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Let Goofy Track Your Children
Rio writes "The Walt Disney Company unveiled a new wireless phone service that allows parents to track their children on a map using Global Positioning System technology, according to Local 6 News. The new "family friendly" service, called Disney Mobile, allows parents to decide who their children can call and when, the report said. The phone service will launch in June and has not been priced yet."
implants based on GPRS/GPS to control where your kids go. if they leave their "safe zone", a tiny electric shock is delivered straight to their brain!! 1 year contract required.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
I would LOVE to have a gps reciever that I can track remotely! I would put it in my car and if someone steals it, screw lojack; I'll wait till they cross the border and deliver my own brand of goofy-the-cop justice!
Already innovating for his new pet company :o)
Just waiting for the rants about people should be looking after their children...not technology.
Queue the "queue the 'why the hell can't people parent their kids anymore'" posts...er....queue.....um.. here.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
I don't know why, but reading this gives me a funny feeling that this type of technology could be easily perverted for some nasty stuff it wasn't meant for at all.
Nothing in particular, but the concept of this thing sounds a bit....twisted.
Time will tell.
Z.
From http://www.infowars.com/articles/bb/parents_bosse
It's a cellphone, not a radio.
.... I can buy one for my daughter. While she is away for a day, just throw it into my shady islamic looking neighbors(the ones who let their dog shit in my lawn) no-windowed van. Call 911. Tell them I think I saw him take her... she has a DISNEY CELL PHONE! They find him. Mow him down without question. Everyone scratches their head in confusion. I have a shit free lawn.
The End
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Get the next generation comfortable with being tracked 24/7?
Another false layer of security for parents that can't be bothered to actually raise thier children. All the kid has to do is to:
- Tell parents that they'll be over at billy's house for a while
- Parents see child over at billys house on thier GPS system.
- Kid leaves phone on doorstep of Billy's house, proceeds to go to the overpass to drop rocks on cars.
That's the problem: its an easily defeatable system that makes it too easy to lull parents into a false sense of security.I assume the kid would have to want their parents to see wherver they go, otherwise they could just turn the phone off? I know I always used to tell my mom that my battery died, when she couldn't get ahold of me (and I was up to no good =])
Are there other phones with GPS capabilities? I could see a lot of useful applications for that - if they make it tiny & easy enough, it would eliminate the need for GPS receivers (obviously) - if I am in a large parking lot, at a sports event or something, it would make for a pretty easy way to meet up with friends & whatnot, if I can just get my phone to send their phone my GPS coordinates.
It would sure make losing your phone a less painful experience...
Wasn't it an iPod?
Oh wait, they probably already do...
Beware...
This should make it easy for the US Army to detect IUDs set off by Disney Mobile phones.
So...GPS is the "Goofy(tm) Positioning System" now?
Welcome our new Disney overlords.
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
Return between 2:00AM and 2:20AM on August 21, 2012 to get on this ride.
It's a cellphone, not a radio.
I knew that. I was talking about using this cellphone to place a phone call in the same room as a radio that had been turned on.
Now if only the government can install GPS under our skin when we are born we will be all set.
http://chickencamels.poemofquotes.com/
Sources of GPS signal errors
Factors that can degrade the GPS signal and thus affect accuracy include the following:
The more satellites a GPS receiver can "see," the better the accuracy. Buildings, terrain, electronic interference, or sometimes even dense foliage can block signal reception, causing position errors or possibly no position reading at all.
GPS units typically will not work indoors, underwater or underground.
All I can see coming out of this is a bunch of already paranoid parents having panic attacks when Little Jimmy goes in his friends house, or jumps on a bus.
Sigh. Big Bother gets a face lift, and big floppy ears. And Enjoy your Happy Meal! Damnit!
...not their children.
Ah-ha! But can the kids tell where their parents are?
"Quick! Get the coordinates of the Bauer kid"
"Can't do it! He must have turned off the phone and removed the battery"
"Damn it!"
[Insert pithy quote here]
Really dont see how this is anything but commidized peace of mind. Its not 1984 as some other posters have said, but its another example of a product in search of convincing potential customers that the value proposition really solves a currently existing problem.
"Old man yells at systemd"
...were this anyone other than Disney.
They are the most soulless company I can think of. They aren't doing this because they think they can make the service turn a profit, they want survey data on our kids so they can more tailor ( ie: bastardize ) stories to grab them in.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Actually, I believe the joke goes something like this....
Mickey & Minnie are in divorce court. The judge looks at Mickey and asks him, "You want to divorce Minnie, because she is insane?"
Mickey replies, "I never said she was insane, I said she's fucking Goofy!"
The real problem isn't government agencies tracking you. In that respect you can choose not to enable the tracking service. Privacy in that area is at least to some degree protected by law.
The real implications to privacy are because there are probably people who you can't say no to. How do you explain to your girlfriend that you won't let her track your position? Of course, kids can forget about any privacy if the parents want to track them.
Still, this technology is bound to succeed big time as it is very convenient. In the end most people probably won't mind friends and family to be able to see where they are.
If it gets hacked so that anyone can track the kids carrying these, it would be a child molesters dream come true, wouldn't it? Sure you can argue that all phones technically could be tracked but how many of you think Paris Hilton would be waving one of these around? The target audience that will be holding them will be kids so the demographic work for the hacker has been taken care of.
I for one have a handful of very young siblings that I wouldn't want this to happen to. If my parents ever get one for them, I will smash them.
Can your kid Drive and merge with Goofy into Valour form, and then wield two cellphones?! Because that would be awesome.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
The best part of this phone is that you can limit who your kids call. Most (heck, all?) cell phone companies seem focused on making you pay for whatever absurd bill your kid can run up each month. Either pay it or resign yourself to not being able to call your kid.
If anyone can correct me on this, I really want to know.
Do children track Goofy in Soviet Russia?
You can't handle the truth.
So, is being able to track your kid's GPS-enabled phone still worthless?
There are actually some very good arguments in favor of giving your kid a cell phone. However, there are downsides such as
So, a phone w/ parental controls and GPS goes a long way to addressing these concerns. I myself would have loved this phone back when I was a kid. When I was 15, my parents were pretty lenient about what I could do so long as I a) told them where I'd be b) who I'd be with and c) prove it (usually a phone call from me to check in). Not having a cell phone made it kindof a pain sometimes. Now parents can maintain the same rules but also give their kids a greater sense of freedom.
While I don't think we need another 200 comment discussion about it, the parent is fucking right.
End of story.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
Mickey has got nothing on Mr. Snow White.
Toss one of these in the trunk of your car (or hidden in a wheel well or wherever) and it's that much easier to find if your car ever gets stolen.
So once a pedophile learns to hack this technology, the child abduction rate climbs exponentially...
In general what would happen if they left the safe zone?
"Grandma took little Timmy to get ice cream, then, on the way he started shaking a lot. After a trip to the hospital (within the safe zone), Timmy was diagnosed epileptic."
Though, it would be funny to see a real life equivilant to an IndexOutofBounds execption.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Seriously though, whatever happened to teaching your kids how to act? You know, that whole parenting thing? It's not parenting if you let a corporation or some gizmo do it for you...
All cellphones are radios. It's not like they are wired into the network after all. They emit and receive radio waves same as any other two-way radio, like a CB or walkie-talkie. They just operate on a higher frequency and use more complex modulation schemes.
Yes, I can see the advantage of it being a GPS receiver. In the right hands, it can mean a lot more safety. I'd even consider it!
The thing that got me was allows parents to decide who their children can call and when... This isn't teaching your child anything, it's imposing it on them. They're limited by numbers as opposed to their common sense!
It's like my friend who was sent to bed by a (scarily) authoritive mother every night at 10pm. When he left home, he quickly hit a point of insomnia from his 'freedom' after staying up for days on end...
I'm just waiting for the chaos when these kids suddenly get these limits turned off...
The detail of TFA does not work for me (maybe because I don't have Flash) so it's not clear if the child has control over the degree to which they are subject to being GPS tracked. Looks to me though that this product amounts to "arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy" and so is in violation of UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 16.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
Your wording is a little hard to dechiper, but what I think you're saying is:
"Yeah, the kids will be able to dodge the monitoring: who cares? Behavior control isn't what tracking is for: if something bad and outside their control happens to them (kidnapping, traffic accident, lost and need you to help them figure out where they are) this makes the parents' aid much faster and more effective. That's the point." If this is what you're saying, I agree, on the grounds that it's what I recall my parents doing with the cell phone stuff when i was a kid(not a parent myself yet, praise Jesus).
Amen to the hot plate thing, by the way. Those things still give me mild scars occasionally, and I'm two advanced degrees and a hundred fifty pounds past being a two years old. And don't get me started on restaurants overdoing the heated silverware...
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
This piece of hardware and service seems to be very useless especially in cities, where it is supposed to be more useful. That's why (in my opinion).
1. The system should send messages with position data with increasing frequency when the child is in crowded places. This would lead to a wireless network (like GSM) overload.
2. Whe wireless network could introduce dangerous message delivery latency.
3. It won't work in almost all closed places because of either GPS or wireless network bad coverage.
4. Once you know that your child is somewhere he shouldn't be in, what would you do? Call the Police and wait? Run there?
5. The system can be removed and placed somewhere else.
6. Nothing can prevent your child from calling using another phone.
7. Nothing can prevent your child from being hurted.
So it'd be much better to have parents watching over their own children. In person, I mean!
Is your job, hobby, sport or shopping more important than your child's health and happiness?
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Why all these wimpy half solutions?
Children should be chained down in the basement until the age of 25.
Only by serious security can one protect offspring from the EVIL world.
Pay. Phone.
Cell phone wasn't ever for calling anyone but my parents anyhow: they got to look at the bill. I assume it's the same way nowadays, though perhaps kids have been struck by a strange stupidity-causing disease and can no longer remember seven-digit numbers or write them on a card in their wallet.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
You're mostly right, but behavior control can be what tracking is for, too. If you craft the rules as "We know where you are, and if you don't answer your phone when we call it, there'll be hell to pay," then your kid has an incentive to be cool just knowing you could look up where they are at any moment, and might call.
Should you, the parent, depend on a GPS phone as your only tether to your child when they're not within your range of view? No. Is a GPS phone an omniscient presence? No. Nothing wrong with letting your kids think it is, though.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
I had never thought about this before. Thank you.
Brain kills internet cells.
Have parents fill a form with the birthday of their kids. That way you know how old they are. Now, when you create a product targeted at some age range, all you have to do to sell that product is to find out where kids of a certain age tend to hang out.
And you have the means to find the hangout place for kids with the cells they use. Usually, a company spends some big bucks for that kind of information. This way, parents will pay them to give that info.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
According to: "DISNEY MOBILE(TM) MADNESS SWEEPSTAKES OFFICIAL RULES"
The value of prizes is as follows:
Each Grand Prize will consist of a pair of Disney Mobile phone hand sets (approximate retail value ("ARV"): $260) plus an $80 per month service plan for twelve (12) months (ARV: $960). (ARV of each Grand Prize: $1,220).
and what is to stop some pedophile from getting these
and giving them out to kids?
this kind of technology (in its current form) can be abused
in frightening ways.
consider a situation where such a child predator hands out
phones to unsuspecting kids. said phonmes are setup such
that you cannot make outgoing calls. at that point, its no
more than a "harmless toy" and most parents will see it as such.
then, at some future point (days, weeks, etc) said predator
snatches the kid(s).
I dare say it gives a person pause to think of the ugly
possibilities of abuse of such a potentially "helpful" technology.
how would we make sure that the right people (parents) get these
devices?
Understanding is much like a 3-edged-sword. in this: there are always 2 sides and the truth.
Yeah, but they work like phones, which are a technological advancement over the wallkie talkie. Which is why i dont understand the fucking walkie talkie features on cell phones now and fly into a rage when i hear that *chirp*. Ahhhhh!
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
... it's a small world, after all.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
This assumes the relationship between parent and child is symmetrical. It is not and should not be - my children's consent is not required before I check up on them.
I've never told my children or anyone else that I had nothing to hide. What I may or may not have to hide is usually none of my children's business. My sexual behavior is *certainly* none of their business. My children are not responsible for me; I am, however, morally and legally responsible for them. Again, in a properly functioning family the relationship between parent and child is asymmetrical.
As said earlier, trust but verify.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
And yet again, I laugh at America falling behind.
Japan has had this pretty widely available for years. And it hasn't been used for pedophilia as far as I have heard, unlike say cell phone cameras, which now all make an unmutable sound when you take a picture.
The reason? Silent cell phone cameras are great for taking upskirt pictures on crowded trains, and the internet exploded with upskirts soon after cell cameras became popular here.
Back on topic, the tracking and limits are a tool for parents, not a replacement for parenting. Why is it a tool, not a replacement? Well, if you don't look at where your kids are, this new cell doesn't do much. It's not a border enforcing shock-treatment item (yet).
Excerpt of real conversation between my youngest son and me a few years back. Kid knows that if he wants his curfew extended he must contact me early enough that he can still get home on time if I say no. 10pm curfew. At 9:30pm, the phone rings.
Dad: Hello?
Kid: Hi, Dad. I'm at so and so's house still. Can I stay out an extra hour?
Dad: No. Come home immediately. I'll see you in fifteen minutes.
Kid: That's not fair. My curfew isn't for another half hour.
Dad: That's true, but you blocked caller ID before you called me. That leads me to believe you don't want me to know where you are. I'll see you in a few minutes.
Kid: But...
Dad: Do you need a ride home? I can come and get you if you need me to.
Kid: No. I'll be home in a few minutes.
Dad: Okay. See you soon.
Another case of technologically-enhanced parenting ;-)
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
The most popular hack will be the "At the Library" mod.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Is there any cell phone today which is not able to store phone numbers? Generally there's no need to type in a number manually more than once (to store it on the phone).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Put your kid in the woods with the phone and put out the word to geocachers ( http://www.geocaching.com/ ). First geocacher to find the cache gets to keep said kid.
Friends don't let friends line-dance.
Really, how accurate is GPS? You can't look at a satelite feed and say, "Holy crap, Jimmy is behind the school smoking pot!" I could see it being useful for abduction cases but not much else, unless your child is flying across the country behind your back. What these over-protective types REALLY need is those cool satelite cameras that can zoom right in on their child's nose, like they had in Enemy of the State. And a speaker implanted in the child's ear so they can yell at them remotely.
Maybe you were just being sarcastic, but Steve Jobs probably had nothing to do with this. Disney Mobile has been in the works since at least last summer. I had signed up on the Disney Mobile web page months ago.
Family friendly indeed. Your Big Brother really loves it.
There are no gods but ourselves.
" and what is to stop some pedophile from getting these
and giving them out to kids?"
practicallity.
They would be easy to catch, spend a lot of money, and the parents are going to wonder where it came from.
"this kind of technology (in its current form) can be abused
in frightening ways."
this applies to all technology. You same arguement could be applied to automobiles.
"consider a situation where such a child predator hands out
phones to unsuspecting kids. said phonmes are setup such
that you cannot make outgoing calls. at that point, its no
more than a "harmless toy" and most parents will see it as such."
No, they won't.
"then, at some future point (days, weeks, etc) said predator
snatches the kid(s)."
See, if the predetor was close enough to give the child a phone, they could have taken the child.
"how would we make sure that the right people (parents) get these
devices?"
because the wrong people don't need them.
most abuse come from family members, and other 'trusted' sources.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Back when I was a kid (1970s), we had something called "Moms." There were several of them in the neighborhood, and they all knew each other and formed an ad hoc reconnaissance network, to keep tabs on all the kids in the neighborhood. There was a chain of custody, maintained by requisite protocols, "Can I go play at Jesse's house?" The moms had devices called telephones whereby they could call the mom with current custody to verify location of a child, request said child come home for dinner, or just catch up on the latest neighborhood news.
Yep, when I was a kid we didn't need these new-fangled cell phone things. We had something far more insidious.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
Sadly, when you grew up there were few things that would kill a child and not that many that would maim for life.
Today, a child can read some porn, experiment with sex with a neighbor child and get AIDS. Result isn't knowledge but a very short painful life.
Today, a child can walk into a mall and be abducted by someone that might, someday be caught. When we were children such a thing was unheard of because people in the area would stop it.
Today, a child can misuse all sorts of kitchen tools which will remove fingers, hair or zap them with microwaves. When I grew up the only person I ever met with injuries like that was a girl that put her hand into a hand-cranked meat grinder and lost several fingers. Compare that to some of the more recent appliances.
It is a lot more hazardous to be a child today. Yes, there has been some overreaction, but not as much as you would like to paint it.
One of the common misconceptions about GPS is the beleif that it works everywhere. It doesn't. Kids with the phone would be constantly disappearing from the map as they go through tunnels, into large buildings, get into cars, go into valleys or even walk between large buildings... and each time this happens, the parents paranoid enough to spring for one of these to track their precious offspring are going to go into panic mode.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
And all this prior work will conveniently disappear overnight for them.
How long will it be until for "our own protection" we are required to have GPS and cell service in our car that the FBI can use to listen to all our conversations and track our location?
For those of who you believe this is a fairy tale, there is already plenty of evidence that the FBI has attempted (and succeeded?) in doing just this. See In re the Application of the U.S. for an Order Authorizing the Roving Interception of Oral Communications, 349 F.3d 1132 (9th Cir. 2003).
parent[irony] ^+10 Insightful. Best example.My opinion:
What technology brings to hands of people is going to affect them long-term. I'm sure there enough parents to exercise their will and the brain implant joke would sound bitter in next century,where tech will be widespread.
Myabe not starting in implants but tracking,control and enforcement of simple things, making
children eat "right food",watch "right movies", and play with "good children only" will be much easier. I assume children who get out of "control"(if control is going to be human) would seriously teach the controller a lesson in free will.
Now,its easy to get into the idea controlling your children is beneficial "for their own good". Reducing crime and juvenilia,pranks,drug abuse,bad influence from their peers,etc.
Thinking of average people who like to do everything the easy way,and parenting is no exception,it predictable what the course society will come to.
I just wonder what the children of those parents will do in their own families?
Will they stop the practice or be forced into compliance with new laws of "social order" that can possible include such
implants to make Everyone a civil,friendly,law-abiding borg.
I don't call it end of humanity,just imagine if computers regulated crime and
welfare of society.It going to be like Matrix...just without the Matrix
A company called PROCON has a GPS cellular device that gets installed in your car (can't be seen or detected). You can track your car online in real time. Works nation wide. If my car gets stolen I can track it on any pc and give the exact location to the police. It also has remote door unlock and starter disable. Their website is www.proocnlbs.com
Actually the last thing we need is an independent functional adult. We'd like them to be very dependent adults and as functional as we need them to be, no more.
Actually the last thing we need is an independent functional adult. We'd like them to be very dependent adults
and as functional as we need them to be, but no more than that.
Screw whipping, that's not the way to break you. I'd take away your freedom. First grounding. If that doesn't work, I take away your stuff -- music, stereo, video games, etc. If that doesn't work, I take your door of your hinges so you'd have no privacy. If that doesn't work, the ultimate punishment.
I go to school with you and follow you around all day, and embarrass you.
Believe me, I WILL win the war. I can make your life far more miserable than you can imagine.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.