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Microsoft Tries To Charm EU With Future Visions

Posted by Zonk on from the we-love-teh-future dept.

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.'"

4 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Love that quote... by penguinoid · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
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  2. embrace and extend by fihzy · · Score: 5, Informative

    "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

  3. Sounds like my carrier's WIS Service by 0xB00F · · Score: 3, Informative
    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.

    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!".

  4. Future? by Masa · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.).