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Company Designs "Big Brother Chip"

Posted by samzenpus on from the me-and-my-shadow dept.

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."

6 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Potato, potato by samazon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you say "coupons" I hear "pushy advertisements."

    --
    I have the hiccups.
  2. Re:Get ready for it, Slashtards. by burne · · Score: 5, Funny

    Time for tinfoil overalls.

    At least it will be a shiny future.

  3. Not exactly a new threat, but... by Jawnn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Not exactly a new threat, but... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      TFS is highly misleading. The chip doesn't "phone home" or give data to marketers. It is just an integration of existing phone tech to reduce cost and power consumption. Just like current phones any snooping will be software controlled by the vendor.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  4. !new by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  5. circumvention by mug+funky · · Score: 5, Funny

    wet a towel and wrap it round your head.

    then get your ass to Mars.