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Microsoft Tries To Charm EU With Future Visions
RedStar writes "BBC Online has a piece on Microsoft's visions of the future as shown to Euro MPs in a charm operation." From the article: "This is more a new concept than a new technology, and the real version may still be a year or two away. It would track the mobile phone signals of loved ones, then cross-reference which mobile cell they were in with pre-programmed locations, like the home, school, or workplace. Ms Sellen added: 'This is not very specific at all about where people are, and that's deliberate. We don't want to invade people's privacy too much, so we deliberately keep things very coarse grained.'"
No this is just another microsoft marketing caimpagn, making it look like they have invented things which are just basically others peoples ideas dressed over i.e. trust us, buy from us, see all the nice prety things only we could have invented or can create. There was not one new or novel idea in the lot, just old ideas presented in a new way (not really a new way as microsoft has done this sort claiming of other peoples innovations as there own quite regularly in the past).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Not to be a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist, but can't cell phone companies track you already? IIRC, it is even required for when you call 911, though they (generally) track you always, I think.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
My question is, will cellphones start to not turn off when the cell phone is "off". Will "off" now mean "really low power mode" - just enough to keep transmitting?
They aready do just that. Modern digital cell phones send a pulse every few seconds in order to register that it's got service, that it's online, and what cell it should register in.
The cell companies then have a helluva router system to get the text messages and calls to you when you "show up" in a particular cell.
One of the great innovations with digital cellular is dynamic signal strength - when you are close to a cell tower and have good signal, it cuts back its broadcast so that the notice pulse every few seconds conserves every last watt. That lets a phone run for days on end without any problems if you don't talk much.
Combine the "helluva" routers and a database, and you have an unparalleled geographic location system.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I'm not too familiar with the US system but over here (UK) all cellphones are authenticated with codes downloaded from a central database to the switching station which deals with transferring control between individual cells. As a result tracking which cell a cellphone is in, is trivial.
Stop going on about pinpoint precision etc.
Cells aren't also neatly geographically defined things either - they are regions of equal power and so this shape changes, varies in size according to density (high in city BIG in country) etc.
Sometimes your apparent position in terms of cell can jump around hugely across bays and harbours if you come into line of sight of a particularly good tower and out from another, actually closer.
Throw in multiple reflections (the typical way your signal gets to you) and you don't have "tracking" in the sort of sense that GPS does - so stop going on about it a if it does.
We did this stuff way back in 2000 so all these M$ bashing is sorta on the right side of the fence.. you know it's never "real" or never existed until *we* did it.. goes on all the time!
Alex.
"This is more a new concept than a new technology, and the real version may still be a year or two away."
Boy those Microsoft Reserchers are really innovative. I don't know how they keep managing to come up with this stuff
Sorry Microsoft, but my carrier has already been doing that for a while now: http://www.personfinder.ph/.
Additionally, when I was working as systems development lead for an SMS applications company, I developed a program that uses two cell sites to triangulate a phone's position based on relative signal strength. It was dropped out of development because ANTS beat us to it.
If this is Microsoft's vision of the future, I guess it would be safe to say "The future is NOW!".
So, this is the future, eh? In Finland we already have had this kind of service for several years already. For example, our biggest mobile phone operator TeliaSonera has been offering a service, where you can query a location of your family members for quite a while now. All participants have to sing for the service separately and personally, so it should be relatively safe, but nonetheless it will give a power to stalk you girlfriend/wife/kids. And I have understood that this will give a location quite accurately (street address etc.).