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Track a Soda Can with GPS?
I am Kobayashi writes "According to the Indianapolis Star Online, next summer Coca-cola will feature a promotion in which winners will be located by satellites tracking GPS devices implanted in the winning cans.... Hopefully they track you fast before you throw-away (or recycle) your winning can...." And in another bit of Coke news, they've got a new high-tech billboard: jhkoh writes "Reuters/Yahoo is reporting that Coca-Cola has unveiled an 'intelligent' billboard in London's Piccadilly Circus -- at 99 feet wide, the world's biggest -- that supposedly will respond to weather, movement, and SMS text messages. The billboard itself is 52 square meters of LED display. How soon before someone hacks it?"
Wow!
All this while assinating union leaders in developing nations.
Those cola loving fellows are hard workers.
Ciaran O'Riordan
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I didn't read the article, but, generally speaking, GPS receivers don't transmit, and GPS satellites don't track.
Uh... tracking someone with GPS?!? Not likely. GPS is a system that provides satellites in earth orbit, sending out time-stamped signals. A receiver picks up those signals from 3 or more satellites (even 4 or 5) and calculates the position from the time differences. Other sources of information, like wireless network base stations (GSM etc.) enhance accuracy. [end of very rough description]
Bottom line: GPS does not work within buildings. You need to see the sky - or to be more exact, you need a line of sight to at least 3 satellites.
Now, even if you assume that everyone is running around outside holding their cans high up over their head... the coke can would be able to find out its own position (and I'm not even convinced that there are GPS receiver small enough to fit inside a can...) That does not mean that Coca Cola will know the position of the can, because how will the can transmit it's position back to the company? Are they going to fit a cell phone into the can, too??
No, I honestly don't believe the story right now, I need to see that can first.
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
Here's a simular Coca-Cola promotion that went horribly wrong:
The idea was called "Magic Can", you'd open up your Coca-Cola can and real spendable US dollars just might pop out. Of course, the cans with the money in them wouldn't have cola, but instead a device powered by chlorinated water that would propel the bill.
However, the device often got damaged in shipping, and this lead to several cases where a "winner" didn't look before they drank, and ended up digesting the chlorinated water before realizing that their can didn't really have any cola. Their $100 bill would end up getting spent in the emergency room...
Coca-Cola found itself reduced to putting out ads that instructed "winners" how to safely extract the bill in the event of a failed device....
Yup it's true....
Here is how they do it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.