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Company Designs "Big Brother Chip"
Taco Cowboy writes "Here comes a chip that can pinpoint you in-door and out, it can even tell others on which floor of a building you are located. It's the Broadcom 4752 chip. It takes signals from global navigation satellites, cell phone towers, and Wi-Fi hot spots, coupled with input from gyroscopes, accelerometers, step counters, and altimeters The company calls abilities like this 'ubiquitous navigation,' and the idea is that it will enable a new kind of e-commerce predicated on the fact that shopkeepers will know the moment you walk by their front door, or when you are looking at a particular product, and can offer you coupons at that instant."
When you say "coupons" I hear "pushy advertisements."
I have the hiccups.
Time for tinfoil overalls.
At least it will be a shiny future.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
My trusty OLD Nokia 6150 from 1998 to the rescue :P
you have the chip on you - otherwise, piss off
The "one-stop-shopping" nature of the chip is chilling. Consider, Broadcom has seen enough of a market to warrant developing a sophisticated device, the stated purpose of which is to determine it's position and "phone home" with that information. Worse yet, it will also phone in all the personal details about you that it has access to, so that those "coupons" can be quickly crafted. If that's not scary enough, consider that also available to any given "shop keeper", is a list of all the other shops you've visited, and when. Still not bugged enough? Think about this technology in the hands of entities far more dangerous than merchants; law enforcement, for example.
seems like a power hog with all the radios in it also there are building where the cell phone signal is poor and GPS may not work in them as well.
Japanese mobile phones have had this for a while. Personal navigation apps that can guide you through underground stations and inside buildings using wifi and accelerometers when GPS is unavailable.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Growing up in the 80s, living through the boom times of the 90s, and looking back today. What I used to think was was a path to freedom and salvation of the intellectual variety, I now see as our oppression. Slavery of a new type. Step by step we are sealing our own doom while at the same time handing over the keys to a new elite. The social consolidation is giving rise to the new aristocrats.
I really hope I'm wrong.
Life is not for the lazy.
wet a towel and wrap it round your head.
then get your ass to Mars.
My wife accidentally ran my new passport with its RFID tag through the washing machine. I still get through customs. The existence of the chips does not make them infallible.
Gently reply
for using my data communications processing service ?
ii have costs, electricity, device wear and tear, commercial reading services ?
you thought i was just giving you that data for free ? think again chump
This is an improved GPS chip, allowing a phone to pinpoint its location even when GPS is spotty.
Shopkeepers won't get the data, even if the phone companies would be allowed to sell location data cause there is no ROI: not enough people will have such a chip to even make it worthwhile. Neither do they need data that detailed. As some other poster already wrote: they'd rather know how much money the customer has, not where he is right now. Both, the have not and the billionaire can watch the same Mercedes 600SL or Smart car with their phone in their pocket. Doesn't tell the shopowner who can actually afford the luxury car.
What can happen is that the government subpoenas the telco location data for a subscribe just like they do now and that the better accuracy helps them to pinpoint the location of the subscribe better. This can be used for "OMG evil gubmint!" or it can be used, probably a lot less of course, for finding a missing person e.g. inside an avalanche.
Of course without deliberately wrong sensationalism like this, the pagehits aren't coming.
They're saying it would be great for merchants to know where you are but I'd actually have to carry it and keep it charged for it to work. So it has to offer me a benefit and instant coupons or getting bombarded by ads isn't a good selling point.
A better application for this would be urban GPS. A big problem with current GPS is that it doesn't work in dense urban cities. Try to use GPS in New York... it's almost useless. First off, you're underground half the time. Second, even when you're above ground you tend to be amongst big buildings that obscure the sky. However, I get great cellphone reception pretty much anywhere in New York and wifi hotspots are pretty ubiquitous even if they're mostly locked. If your mobile navigation could make use of other static radio signals for navigation then GPS would work deep within the urban jungle. And THAT is valuable.
The pitch of "oh merchants can predict your location" is asinine. if you wanted to sell the tracking feature then I suppose this would work for tracking boxes. After all, existing tracking technology that relies on GPS won't work in warehouses, underground, or even inside of industrial shipping containers. But something that could triangulate cell towers should work just about damn near anywhere there is "civilization"...
All and all, a neat little chip and I wish it well. Whoever is coming up with the applications for it needs to be smacked around a little with a frozen trout.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
But then there'd be no excuse to push tracker technology and sell newspapers! Think of the lost sales, friend, the lost sales!
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
I don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy walking down the street. I have it in my home, or another person's home if I trust that person. Expecting that stores and service providers will give me this same courtesy is foolishness. It also seems that if I turn off my cell phone and laptop, I'll be invisible to this magic chip as well. Only the shadow knows.
Radio receivers? I thought they in themselves were cheap (power wise). I thought it was the transmitters that were power hungry, I think receivers will be fine.
Never happened. True story.
Unless they're implanting this fucking chip in you, the big brother implication of this chip is pretty much bullshit.
It has one damn good application - reliable navigation, indoors and out. Suppose you've just arrived in Montreal and don't know a thing about the place, but you want to hit up Schwartz's for the sandwich and a pickle that everyone's told you to try. Now your phone can direct you to the nearest subway station, direct you to the correct platform so you don't take the train in the wrong direction, tell you when to get off the train, transfer you to a bus, and drop you off for some kosher deliciousness without having to ask anyone for directions. (Which in Montreal, will either get you told off in French, or you'll end up getting directed to the "club with the best girls" instead of where you want to go..)
I could see this working as it does in some films, but eventually, just like with anything else, the "Ooh shiny!" factor wears off, and people will tune them (ads, discount offers, etc) out the same way we do regular ads, rough language on TV (compared to what was allowed a few decades ago in the US), and so on. Not that it won't have an effect at all, but our passive filters will adapt.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
OK, so I've got a device in my pocket - a cellphone, call it a tablet, whatever - and as I walk through the mall it vibrates with special offers from each retailer I pass in front of - how long do I leave this "feature" enabled? Two, three stores? The fact that the device is "smart" and will deduce from my facebook status of "single" and that I'm male that I'm not interested in offers from Yankee Candle, Bed, Bath and Beyond or Victoria's Secret doesn't really help much...
It will be the most disabled "feature" on personal devices, and will sink any product where the device is subsidised by the alerts.
I see a great market in the "I've fallen and I can't get up" device market - concerned children will buy them for their elderly parents who are still living independently, and let's not forget the "where's my kid" market segment, but this location-based direct marketing is a dumb idea. period.
Ken
Because big banners in the shop windows are useless at communicating with shoppers, right?
Ken
Samsung Galaxy II does the GPS / Wi-Fi geolocation bit. Google put together a list of all the WiFi hotspots in the world and uses that to augment GPS. Makes me wonder whether these phones are calling home with all the WiFi zones they have detected.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Sweet! I am so getting into the tinfoil overall business. Just think of all the people who would care about this very issue! Oh wait...
If I could mod you up past 5/funny, I would. Thanks for making us laugh.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. -- Willam Blake
Your 6150 can't provide the FCC-mandated support for 911 geolocation so any US carrier detecting it in their network will ban its IMEI to avoid being fined by the FCC.
Funny how they "can't" ban stolen phones to protect their customers but they can do it to protect their own pocketbook...
Pretty much this.
The only thing a coupon tells me is simply that your prices are too high. If it wasn't, you could not afford giving me a lower price. If that's not a good enough reason NOT to go to your store, I don't know what is.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You haven't been on this planet too long, have you?
Who will want this? People who prefer paying a few bucks less on an overpriced product to having a privacy. In other words, pretty much every idiot out there.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Get ready for the "bite my shiny tinfoil ass" Futurama jokes.
I thought, I thought, I think I'm wrong :).
I promise to never make this mistake again.
Hmmm, seems my thoughts and reality are, well, different :)... I've always believed (I don't know why) that transmitting cost orders of magnitude more energy than receiving radio waves.. I'm sure this is a common misconception, anyone care to explain why it's not true?
Never happened. True story.
I'd rather them give me an app that scans barcodes and gives me the best deal / price. That way I can also receive their competitors coupons.
Oh wait, that exists.
No, I do NOT want EXTRA ways to be BOMBARDED EVERYWHERE I GO WITH UR CHITTY OVERPRICED MERCHANDISE.
It has nothing to do with coupons to save you money, either. If they could be promised a way to advertise fake low prices to you instantly then they would raise the prices and the 'coupon' price would be regular price. They just want a new excuse to throw ads in your face nonstop about their products.
I've worked in stores that put things 'on sale' and their price actually goes up. It also has a false original price too. Maybe when it was brand new it was that prices months ago but it certainly wasn't before the sale.
Why is it that everything has to be pitched as a new and better way to do advertising? Is it just because marketers have no imagination and all want to be the next Google, or is it that marketing has gotten so out of control that it wags the dog now? Maybe all the ad supported stuff on the Internet has allowed salesmen to finally take over the world.
Nifty but are we talking 10 meter accuracy? 10 meters could mean the difference between Hot Dog on a Stick and Sbarro.
and I really want one of these to mount to a name tag....
and I am not the only one with these desires.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Mind you if you are female and blonde; you will accept this with open arms
just like the sex pest stalker who's following her.
IQ is an average, not a median.
therefore half the population is not necessarily under 100,
their aggregate score on the other hand........
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
So... THAT explains why folks are always depicted wearing shiny jumpsuits in those old sci-fi shows!!! Downright prophetic.
The Digital Sorceress
Serious question: Why?
Is it some sort of Machiavellian thing? Is there an actual reason for it?
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
If it were just AM it would be different. Today's radio protocols require keeping a lot of oscillations going and a lot of math/analog processing to properly discard noise. (Both sides need crypto math, but the receiver side has to deal with actually filtering the coherent signal out of the babble, while the transmitter at worst just needs to find the right MIMO beamforming, do a simple encode, and pump it through the air.)
The majority of access points use far more of the power budget for the software/OS than they do driving the antenna.
Someone had to do it.
Yeah, there's no way this can be used for ill.
Congratulations, you have been walking the required daily distance in the hospital. You'll get extra Jell-O with supper tonight.
and I really want one of these to mount to a name tag....
and I am not the only one with these desires.
Starfleet badge.
..... spam works! I know, I know, but it always has and it always will.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's not actually a big brother chip unless it reads your thoughts too.
to the type of personally directed public advertising seen in Minority Report, but at least they aren't using eye scans to do it. Privacy is gone. Embrace the technology and use it to your advantage. No one is forcing you to buy anything at gunpoint. You still have the last word over your wallet when it comes to consumer product purchases.
... which tells me that you don't understand how a loss leader works. The idea is that coupons identify products that will be sold with little or no profit, and often even at a loss but are used to get customers in the store where they will inevitably purchase other items, as well as making impulse purchases. If store A has a product for $10.00 and store B has a coupon for the same product at $9.00 you would hopefully buy the item from store B rather than concluding that $10.00 is the better deal because no coupon is involved. Of course, YMMV ;-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
5 years. Already police states such as Massachusetts are considering GPS transponders in all cars, supposedly to levy a miles-traveled tax which is bad enough...
As I posted only weeks ago, this means that even if you turn off your phone, or the GPS tracking, or even walk under a radio shield of some kind, the phone will extrapolate where you are based on your last verified map-pin by using solid state gyroscope, clock, and 3-axis accelerometer. The only need for radio will be to correct inevitable errors.
Turning off the bloody phone, or "turning off the GPS", or putting it in a steel box, or perhaps even removing the user-accessible battery (there'll be a backup, guaranteed) won't stop it from tracking you. Sales my tired soul, this is DHS tracking.
Time for tinfoil overalls.
At least it will be a shiny future.
Great!!! I can finally dress my astronaut suit without looking awkward in the streets. I'm looking forward for that future.
Minority Report, here we come!
But congrats to you for finding a fourth engine of tracking that I hadn't yet fully realized - sales. So then all that info is around "to make your shopping experience better". Yet you insightfully put the quotes around "shop keeper" because besides the actual shop keepers, there's tons of room for any two bit mall kiosk operator (I'm not even counting the total fakers) to apply for that info, then they have less obligation to keep up a good name than the big name shops. Then of course are the really sleazy operators, who fake the shop part entirely and social-engineer their way into the data for black hat reasons.
And yes, then that info will be cross sold to the .gov crowd to "help keep us safer from terrorists".
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
As much as I dislike the marketing application being discussed for this chip, there are other things it would be great for. As a firefighter, I'd love to have one of these integrated into my gear. Currently if a firefighter goes down and isn't moving, their PASS alarm will sound, so that other firefighters within hearing distance can find them. But what if you fall through a floor in a burning building and get separated from your crew? Wouldn't it be great to automatically transmit to the crews outside not only the fact that you need help, but precisely where that help should be sent? The same could be said for police officers, soldiers, or any other high-risk workers who might suddenly find themselves in need of backup.
Not a problem. They "watched" you walk up to the hyperbaric chamber, so that's not going to help you. "They" aren't stupid, and will have a lot of AI and their own personal experience to figure out why the readings went off into Narnia for a few minutes. In a decade or two, trying to mess with the tracker will be a felony, anyway, if people become too annoyingly successful at beating it. (plasma separator centrifuge would be funny, or a model rocket, or a quad copter, or tying it to a wild wolf... so many options).
So if you ever find the phone of a politician (or another worker for the state security organs) that is equipped with this chip, be sure to leave it in the nearest adult book store.
It is funny though. as they can already pinpoint any cellphone to an accuracy of less than 100m with the technology available from the beginning of cellphones.
And they can do so as soon as it is switched on, they can/and do get the information as soon as you hit dial..
Your tin foil hats will protect you no more! Mwahahahaha!
Tin foil is irrelevant. What is relevant, is:
predicated on the fact that shopkeepers will know the moment you walk by their front door, or when you are looking at a particular product,
Maybe shopkeepers have a higher chance of me buying something if they leave me the fuck alone, and not swarm me like flies in shit "the moment I walk by their front door".
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
staff tracking? like around an amusement park, cruise ship, movie theater or a motel?
if I can see staff members aren't sweeping out theater 5 each night after the middle show but hanging out tiwht the cute blonde in the office? yea.. that's valuable with this kind of tracking...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I guess that makes sense, though I would think video cameras (which are already ubitquitous) would perform the same function, and already be in place.
Also, for some reason, I initially pictured you working at EA or Sony.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Wrong! It takes several minutes for super computers to do the super advanced triangulation math and sound affects associated with it. And if they hang up before the calculations are done the data is lost forever!
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
Wow. Social acceptable racism known as a blonde joke. Let's try putting any other racial term in there and see how fast you'd be modded as troll.
I fear you had a sense of humour bypass; then by your own example decided to pull a racism card and attempted to draw me into a flame war. I would not like to disappoint you by not disappointing you.
All cows eat grass!
Mind you if you are female and blonde; you will accept this with open arms
just like the sex pest stalker who's following her.
Very well put indeed!
All cows eat grass!