Slashdot Mirror
GPS Phone Tells Others Where You Are
An anonymous reader writes, "According to CNet, a company called Benefon has launched a cell phone with a built in GPS receiver — nothing new there. However, this particular GPS cell phone, called the Twig, does something extra. It can send your GPS coordinates to another Twig owner and then that person can navigate directly to you using the preloaded navigation software. Sounds like this could save a lot of time and effort when trying to explain to the in-laws where your new apartment is." The article says that the phone will cost £330 in the UK, or about $625.
"Sounds like this could save a lot of time and effort when trying to explain to the in-laws where your new apartment is."
Actually, I am purposly vague when I give my mother in law directions. If I can just delay her a few minutes w/o being found 'guilty', it helps.
For that $625, I'd rather get her a hotel room.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Can you see me now?
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Why should anyone "know" where I am.
...
Now, if I was a travelling salesman who wanted to find places, I could see why it might be good, in case I got lost, but this nanny state concept is just getting out of hand
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
What use to me is a cell phone if I have to leave it on the other side of town?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
...... But what about the privacy issues that would surround this cell phone? Who would get access to this data? Under what circumstances? Can some law enforcement agency use the GPS data to prove that you did something illegal for example?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
RTFA - it says (hell even the summary says) you *can* send your co=ordinates to the other phone, not that the other phone can get them without your wanting to.
Then again, anywhere with E911 service this is usually already enabled. But you can usually disable it on the handset if you want.
Boost mobile has an application, telenav that does the same exact thing.
Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
I geochached the directions to our new apartment at the summit of Everest.
Abuses this?
People "on call" have a lot to look forward to, I think.
Instead of buying $600+ of hardware, you could each get a $100 GPS unit and text msg each other the coordinates. Even better, make it interface with existing cell phones through a data cable. I wish electronics manufacturers would start making things more modular instead of All-In-One!!!111.
Lets say a jealous tech savvy ex gets a hold of one, and you happen to not be tech savvy (of course none of us). They set it up to always broadcast your location so they can follow you around and check up on you.
Its like some companies make products just itching to be the subject of some whacked out news story.
I'd rather wait for a mod that allows the phone user to feed false coordinates to others... Including simulations of stuff like driving a car or walking. Now THAT would be nice.
This is a sig. It is appended to the end of comments I post.
then the two of you will circle each other forever.
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
I'm doomed. She can find me anywhere without a gps telephone.
I just hit the speed dial for home...
"Hi, I'm at Fry's... yes, again."
You can have my cynical agnosticism when you pry it from my cold, dead logic.
Don't newer Nextel phones [phonescoop.com] such as the one in the link have GPS and lots of other goodies as well? I mean I know that this phone is kind of small and friendly, but I am sure I have seen this technology implemented on phones of similar size or slightly bigger.
everyone can be tracked.
I once heard a quote that said something along the lines that high tech consumer technology is old news to high tech military research. That idea really came to mind when I was reading this - I immediately wondered just how secure this feature is and whether or not it would be easy to use for "other" purposes. Even worse, who knows if there is back door code in the phones firmware???...
Actually this makes me think of a great new product - tin foil cell phone faceplates? OK, maybe not...
Nothing new or innovative here, this technology has been widely available on phones in Japan for years. And $625? I got my phone with the same features for free when I signed up for a 1 year plan. Since navigation in Japan is difficult (not much street signage, non-square blocks, crowded areas) I often send my GPS location to my friends with GPS-enabled phones.
Hams have been doing this for years with APRS. My question is how am I supposed to convince my wife that I'm really working and not at the pub if she has my coordinates?
Location awareness is one of the key elements in 4G spec.
It opens several great possibilities for applications using your current location.
At library or movie theatre? no problemo, phone goes in silent mode automatically.
Focused advertising, when going past some store, you get discount offers to your phone.(where permitted by law)
Need to find restaurant but stuck in weird part of city? no problemo, your cell phone
knows where you are and can probably recommend good place, and even give directions how to get there.
You're lost and you fell down and broke your hip/ankle etc and can't walk? no problemo, your phone
can give your location with greater accurancy than triangulating by cell towers.
Those are just some crude ideas, the possibilities are almost limitless.
GPS phones from Benefon aren't that much of news tho, they have been manufacturing them since ~2000 or so.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
My company has been using a similar service for over 3 years. We have GPS equipped phones assigned to our service trucks. Supervisors can use a web site to find a vehicle's location on a map and see where else it has been with a 15 minute resolution. If there's a new service call, we can use the same web site to download directions to a phone.
These are standard Motorola phones (though a rugged industrial model) and I'm sure they cost less than $200 or so.
:wq
mologogo on a $49 phone from Wal-Mart will push your GPS location back to a server every minute. The unlimited SMS plan is like $6 a month.
D'oh!
There seems to be a distinct lack of GPS enabled phones (I dont mean a PDA or smartphone, I mean normal phone) here in australia :(
Is it just me, or are there some stories that don't sound particularly interesting, but the headline makes you scan the comments anyway - just to make sure that someone made the requisite Soviet Russia joke?
Way to drop the ball, guys.
You know... A while back I was called by this hot sounding girl who dialed the wrong cellular #. I mean her voice made me think porn star Jenna... Long story short, I wanted to puke and I'm not kidding. Anyhow, this device could have saved me the headache and queasiness... Just think "Fugly girl @ three o'clock". How can I place my order?
Infiltrated dot Net
Verizon has already done this with the Migo phone and the new application for finding you kids called VZ Chaperone. The application is free on the parents phone once the service is setup on the LG Migo.
Gorkman
Ham radio operators have been doing this for quite a while. It's called Automatic Position Reporting System.
It was developed by a ham radio operator and the Naval Academy:
http://www.aprs.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APRS
Libertas in infinitum
(Girlfriend) : Hey honey, what time you plan on being home?
(Joe Sixpack): I don't know baby, I'm at Steve's playing cards.
(Enter The Trap)
(Girlfriend) : Oh okay. You didn't tell me that Steve moved.
(Joe Sixpack): Oh he didn't. He's still at the same place.
(Girlfriend) : Oh okay. Did you see the news last night? I heard there was an earthquake...
(Joe Sixpack): Wow... I didn't hear anything about an earthquake honey.
(Girlfriend) : Me neither! So how the hell did Steve's apartment move 30 miles West in 24 hours?!!
(Joe Homelesss): What do you mean baby?
(Girlfriend) : *putting his clothes in a trash bag* Oh nothing dear.
I'm going to hurry to the Sprint store right now before my girlfriend "suprises" me with a new cell phone for Christmas.
The Garmin NavTalk had a phone that did this back in 99 in the US. It was an AMPS phone and sent the positions via quick burst of DTMF tones. It was a cute trick for an analog phone. You could see your position on the map display, the person you were talking to, and get navigation information to lead you to them. They did a GSM version, but if was European only and I never saw that one.
You had some control as to who could poll your position, or you could trigger a "send". A couple companies had web sites that would let you see the position of the phones on a map. They did it by decoding the DTMF tones the Garmin spit out.
http://www.garmin.com/products/navTalk/
I'm surprised that something like this hasn't come out yet for parents. I know that my mom would have liked to know where I was at all times.
Where you at dawg?
Please cram it with the Big Brother bullshit, the Nanny State clap trap and please remove your tin foil hats - unless you're after some free karma which you surely will, while saying nothing.
The slashdot article headline is misleading, it suggests the phone is in control of your private details, rather than you. One quick glance at the article and you can see this paragraph which states:
It's a sodding phone with GPS and the ability to tell others where you are, that's all.
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
Case in point my sister.
This is her story:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2
"A 46 year-old Kirkland man accused of stalking his estranged wife by accessing her e-mail account and hiding a cellphone with a GPS-tracking feature inside her car has been sentenced after pleading guilty to a felony stalking charge."
Follow the link above to read more about the story.
This story still does not have an ending. My sister has started to be on lots of news shows so keep an eye out for it and you may see her even on Oprah
"Hey, dude, where y'at?" "Fifth and State." "'K, it's in my TomTom. See ya soon."
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
So, telling your wife that you're in a busy meeting while you're sitting in a pub at the other end of the town is not going to work ;-).
You probably know, however, that this doesn't invalidate many of the posts in this thread. For instance, if I don't let my wife know where I am ("oh, honey, stop being ridiculous...") she can be pretty sure I'm up to no good ("if you think this is ridiculous, then that's what you married to. And send it right now.").
One could always argue that's for the best of all of us, but it doesn't make it less true that it burns some of your privacy.
(has anyone else noticed there's been a lot less spelling mistakes with 2.0 on slashdot? it's a little bit funny...)
I suspect you are using the Garmin Rino. FRS/GMRS 2 way radio with GPS.
This technology has been in the marine industry (Recreational portions too) since 1988. It is a USCG supported system called Digital Selective Calling or DSC for short. The system allows for Marine band VHF radios to communicate on a digital level to send data. It is instrumental on "Good Samaritan" rescues on the water, as it allows a general distress to be sent with your coordinates included.
An additional benefit is the ability to do position send/position request. This means that if you and your buddies decied to set up a group of charter fishing boats (people pay you to go fishing with them) you can use this feature that is on all new fixed mount radios, including economy models, instead of spending $100 extra per vessel for a scrambler to be installed in your high end, expensive, radio. This keeps the general public from ruining your day by crowding you and your clients out of the good fishing spots.
Now with this phone will do point to point navigation instead of just street navigation I'll really consider it. Make it waterproof too and I'll take it. Too many GPS products are restricted in their features to the point where they are useless if you have to "walk out" from a rural area, or find your way back to deer camp, not to mention the whole fishing argument.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
The GPS would be much more useful in conjunction with SMS than voice calls. A high percentage of mobile voicecalls are already just "where are you?" If my phone could ask yours where you are, show me on the map, with just a couple button pushes, then let me call you if necessary, we'd probably have a lot less people on public transport with annoying ringing and semversations.
--
make install -not war
I guess it would be nice to get this for my (would-be) wife's phone, so that I can track her to make sure she isn't cheating on me, but I don't think I would want her to have one to track me, since I'd probably get caught bone'n the secretary. =/
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
You know, It's not that unusual for my company to have business meeting at a local pub. The place has to serve food, and we can write off the meal, and usually one or two drinks fit in the standard budget. If the meeting involves Corporate, then no recipts are necessary. Truth is this is the only way our local quarterly staff meetings can be held. Bribe us with food and beer!
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
A better use of this kind of technology is to find lost pets. According to this site you can have a cat collar with a GSM Modem that does pretty much the same thing. Just out of curiosity I wrote to these guys about it and they said they have not miniaturized the technology enough to be light and comfortable enough for little kitty, but its just a matter of time before that happens.
can expect one of these for Christmas.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Ok, obviously this is *technology*, not a plan to take over the world..(Sorry guys, I've been meditating and no longer think everything in the world is evil)..
With that, it would be nice to turn *off* this feature without turning off the phone. That would disallow much potential abuse by those who are "curious" to watch your whereabouts for whatever reason (I still realize, however, that evil exists)
If I could turn it off (and *know* it's turned off, AND *not* have it turn on automatically if I, say, turn the phone off then back on again)...
And how about the business owner who needs this for his mobile employees (service techs, etc.) - maybe there could be a password on the phone to prevent turning on/off the feature..
(Just some thoughts)
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
... for $200 I can buy the in-laws a GPS unit for the car.
Stupid.
You can't pay me enough to be your slave. If you ever tried to own me, I'd kill you. If I couldn't kill you, I'd kill or destroy anything that had to do with you. I'd burn your fields and break your tools. In fact, that's exactly what slaves commonly did.
Uh, no. If that were true then slavery would not have been as immensely profitable as it was. While there may be rare aberrations where something like the above occurred, those involved were brutally punished, maimed or killed, as examples to others. There was also collective punishment to encourage a group to "police" itself and prevent a member from engaging in such activities.
Also, some of those quite successfully enslaved were warriors, warriors in a day where that generally meant up close and very personal. I don't mean to offend but I doubt your mental or physical preparedness comes close to theirs.
First off the ability to 'track' a phone, either intrinsic to the phone or extrinsically by triangulating off of the cell towers the phone transmissions are reaching, is not new nor news.
And the ability to 'track' such phones has been a boon to some, a harassment to others.
The Massachusetts State Highway Dept. had a showdown with snow plow contractors several years ago, requiring they carry such 'tattle tale' phones. One obvious application was near real-time tracking of road clearing and coordinating this with traffic reports, state police reports, and the development of snowfall patterns.
However concerns over oversight led to many of the plow operators rebelling, with some significant percentage refusing to take contracts. Other drivers were more amenable, or at least needed the work, and so took to carrying the phones. The immediate result was a large number of infractions were discovered/confirmed. Issues like plows sitting idle for entire shifts, reporting having serviced stretches of roadway they never covered, or taking the state-supplied salt & sand and using it on others contracts like mall parking lots instead of the state roads they were supposed to be clearing.
Location reporting phones can also be a help to their bearers.
I've a friend who is an ambulance dispatcher. Currently the ambulances must call in to him at multiple steps of a transport, always at least 5 times. That is a huge overhead for him and for the crews. As they're already carrying cellphones turning on tracking would be a no-brainer. Better yet as dispatcher he is often called upon to look up directions for crews out on a call, determine optimum routes, or just decide if a particular call is appropriate for his service or to pass it on to another agency - having a real-time map would be invaluable.
There are of course also the more trivial, though probably more generally satisfying, uses for these geolocation technologies.
Proximity alerting is one. Coincidentally within a few hundred feet of a friend in one's address book, who has agreed to share vicinity information and is currently 'visible', then get an alert. Another might be instant local-lookup. Nearest ATM, chinese take-away, public transit stop - send off your location to a lookup engine and find out. Or, from more specialized services look up local history, comments left by others, even pull up local web-cam shots.
My dreamed of feature is micro-navigation, specifically in retail environments.
My ex has an amazing talent for disappearing into the bowels of a big box hardware stores, maga-marts, malls, wherever. Instead of playing the call-and-quiz "Are you by the front wall or the back wall? Aisle 20 or 40? Mile one of pet food or mile two?" a getting-warmer/colder readout would be hugely appreciated and not difficult to implement.
Finally, there is my mother. She is getting lost more & more often. It started out with where-did-I-leave-the-car issues, now we've had a how-do-I-get-there scare or two. Leaving a spare phone in the car would at least get her close to the correct mall garage, even to which side of the garage if not which floor. Enabling her to send a location tag to my father would enable him to relay directions usable to her, not "Go ... East ... On ... Highway ... 274 ... One ... Point ... Two ... Miles" but "Keep going, you'll soon pass the store you bought the white couch at, then turn by the new library".
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Wrist Machine: "Cold. Cold. Warmer. Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot."
.
and
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Phone tracks you FOR Soviet Russia!
Surprisingly, tinfoil isn't thick enough to suppress cell phone signals (at least for incoming calls). I tried wrapping my Treo 650 entirely in tinfoil and then I dialed it's number from another telephone, and the Treo rang. I did eventually locate a metal box with walls thick enough to suppress incoming (and presumably outgoing) telephone calls however.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
This sounds like the perfect tool to shadow your significant other. Get a pair, then put one into his/her car...
Other application: hide one in the car before you lend it to your teenage kid for the evening.
I am sure this is going to be a successful gadget!
It is nothing new. The European version of the Motorola A780 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A780does this. It is a Linux flip phone with GPS and the CoPilot navigation/mapping software enables people the owner authorizes to track the phone on a web site.
Garmin already has 2-way radios that do this, over FRS or GMRS. It's a very neat feature, and has proved to be very useful a few times. You can also poll someone's position if they aren't responding, in case someone may be hurt and unable to respond. Very cool.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
The phone is too expensive to give to children, but
Disney markets something similar that is affordable.
http://disneymobile.go.com/disneymobile/home.do (DisneyMobile)
Parents who want to give their kids some freedom but still
know where they are snap these up. Sneaky kids ditch them
(send them home with friends).
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
ok, ok, silly joke. When my phone's at that particular place, it's usually switched off anyways...
Benefon have been making GPS phones with "you are here" comms for many years now.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
so I guess we all know where cnet.co.uk are based then ....
I had an idea like this in college, but the technology wasn't there yet. I wanted to make a dating service in which you could safely meet up with other people in a downtown area with the same interests etc. This would also be good for friends and flash parties.
Benefon is specializing in GPS phones, and has for a long time. The GSM model Benefon ESC! came to market in like 1999 - and had the same features, a GPS receiver, builtin map and the possibility to send your location to either to generic GSM phone (containing coordinates only) or to another similar phone (and you could see the destination on the map). Granted, the company has gone close to going bankrupt a number of times, but it seems they are nowadays doing ok in their niche.
Have your phone send me directions to where you are....
Sorry Honey, the lines gone very bad, I can't hear you. I'll call you back later....
Don't you dare hang up. Don't you
Beeep Beeep Beeep
http://davesboat.blogspot.com/
...there's no system in place to send a text message with the coordinates you read off of your gps-enable cell phone, right?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Why do all the GPS-enabled phones tell everyone else where I am, but not me?
Phones already have a very basic GPS chip designed for use with e911. I wanted to make a program that would point you towards another phone if both of them were running the program. But thanks to my family, I've been stuck with a Verizon phone, and thus unable to do anything as far as programming it, and my friends with Java friendly providers won't let me touch their phones :(
At MIlwaukee's big music festival, Summerfest on the lake front people try to find each other by navigating on the phone...it is hilarious trying to find someone in a crowd via cell phone.
At library or movie theatre? no problemo, phone goes in silent mode automatically.
Bad idea. I don't want my phone doing ANYTHING that I don't want it to do "automatically". I miss enough calls as it is because my phone doesn't vibrate hard enough for me to feel it in my pocket - and now you want to automatically move MY phone to silent mode without telling me?
I agree that phones in quiet places are a problem. But this is not the solution.
One friend of mine got such surveillance device installed into his wife's and kids' GSM phones. The sort of systems that are completely invisible to the owner of phone and they were not told about the gizmos. The modification of one phone costed some 100 euros three years ago, at St Petersburg.
if he can't figure out where I am...
...
Why should anyone "know" where I am.
Ever call a taxi before?
I'd rather not memorize the street address and major cross streets of every place I go. I'd rather just dial a cab company number, send them my location, and have them come get me. And no more struggling with foreign accents, either.
"Chain Stret?"
"No, Jane Street!"
"Yus, Chain Stret! Dot's what I chust said!"
Instead, all the driver has to do is drive to the little X marked on his electronic map, and not hit anything on the way.
Much easier for all parties concerned.
this nanny state concept is just getting out of hand
You send people your GPS co-ordinates. Then they know where you were when you sent them. Just like a normal phone conversation, only more convenient.
Don't worry so much! No one is going to send state sponsored attack-nannies to capture you, subdue you, and force you to learn to learn your table manners; you needn't live in fear any longer.
Why pay more to compromise your privacy? Please give me a stripped-down phone that does nothing but allow me to send/receive phone calls and allow me to install java programs that will let me do the same thing and expandable RAM. MP3 players and whatnot can be created using java with very little effort.
This can be done _much_ cheaper. I just dropped $60 (phone and data cable) and have this on a pre-paid cheap Boost Mobile phone for $0.35 a day.
http://mologogo.com/
From the front page:
Mologogo is a free service that will track your friend's GPS-enabled cell phones from another phone or on the web. Combining Real-time Location Based Services, Social Networking and now Location Aware Chat, Mologogo continues to break new ground for mobile apps. Mologogo also serves as a dirt-cheap tracking system, so go ahead and fauxjack something.
It currently works on pretty much any Nextel phone with Java, GPS and a data plan -- even a sub $80 no-contract Boost Mobile phone as well as the Blackberry 7250 and Windows Mobile pocketpc phones and smartphones with external gps.
It's not a question asked often, or easy to find asked:
Anybody hear of a way to hack that GPS tracking device in everyone's phones? I'm addressing this to those who understand why liberty is important.
1) I'd like to REALLY shut off the GPS tracker when I don't want to be monitored. Either switch off the power to the chipset, or screen out the RF signal from the satellites.
2) Failing turning off the tracker or screening the Lidless Eye from my phone, how about feeding it false data?
3) Yes, I know they can triangulate. I'm not insane, I know landline phones used to have fixed locations and cell phones are radio devices linked to a specific tower. What I object to is a minute-by-minute location database being maintained by the cell phone companies at government demand -- and access to said system OPEN TO ANYONE WHO PONIES UP THE CASH. Worry about terrorists? O please, how about your location given out to anyone who pops up some cash? I bet they'll give them volume discounts. Or a law enforcement phone call to the bloody phone company or any one of many third parties selling the info gleaned from your signal?
4) To those who don't care, I understand a fixed element of the population has authoritarian tendencies and likes a solid police and corporate control structure. Fine, don't care, but the rest of us grew up reading Jefferson and want to be able to make a phone call without armies of bastards with a corporate credit card capable of spooling out my movements until the day I die. It's just a thing about being a free man, not a prisoner. You're free or you're a slave. Alpha or beta. Pick one.
When the FBI listened in on people's car conversations using the OnStar system, they got in trouble. Because they were blocking emergency service, NOT because they were violating any privacy or law. But I'm sure you would be saying, "If you don't want OnStar, don't use it. It only lets you talk to an operator IF YOU CHOOSE."
The point is, what you choose isn't always what you get. In U.K. there are reports of the authorities turning on the microphone of a "person of interests" cell phone -- even when that person is not making a call -- and listening in.
Make whatever tinfoil hat claims you need to to make yourself feel good, but know that THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN PROVE that what you ask for is what you get. Remember all the geeks who say, "The only software you can trust is that which you can view the source of?" That applies here too.
You need to be more imginative about the types of situations evil people use to leverage a tactical advantage.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
My phone already does this. Nextel. With Mapquest software. I can get directions to the location of other users. This is old, old news. And $600? wtf? I pay like $5 a month for it.
Who wants to be found that easily. If your Mother in Law can find you, then who else can? ~AR
I called in about some problem or another in a phone I have with Verizon. They wanted to upgrade my phone with a 2-year commitment, or for some phones with a 1 year commitment. The guy told me my current phone doesn't have some cellular-GPS tracking tech in it. All phones sold after 2004(?) had to have the new tech to be "911 capable" -- so someone dialing 911 for an emergency would have their location displayed on the 911 operator's display the same as land-lines currently are. My phone was grandfathered in, but if I ever lose it, any replacement would be of a newer model w/tracking^w"911 compatibility". I don't believe you have to be making a call to be tracked, since they need to know which cell tower has the strongest signal lock with you, when an incoming call needs to be routed to your phone. But for street and address, I don't know if more than one tower is needed or perhaps the 911 enhancement eliminates the need for more than one tower.
-l
I may have missed something, but I wasn't aware that UK phones already had GPS as standard.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it