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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.
I had a tin can phone when I was a kid using the latest in string technology. The range and clarity still beat my cell phone today.
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.
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
I doubt there's going to be anything given off by this phone when it's not in use. Afterall, does a cell phone that's turned off give of any energy that can be detected?
Aside from weight, which will obviously be different on the case that has the phone in it compared to the case that does not, WHERE is the phone being placed? Inside an empty can with a different style lid? Or is the phone can-shaped, to prevent the case from making "noises" or rattling that a normal case wouldn't make... in any case (no pun intended) the case will be different. Though I do not support cheating the game.
You're embedding electronic devices in soda cans now?!? You just ruined my best source of tin for my hats, Coca-Cola.
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
How will the "no purchase necessary" part of this promo work? I can't see them mailing out cans to people who send in a postcard... or are companies not required to do "no purchase necessary" anymore?
Time to hack this thing to bits! I want free phone calls, I want war-dialing, I want lots of l33t g00t13s!
-Imidazole2
Now all you'll need is that the car will include a red button that, when pressed, will send your location to Coca Cola and a person comes to deliver you a ice cold can of coke!
*BRAAAAAP*
So, for $200,000 or so, Coke gets to find out the location of every coke drinker who presses the GPS beacon button...sounds like a steal to me!
Do i get to keep the GPS enabled phone!?!?!?
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
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
I can imagine flight attendates augmenting the usual shpill:
We ask at this time that you turn off any cell phones, laptops, PDAs and GPS-enabled soda cans....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Or maybe the battery is only activated when the user holds in the Big Red Button on the front of the phone.
I can't imagine that Coca-Cola didn't think of all the ways to cheat the system after the McDonald's contest fiasco from a few years ago.
Take can to sandy Beach. Click, call win the SUV. Throw can into sea. Watch coke reps do a yellow submarine job out into the pacific. Call papers ahead of time watch the event.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
The artical says GSM phone.....what if you live somewhere that has no GSM coverage? I mean, if you aren't near a coast or a heavily populated area, you kinda screwed no?
/all spelling errors intentional
Then again, I'm sure they'd just have you call some number otherwise...
I really should think before I post.
Kiss my shiny metal ass
I'd get the winning can while boarding an airplane.
(Me, opening can:) Hey - I think I won!
(Flight Attendant:) "At this time, please turn off all personal electronic devices.
Your flight crew will inform you when it is safe to use approved electronic devices in flight."
(Me:) --AARRRGGGH!
This sig is a test. If this had been an actual sig, you would be reading something quite a bit wittier than this now.
Back in Junior High. I put my 50 cents in the machine, and out popped a slightly larger can with some red markings on it. (not a regular looking coke can.) I pulled the top off, and inside was a Coke T-Shirt and 50 cents to get another coke. Pretty cool back when I was in junior high, but I kind of wish it was an SUV.
...a beowulf fridge pack of these!
Best read in good ol' Monaco 9 point.
...with an attached Pringles can.
Grab a few cases before you make that trip up Everest. Just the chance of winning and making them follow you up would make the attempt worth it.
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?
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
"Don't you see? Its a PHONE, but... get this... wait for it...
its shaped like a CAN! "
"Brilliant!"
"We can leverage the market paradigm of trans-shifting beverage consumption and need-to-speak!"
"The Beer Can Holder Hat Demographic will eat this up!"
Marketing ASSHOLES.
I cant wait for the prize SUV to be delivered to a drunken teen party where kids are drinking off half the can and then refilling it with whatever booze that managed to steal from their parents.
s'wut i sed.
For the technical questions. I'm sure it's going to be similar to existing avenues of phone distribution. The phone is shipped with the battery seperated for safety and electrical reasons. You plug the battery in and the phone will register. The FCC and manufacturers have deemed that cell phones come on with GPS enabled. This ONLY sends the info within the cell phone's system, and if your municipality is equipped then it goes out to E911 when you place a 911 call. Even though the GPS feature is now FCC mandated, most cities can't afford the equipment. The enabling of sending GPS is a new development in the last few months. Carriers have been tossing the idea around of geographically located advertising. For example, Pizza Hut is closing and has two pizzas that someone ordered but never showed. The next two drivers who drive by get a short SMS message saying, "Pizza hut at 15th and Lincoln will sell you a Large pepperoni pizza if you stop in the next 10 minutes"
John
...fire a handgun into the cans, you could look through the bullet holes to find the winner.
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.
Neat idea nonetheless.
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
So detection by remote electronic device is highly unlkikely. Now in a simpler vein, it should be detectable by weight, or x-ray. Considering that most of the actual land mass does not have coverage, they have obviously decided to 'urbanize' the experience. Hope they don't get a drug dealer in the process (although it would be funny).
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Actually, GPS indoors is rather cutting-edge. It isn't commercially available on a large scale.
Clicky
Disclaimer: Our company sells trimble gps
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
With my luck (and the amount I drink) this can will sit undiscovered - in a case - in my fridge for months. The electronics better be able to handle some low temperatures for long periods of time.
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?
Whether it's turned on or not, it should be simple to detect -- just shake the can. If there's no "sloshing" sound, it's a good candidate.
Proceed to "round 2" testing, which is as simple as using a magnet. Presumably, the contents will not consist entirely of non-ferrous metals. Using a "bondo pen" (basically, a magnet mounted to a spring-loaded gage in the form of a pen -- it's used in the auto-repair trade to detect and measure the thickness of "bondo" repairs) and place it against the can. Any deflection will indicate a "winning" can.
Step 1) Give the phone to your freaky, paranoid, paramilitary and big brother suspicious neighbor. Step 2) Get some lawn chairs and a cooler. Step 3) Watch the prize delivery crew show up unannounced. Step 4) Get interviewed on the 10:00 news.
Looking at it, it seems that you could tell if the can was a phone by simply squeezing it lightly. I'm sure the plastic liner would make it feel stiffer.
Coke is obviously going to track where the winning cans are distributed so they can have the prize stationed nearby, soooo....
Who ever wins should mess with them by finding to the most remote location they can get a cell signal before pushing the button. Go to Nome, or Yellowknife, or park a boat offshore somewhere.
If God had had a computer it would have taken him 7 months to create the earth...if he even bothered to do it at all.
Lottery or Contest winnings are considered a windfall, and are not taxable. I believe it is the same with inheritance.
It is hard to believe that there are cases where our taxes are actually _Lower_ than in the US!
Sound: If you shook the can with the phone in it, would it rattle or would it slosh like a normal coke can full of coke?
Heat capacity: when you pull the can out of the fridge at the store, does it stay cold for more than 10 seconds? A can full of mostly water (coke) will stay cold and a can full of mostly air (phone) will not.
Pressure: squeeze a can - if it's full of carbonic acid (coke), it won't squeeze as easily as if it's filled with air.
I could go on....
Now I can imagine all these kids shaking coke cans at the store, and hapless customers openning them afterwards without tapping the top...
- Thomas;
___ This sig is in boldface to emphasize its importance!
Simply go into the store with a metal spike and poke 12 holes in each of the 12 packs until you find one that doesn't leak.
Give me a break, you're not going to do much to cheat the system. You'd have to be lucky enough to be in the right store in the right state in the first place.
Yes, a turned-off cell phone DOES give off detectable radiation. Reason is, there are parts of the phone circuit that are still powered so the phone can recognize the "soft" power button in the keyboard (unlike a hard power switch that actually disconnects the power, this one's just a keyboard switch.) Sooo, there's at least a minimal amount of circuitry with a crystal clock oscillator running and radiating a small amount of RF. That is, in a conventional phone. Probably the manufacturer of this specialized gadget did a true hard power switch to ensure that the battery is live when it's needed, but possibly not. Of course, the task of DETECTING that RF emission may well be impossible given the EMI environment of a warehouse or store, and not knowing exactly what frquency to sniff for.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
You may notice from perusing the FCC documents linked from the PhoneScoop page that the company that designed the phone is Australian. This promotion was "playtested" last year in Australia, but instead of a can the phone was embedded inside a 1.25L bottle of coke. The bottle contained compartments in the top and bottom full of coke as normal so that it could be picked up and handled without anyone thinking anything was strange and the middle of the phone unscrewed along a seam at the bottom of the label to reveal the phone.
The developers went to great lengths to ensure that the prize bottle weighed exactly the same as a regular bottle.
Afterall, does a cell phone that's turned off give of any energy that can be detected?
It does not emit any RF, but it will absorb RF transmitted at it. I'd bet the RF properties of the cell phone can are very different form those of a regular can. The built-in antenna on the cell phone would react differently to RF radiation at band center frequency than at frequencies above and below the band center. A scanner that sends out pulses at various frequencies and measures the return signal might be able to detect the phone's unusual signature.
Two problems. First, the cost of developing and building the scanner might exceed the expected value of winning the SUV, especially if the scanner is not 100% reliable and you aren't in an area that gets one of these cans. Second, your local grocer migth take a dim view of someone passing a scanning wand around all the Coke displays.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
From the pictures of the test device in the FCC application , it appears that the bottom of the "coke can" has a slot that contains the SIM card. It also looks like the "can" was assembled from two pieces.Coka-cola Corp may change the packaging to make it less visible than in the test device, but it may be possible to find winners by looking at the bottom.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
One of the most spectacular kold-war stunts was when the ruskies gave a wooden statue to the U.S. Embassy. It was of couse thouroughly scanned for mikes and found clean. Turned out the thing had a passive mike in it. The russians would bomb it with microwaves from a nearby building and this would cause the statue to start working like a transmitter. Maybe if you bomb the cans with microwaves, you get them to react?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
The simple solution will be to weigh cases of Coke. Since they should all way pretty much the same, the one that doesn't is the winner.
-- Mark Lyon http://www.marklyon.org
my wife's cousin worked for Pepsi, and apparently he got to imbed the winning cans or bottles in stores and supermarkets. what he did was go and buy a sixpack, then return the thing with the contents changed. this was a few years ago, so i don't know how it would stand up to the Patriot Act.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Ahhh...a nice refreshing coke...
GLURG GLURG SPLORK COUGH CHOKE CHOKE CHOKE
<DEATH>
*ring* *ring* *ring*
Hello there, you've won a free SUV! Sir?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
This is good, because I was wondering how they how they were going to pull off the "GPS-in-a-Faraday-Cage trick." Forget winning an SUV - there would be a Nobel prize in physics for that one.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
Wouldnt the term Global Positioning System be incorrect when it's just a Local Positioning system? Come on... come up with a better buzz word. I'm out of ideas right now... but Indoor GPS just doesn't fly in my book.
-Tim
coke needs to be smart and ensure that the can weighs _exactly_ the same as an existing can, otherwise, everyone who works at a shop or distribution channel could weigh the boxes or pallets and discern the differences.
Equally, another way to cheat would be to be use sort of low-tech radar/xray device that can detect different types of solids (for example: cans and liquid are pretty simple, but a radio has a lot of complexity that'll generate signal splatter).
Another way [:-)] would be to see if you can generate radio signals at right frequency to induce resonant effects in the antenna within the can.
This type of low-tech gear wouldn't take more than one or two cluey engineers and weeks work of work.
Have fun
If you could at least determine the model of phone they are using, you might be able to use active detection of the presence of circuits by finding a frequency that you can broadcast at high enough power to excite some circuit in the phone or device that has features that match the wavelength you're using. If it were reliable, you wouldn't have to find the right box, just go to stores that carry a large stock and buy the stock if the presence of a responsive circuit is detected (after making sure that noone is in range with a cell phone :o)
... OW! MY SPERM!
My friend, Dumb Donald, got the can, but he got mad that there was no soda in it and beat the heck out of it, now it does not work. He just lost the prize then. :)
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Since it comes in a 12 pack sonic detection and EM detection will be even more difficult.
It would be difficult to try any of these methods without having a case with the phone inside. You could guess, but without knowing exactly what the phone is made of, it would be nearly impossible to find it.
i'd already be out of sorts about only getting 11 cans
"You get all the fun of sitting still, being quiet, writing down numbers, paying attention...science has it all."
i won the really old coke can instant win game, where I opened a can of coke, and a 10 dollar bill popped out of the can, spring loaded and rolled into a tiny holder.
The can was identical to the others in every way. I could hear liquid sloshing around in it (still does, still have it), it had weight like a full can.... I cant remember if it had a pressurized noise when it opened, but i think it did.
They can do a good job of hiding contents.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
"What the fuck you do with my coke?"
"Congratulations, you've won..."
"No, no, fuck that, I paid for 12 cokes and I got 11 cokes and this talking plastic thing."
"Ummm...car..."
"Bitch, I'll cut you!"
Just make sure that you don't open your prize-winning Coke indoors.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Another $%&^ing SUV choking the road.
If you could figure out the MINs for the can-phones, and they're turned on in the cases, you could always try to call the numbers from your cellphone while standing in front of the store display. Then it becomes a simple matter of picking up the ringing case.
If you believe that this'll work, I've got a nice bridge for you...
Here's the deal as I heard it... He has the SUV and keeps it at our place until someone in his area (several states large) gets a winning can. They call and activate the GPS. Then my roommate gets the press together and drives to the winner's location within a day or two and "surprises" the winner with the media present. By the way the SUV sucks. Looks like a mini-van ate a station wagon and it gets crappy mileage but then again don't all SUVs?
so barring the obvious then, a couple things come to mind. One is use a magnetic ferrous metal finder. the phone is bound to have steel in it somewhere. where as a coke does not. The other is to use a speaker, for example one of those sonic bugs they sell on thinkgeek. move this around the twelve pack and listen for the one that sounds different.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This is exactly what happened in Toronto a few years ago with a similar promotion involving milk cartons wired with a piezo speaker and some electronics to make the carton "moo" when opened. Someone got one of these and presumably had no idea that a mooing carton indicated a winner, so they left it on a table in a cafeteria with the speaker wires partially pulled out.
The clean-up staff, apparently also not keen followers of popular culture, saw a milk carton with wires and electronics inside it, and they called the bomb squad, who efficiently blew the carton to blazes.
Here's a link for Snopes and the other skeptics:
Since so many people are speculating about what this "can" will look like, here is a picture of it. http://www.engadget.com/entry/7706925370302336/
"Fuck, I was thirsty!"
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Drop these cans over the moutains, so when they are thirsty (wouldn't you be in the desert?!) they'll go to open it to realize they pressed the button! Which will then report em!
I'm off to do a Micrsoft and patent my idea.
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
> Article: They'll then press and enable the GPS...
COKE: WE GET SIGNAL!
- GPS PHONE TURN ON!
Who here is geek enough to say screw them, this is a one of a kind gadget here! I'm not trading this in for a stupid car!
I wonder what such a unique cellphone/GPS in a can would go for on ebay..
Heh. I didn't think of that, either. What an efficient Catch-22 we have in the tax code.
> "Pizza hut at 15th and Lincoln will sell you a Large pepperoni pizza if you stop in the next 10 minutes"
Wow. Pizza Hut will sell you a pizza! For a limited time only. That's got to be the best ad campaign ever!!
That was awesome. Welcome to my "Friends" list.
bonuses get taxed 50% (or damn close) no matter how much you make per year
:(
If you can expect annual bonuses, jack up your deductions with a W-4 right before your bonus hits if you want to keep more of that money. Payroll depts are required to process as many W-4's as you submit -- not only during major life changes. Don't forget to bring it back down to a normal range for the next paycheck. Also, if you have a 401(k) and want to put most of the bonus in there, jack your 401(k) contributions to the limit right before the bonus kicks, and then lower it after the paycheck with the bonus. Puts the whole bonus in your 401(k) as pretax money.
Remember, it is key to think of any overpayments of your federal tax witholdings as an interest-free loan you are giving the government. People who lack the maturity to save tend to use income tax returns as a "vacation fund" and often cannot wait until the refund checks come in because they need the money so desperately. Although I don't have to care anymore, my absolute best year for planning had the feds owing me $125 on April 15th. That means I shorted myself about $10 a month over the entire previous year. In other words, I put *all* of my money to work for me that year. Nowadays I get a downpayment on a car back
Intelligent Life on Earth
They have (had?) a sweepstakes where the grand prize was $1mm, after taxes. You actually won $1.66mm, the taxes on which are approximately $0.66mm.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!