Cheap Cell-Phone Detector

An anonymous reader contributes a link to a BBC News article on a cheap cell-phone detector created by six New Zealand high-school students for a business competition, excerpting "The detector, which they have called CellTrac-r, works by picking up the bursts of radio frequency activity that emit from a mobile each time it sends or receives a call or a text message. The device can detect these bursts of electro-magnetic energy up to a radius of 30 metres. It can also measure the amount of the energy to determine the distance of the mobile.", and noting "Seems like a perfect /.er hack project, and as initiator I get 5% of gross profits."

Comments

Isn't it Obvious Anyway?

[mauthbaux]

In my personal experience (living on a college campus) It seems that people with cell phones are plenty willing to show them off and use them (nearly constantly).
So what then, is the practical use of such a device? From the description it sounds like it would only detect a phone as it is receiving or sending a message anyway. Someone sending a message would be obvious enough anyway. When recieving a message, they seem to make pointlessly loud and obnoxious noises already. Pardon the skepticism, but I can't see much practical use for such a device (other than the obvious geek factor).

Now if you could integrate something similar into handheld console games, that would be a little more interesting. Imagine not only being able to play play the games against others, but getting a signal when someone around you has the same game and is willing to play agaisnt you.

Just my uninformed two cents

30 metres?

[phalse phace]

For those who are wondering, 30 metres = ~ 98.43 feet.

1 feet = 0.3048 meters