GPS Cell Phone in Soda Can Form

Myko writes "PhoneScoop.com reports that Coca Cola has unleashed a new GPS enabled cell phone for a new promo. Apparently the user will push one button which will auto dial a Coke rep that will tell them they won an SUV. They'll then press and enable the GPS and the prize squad will drive to their location with the prize. So the big question is, will the phone give off any residual waves that will allow custom made detection equipment to find the right 12 pack, similar to the tilt and win iTunes trick? :)" We mentioned this last year, but it wasn't clear how the GPS-in-a-can trick was going to work.

Comments

Cola Contests

[bobej1977]

Presumably, they're smart enough to not turn the thing on until you pushed the button. Your coca-cola probably gets bottled in your town or a nearby small town. My town of 100k has it's own bottler. They'll know which districts are getting a can so that their prize patrols can be ready.

On a side note, I went to school with a kid who won a Jeep in the Pepsi contest where each cap had a word and you had to make phrases. The phrase was like 'DO IT' or something. The Jeep had a ton of pepsi stickers all over it and the contract he signed required that he could not sell it or remove any of the stickers for one year. Of course he had to pay the tax on the $20,000 vehicle before they would hand it over. Still better than a kick in the pants, but it's amazing the hoops they make you jump through.

Re:Cola Contests

[SoCalChris]

I won a Honda Civic on the radio a few years ago, here in Los Angeles.

Before I could even take possesion of the car, I had to pay sales tax, title & registration - About $2,000.

In addition to that, the value of the car was added to my yaerly earnings. Honda had to report the value of the car to the IRS. They reported it as being a $21,000 Civic. Of course, fully loaded Civics can be bought for much less than that, so the IRS allows you to do a fair market adjustment, and only be taxed on what you would have paid for the car had you bought it. I was able to knock it's value down to around $15,000.

When I had to do the taxes for that year, the $15,000 added to my income because of the car put me into the next highest tax bracket, and I ended up owing just over $6,000 in income taxes since I hadn't taken out any withholding for the additional income.

I ended up selling the car to pay the taxes, but I had a pretty good, reliable car for almost a year that I put almost 40,000 miles on.

If any one is interested, here's a picture of the car I won. Blink 182 Civic

Inductance detector, i.e. a metal detector

[Jtheletter]

I doubt very much these phone cans will be always on, more likely when you press the button to make the call it also turns on the device so simply waiving an EMF detecting device around a coke display probably won't work.

Still, the phone inside will be conductive, and in fact have an antenna of some sort to transmit the signal. A basic metal detector should be able to distinguish between an empty aluminum can and one containing a gps phone because of the differrence in inductance. Waiving around a beach-sized metal detector might not be such a good idea but it's not too hard to build your own hand-held unit.

Unfortunately this approach would require you to pretty much scan an entire display up close. Anyone with more knowledge of gps and cell phones have an idea of how to detect the components even when they're powered down?

It's not real GPS but GSM location-services

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a complete misnomer that the phone companies have been spewing the past year or so. It's not GPS but rather triangulation of the phone from the cell towers. It's GPS-like in that it can tell you about where you are but it's NOT GPS. GPS requires line of sight to several of the 14 GPS satellites which you wouldn't get inside a building or even in a metropolitan area with high-rise buildings all around.

Nokia?

[earthloop]

Looking at the FCC docs, and this one in particular. The is a photo of the bottom of the can. On the bottom is a label, on this is text that says "Made in Finland". What the betting that the device has been made by Nokia?

Re:lets get to the important Slashdot question...

[Detritus]

If it's like my cell phone, it's a crippled form of GPS. The phone can receive signals from the GPS constellation but it doesn't have the electronics required to decode and process them. Instead, the GPS data is relayed to the cellular company's cell site, which has the equipment needed to calculate your position.