|
Non-criminal/non-terrorist applications of location-detection
- Handsets
help to unstick jams
- Mobile phones could soon be helping Finland manage heavy traffic on
its roads.
- BBC News, 22 January 2003
- Baby-sitting
via satellite
- Satellite technology is being used in the US to keep track of children
and offer peace of mind to parents. A wristwatch containing miniature
Global Positioning System (GPS) technology has just gone on sale.
- BBC News, 12 August 2002
- Children's
tracking device invented
- Children getting lost in theme parks could become a thing of the past
thanks to an invention pioneered at Birmingham University. Engineers
at the university have developed a bangle that emits a signal, allowing
missing youngsters to be easily located. The "Geobangle" uses global
positioning by satellite, or GPS - the same system used in some cars
as a navigational aid.
- BBC News, 8 April 2003
- Watching
Your Kids' Every Move
- ... Beginning in 2005, parents will be able to track their children
through their cell phones - that's when all phones must be equipped
by law with GPS-like systems.
- CBS News, 6 January 2002
- Mobile
phone tracks heartbeats
- A device that attaches to a normal mobile phone and allows patients
to check their breathing and heart rate has been developed by researchers
in the US. The device combines an antenna and sensor which can pick
up respiratory and heart activity when connected to a mobile phone and
placed in front of a patient. The information could then be sent to
a remote health monitoring centre using the existing telephone network.
- BBC News, 14 December 2002
- Mobiles
used to monitor asthma
- Asthma suffers could soon benefit from a system which allows them
to keep check their condition via mobile phone.
- BBC News, 3 March 2003
- Will
Big Brother track you by cell phone?
- Thanks to car PCs and Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers in
wireless phones and handhelds, location services soon will eagerly offer
roadside assistance, traffic updates, and route planning as well as
shopping and services guides. But what will these services do with the
information they gather on your habits and whereabouts?
- PC World, 19 April 2001
- Your
Cell Phone Is Watching You
- Tracking devices were once a staple of old science fiction and action
movies. One typical scene: The good guy slaps a tracer on the villain's
getaway car and follows him -- at a safe distance -- to his lair for
the final showdown. Or a team of leering, white-coated technicians forces
a microchip-sized homing device into the hero's brain cavity. These
days, such scenarios aren't so fantastical. For blanketing the United
States are 140 million human-tracking devices: cellular phones.
- Valley Advocate, 4 April 2002
- Invention
aims to keep children safe
- A Kent man has invented a device which can keep track of youngsters,
as a survey reveals parents are more protective of their children following
the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman ... Kidcontact uses both
global positioning satellite (GPS) and mobile phone technology, letting
parents know exactly where their children are.
- BBC News, 19 September 2002
- NHS
patients tracked by satellite
- ... A touch-screen mobile phone logs information inputted by the ambulance
driver and relays it back to the control centre.
- BBC News, 4 December 2005
- Mobile
aid for diabetes patients
- Mobile phones are being used to try to make the lives of people with
diabetes easier by high-speed data transfer.
- BBC News, 23 October 2004
- Being
tracked down by your mobile
- Carrying a mobile phone? Then someone could be tracking your every
movement and know where you are. Big Brother? Perhaps, but it could
just be a Mexican restaurant wanting to invite you in for dinner.
- BBC News, 23 June 2003
- Mobiles
to save disaster victims
- Scientists from Toshiba's research labs in Bristol have come up a
way to exploit the ubiquity of the mobile phone to help find victims
in disasters.
- BBC News, 26 June 2003
- Call
of the sea saves father and son
- A brief signal picked up by two mobile phone masts was central to
the rescue of stricken sailors
- The Times, 2 June 2005
- New
devices may put children in danger
- Mobile phone tracking systems, similar to those used by police, are
becoming available to the public. Parents can subscribe to a range of
new location services, which offer to trace the location of a child’s
phone. In urban areas they can trace a phone to within 30 metres.
- The Times, 12 July 2004
- With
GPS, KDDI finds a new cell-phone audience
- ... GPS receivers are widely used in the United States and Europe
by mountaineers and sailors ... But those offerings do not display the
kind of interactive map that KDDI's do ... location. . KDDI's GPS feature
has inspired a host of practical applications. About 50 content suppliers
now offer location-linked services like restaurant guides that let users
find eateries of their choice — say, a noodle shop — within 100 meters
(330 feet) of wherever they happen to be. Navitime Co. sells a service
through which users can display the shortest path to a destination,
along with the nearest train station, the train schedule and the approximate
time it will take to get there ...
- International Herald Tribune, 28 March 2002
- Relief
tasks for text messaging
- ... Meanwhile, Orange's French unit has sent SMS messages to 3,200
customers who were traveling in the area of the tsunamis on Dec. 25
and 26, asking them to contact the French Foreign Ministry. . France
Télécom, which owns Orange, said that the French government had requested
the text messages to help account for its citizens. It is possible to
identify mobile phone customers who were in the area and had their cellphones
on through the registration of their phone numbers in a database of
"roaming" customers.
- International Herald Tribune, 4 January 2005
- Mobile
positioning: Track your friends
- ... That's because of the next wireless thing: mobile positioning.
Yes, your mobile phone will serve as a location device as long as it
is switched on ... Basically, operators can calculate where mobile phone
users are based on their relative position to so-called base stations
... Police have used similar methods to find out if suspects were near
a crime location, simply by checking whether phone calls where made
near certain base stations ... emergency services have been able to
locate fires and accidents, even if phone calls from people in need
of help had been cut off. Now, it's finally time for commercial services
... We tested a handful of sample services ... FriendFinder is for everyone,
not just sports fanatics: It knows a user's position in relation to
friends or colleagues with mobile phones ...
- ZDNet News, 1 September 2000
|