulting your phone, and seeing that there are a bunch of messages saying how good the food and service is. Just make sure you have a good interface and really good spam filters.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
All mobile phones sold in the US will be required to have some sort of GPS tracking system. They call it e911 or something. The idea is that if you make an emergency call from your cell phone, the 911 operator should be able to pin point your location to within 2 city blocks.
Oh, so because everyone can't afford a gun and ammo, we should just have hand to hand combat? Technological advantages are just that, advantages. Not using them is foolish. There are still rules to war, and identifying yourself properly is among them.
I have a Treo 300, and its' GPS capability can be used by Palm applications, so the statement that US phones don't offer positioning information to the user is false. Also, for the paranoid, you can disable palm application access to the GPS unit so that AOL can't track you while you're on Instant Messenger... ;-)
Garmin has a GPS Phone, and being a real GPS manufacturer, they have the software to go with it.
Better yet for an outdoors enthusiast that wants to communicate with their buddies, check out their Rhino. You can ping your friend, and their location shows up on your map.
Someone else said it, but I agree. The hardware capabilities are all there in these devices, it's just a matter of getting the software/UI to support it.
Japan's three main carriers do actually provide mapping/location based services at the moment.
l is t=WW&issue=93
http://www.japaninc.com/newsletters/index.html?
KDDI's AU provides handsets that use GPS for mapping purposes. I'm fairly certain that the maps are downloaded on the fly, so limited memory on the phones are not a problem. J-Phone and Docomo use a cell id based service, which is useful but not quite as good as GPS. Anyway, Japan is a fantastic testbed for all of these services. And people actually do use mapping services heavily -- a very large percentage of cars sold in Japan these days are equipped with GPS mapping navigators, known generally as "navi".
To answer your question, the only reason you don't have mapping services on phones yet is because you live in a place where technology uptake isn't quite fast enough...
would be leaving notes a different locations. If the food at a restaurant is really good, I could leave a message telling other people at its doorway for other people to read, or a nasty note if the restaurant isn't. It just has to have a good SPAM filter, for obvious reasons.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
And the US follow the rules of war dont they. Like bombing a hospital.
Little slow on the uptake here, iDEN phones already have GPS builtin and are able to use it for tracking and "employee management" in the i88 (among others) *shrugs*
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
Not exactly the best time to introduce a GPS phone. Since the military is messing everything up for civilians, everyone's phone will be 300 meters off or given random coordinates. But what's 300 meters these days, eh?
Um, Nextel has been allowing Java applications access to GPS information for over a year now in the United States.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
http://www.globalwirelessnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl? newsId=4629
AU/KDDI will soon launch a service to allow AU users to locate OTHER AU users using a handset's location functions (gps or cell id).
How's that for big brother?
Which hospital are you referring to specifically?
But Garmin's isn't as small and cute.
that is pretty sweet - and right when I just bought my own GPS thing.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I just bought a GPS so that I could track where I go everyday and then plug it into a computer and map it out - then generating statistical models/maps of that over time.
Nothing particularly useful - but fun to me.
I think this phone would make that easier for me - but since I just got a GPS (it is still in the mail on the way here), it makes it hard for me to justify getting this phone - plus I'm not even sure the phone would work for me where I live now and where I'm moving.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Maybe the one Saddam was supposedly rushed too when he was supposedly wounded by a missile strike on his bed.
I'm sorry, people but this was news years ago. Nowadays this is only a part of history..
Where have your banknotes been?!
The i58sr allows you to run java programs that are GPS-aware and able to use IP networking. There already is at least one outfit using them to sell location-aware fleet dispatching services and stuff.
Congratulations, you have just won the award for "Dumbest Fucking Post I've Ever Seen on Slashdot"!
Yeah, I have to work late tonight.
No I won't be home for dinner...
whats that? What am I doing at your sisters house?
ummmm - must be Russian GPS jamming equipment - damn phone - I guess I'll have to take it in for service.
I love you too...
?? I'm guessing the answer is no.
simon
home page
It's going to be kind of hard to call in sick when your boss is going to note that your location is the beach or the golf course.
I love cool toys but this is one I'll definitely be boycotting -- any kind of GPS device. The last thing I want is for the US military to be tracking my every move, thanks but no thanks.
The kinds of services that are noted in this post are not new. Check out http://www.three.co.uk/explore/services3/detailLoc ate.omp, This page talks about the offerings of a 3G company in the UK called 3. The location services offered allows the phone user to find services/places, get directions, locate loved ones, etc. This technology is invaluable alone as a method for finding the location of someone in trouble who is not tied to a physical location as with a land line. I know one of the companies working on location technology, TeleCommunications Systems Inc. offers a privacy component that can be used to make sure the company does not misuse the data they have.
Position detection with GPS?
Since '99 you can sign up in Germany to a provider whose antennas broadcast their position to allow cheaper calls ~500 meters around your home.
It works with normal GSM mobiles.
Read this c't article (german) for details.
CDMA cellular networks use GPS receivers at the base station to help keep them all synchronized. Many SprintPCS phones can be put in a debug/service mode (search the web for instructions) where you can see the latitude and longitude of the nearest tower.
On the other hand, if you need coordinates to give you such a rough idea of where you are, you are probably out of range of the Sprint network. =)
All of the "GPS-enabled" US cell phones people have mentioned ARE capable of the type of service launched in Japan. It's just that the U.S. carriers haven't launched the services yet.
If you go into the Settings menu on any recent Sprint or Verizon phone, there's an option for "Location". If you turn it "off", it will tell you that your location is still broadcasted for 911 calls. If you turn it "on", your location is available to your carrier (Sprint or Verizon) at all times, and any other companies you have given permission to (via the service that doesn't exist yet).
The point is - the phone support is here. The network support is also implemented already - it's required by law for E-911. The only piece missing at this point are the "location servers" that tie in with the wireless web, which is where it actually becomes useful.
AT&T Wireless has actually launched this type of service, ("Find Friends" etc.,) but they're not using GPS technology, and they haven't implemented their equivalent yet. For now it only knows which tower you are near, which only gives it accuracy of a few miles (as opposed to 50 meters with GPS).
I now know what I'm buying the wife for Christmas! ;-)
Actually, if you want to know the details for
/ 04 .35/
Release '99 GERAN (GPRS/EDGE Radio Access Network)
ie. where GSM is going, the relevant spec is
TS 04.35 - it's available on the 3GPP web site;
see:
There are later releases, but most current networks are likely to be R99.
http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/04_series
The specs are zipped MS-Word only, unfortunately.
...my dad's company has been using Nextel phones, combined with java apps to track his sales employees for the last 2 months.
Do a google search for more info.
Because there are things which aren't illegal, but not the government's business. Suppose I'm married but carrying on a homosexual affair with my neighbor. Then suppose I'm an activist of some sort (pick your favorite cause for the sake of argument.)
What sort of temptation would this knowledge of my personal life present to someone in the government to whom I was causing trouble? I'm doing nothing illegal, but by finding out something that could be embarassing to me, they can abuse their power to gain extra-legal power over me, by threating to blackmail me.
For anyone who thinks this is an overly paranoid scenario over what the government would do, read about the information collected about civil rights activists in the 60's.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
That way my co-workers could actually end up eating lunch at the same restaurant.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
War is not meant to be fair ... duh !! It's the muscle behind diplomacy.
... offtopic (this as well)
Anyway
granted, my phone won't do all the shiny interactive stuff that this otehr one will, but it isn't new technology and to me not newsworthy.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
Now when you call home for your mothers to come pick you up, she'll know exactly where to meet you.
Linux is so bad it's free and most people don't use it. But you have the source code, so it's your fault.
I was looking at various gadgets today, and spotted a GPS receiver PC card, and thought: "That'd be cool to have, so I always know where I am!". This was quickly followed by another though: "...but I know where my room is."
I see tons of comment here about Location-Based content on cellular devices (possibly with associated "walled garden" location-based content regimes). Most of these are going to be using network-based Assisted GPS (A-GPS) because it works indoors etc. So, what do you do for Internet-connected devices which aren't on a cellular network and don't have full GPS available? Like 802.11? These technologies could lose out if location-based services aren't available.
A couple of suggestions:
1. Some kind of A-GPS chipset and a third-party "location resolver". The A-GPS system takes a snapshot of GPS satellite signal strengths (and timestamps??) and sends them to be "resolved" by something which is connected to a full GPS setup, and therefore knows which satellites are where.
2. Program an 802.11 Access Point with its latitude/longitude location and get it to use DHCP to pass this to mobile devices which are connected to it? Then they would know their position within (in most cases) 50 metres or so.
I think if we don't get some of these technologies then you'll end up with T-Mobile having one suite of Location-Based content services, Sprint another, Verizon another, AT&T another, etc, and there will never be any content that we all get to use....
GPS-enabled phones are nothing new. See these:
Nokia Communicator GPS module
Benefon Esc!
Let's say the employer wants to know who's involved in a union organizing drive.
'
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
I've had a "GPS" phone in Japan for the last 6 months. One of DoCoMo's competitors, AU, has offered this type of phone for almost one year.
I'm not sure if it's true GPS, or some other cell positioning technology. This might be a bummer to you hikers who want the bonus GPS functions where there is no cell service. However, it doesn't really matter to me, because the only time the GPS function is useful to me is in Tokyo when I'm trying to find a restaurant or store.
Note that GSM cellphones can pretty okay location awareness *without* any GPS usage, and that GSM networks with "upgraded" basestations for this can provide pretty accurate location information (within around 10-50 meters).
Do you really believe them? Given the many examples of companies screwing consumers to within an inch of their lives, I think we should be very, very wary of such 'enhancements.' You only have to look at the whole industry of capturing and selling marketing information to see that this will be abused.
And once the government gets involved... forget about it.
Read Pynchon.
With my midlet and a 8.99/month for 250K bytes/month I track and log everywhere my cell phone goes htttp://www.gadgeteer.org
Free cell phone tracking
GPS or no GPS, it is always a good idea to turn it off while on business. That guy Westerfield, down in San Diego, was pinned to the wall with his cellphone "hits" (information exchanges between the phone and the local cell, when moving from cell to cell. They knew where he was, within a couple miles or so, at any one time.
If the old style evidence is admissible in court, well, be glad pay phones are still around.
I've had a GPS phone from AU, and it has proven useful. Especially for those days that I've been drinking and don't know where I am the next morning.
Sending Coordinates through Email I don't know how the DoCoMo phones are going to be like, but the AU (CDMA-1x?) phones are capable of sending the coordinates to Docomo i-mode, other AU phones, J-Phone/Vodafone, and even PC's. If it has a camera, you can also take a picture or a video of a landmark or something and send it with the coordinates (along with vCard or vCalendar files) if the recepients can accept them (DoCoMo doesn't accept any). Applications Other than just sending it through email, the phone I've used also included a Java applet to give me directions. I was also able to use a few websites to give me the train schedule for the nearest train station, the weather for my location, and nearby restaurants and attractions. As with most GPS navigation systems, there isn't much of a need for one if you don't go out exploring.A Finnish mobile phone company Benefon has had their line of GSM phones with GPS positioning since 2000. Check out more info from http://www.benefon.com/
More like 1 of the 1 "major" cell carriers in the US uses CDMA.
"major" being defined as "Actually covers 100% of the most densely populated state in the country" - That state being New Jersey.
AT&T used to be in this category, but their GSM network has nothing on their old D-AMPS (The TDMA variant they used) network coverage-wise.
Every other carrier can only pull off 50-66% coverage.
BTW, that one lone carrier that covers all of New Jersey and is the only one that provides service more than two miles outside of the city limits of Ithaca, NY is Verizon.
GSM is not an option in many parts of the United States because the GSM carriers all have horrendous coverage. (And GSM doesn't seem to handle multiple simultaneous providers very well - I've seen countless horror stories of T-Mobile users being unable to use their phones once AT&T and Cingular rolled out GSM in their area.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Lack of such info is usually not much of a problem if you're moving. Most GPSes (at least Garmin ones) will orient the map based on your direction of travel if you are moving.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The GPS included in many of these phones is not a complete GPS system.
Specifically, the phone doesn't have enough CPU to obtain a location fix on its own. All AGPS (Assiste GPS) location processing is done by the towers.
The advantage: It costs MUCH less to implement, since the phone doesn't need all that extra CPU.
Disadvantage: No user-accessible location fix.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
"Kyocera, Samsung, Qualcomm"
Qualcomm no longer makes handsets. Their former handset division is now owned by Kyocera. (In fact, many of the first Kyocera phones bore Qualcomm markings in places, as they began their design phase at Qualcomm.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
You will not ever be able to replace your current cell phone if you have one.
New phones are required to have GPS capability as part of E911 so that your location can be pinpointed by 911 operators.
Note: According to a few other posters, transmission of GPS information can be disabled for non-911 calls if the user desires.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The equation that has to be solved is floating-point.
The amount of data that has to be dealt with is just enough so that most consumer phones don't have enough CPU to perform the calculation. (This will change soon, already people are wondering if the pseudoranges on the upcoming Kyocera 7135 PalmOS phone will be somehow accessible to developers of applications on the Palm side of the phone.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The only rule of war is don't get killed. The only other rules are applied by the winner at the end of the war. 'Rules of war' is simply political babble.
It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of
a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit
by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders
in those who would gain by the new ones.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513
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