GPSTracing Our Steps


Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) is the technology that enables you to know exactly where you are on the planet, down to the last square foot. "Years ago, the civilian use of GPS was limited to an accuracy of a hundred feet or so compared to the higher accuracy of military usage," explains Robert Nesbit, general manager of the Mitre Corporation (Bedford, Massachusetts, operations), a large government think tank. "The Clinton administration ended that disparity, and now we all have the benefit of near perfect accuracy."

We have all seen GPS systems in car navigation systems. What has changed is that the technology has been shrunk in both size and costs to the point that GPS can now be put into tiny and pervasive devices. Case in point, Nesbit explains, "As a result of the E911 mandate, congress requires cell phones to have a GPS chip built right in to them, although not necessarily exposed to the average user." Nesbit continues, "Sony is the number one maker of embedded GPS chips"; so, you might imagine where this is heading. There's an old saying in the computer worldtechnology advances are driven by either gaming or porn or both.

More than 20 million GPS devices are in use today in nonmilitary capacities. According to Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, a prominent author on GPS technology, "The largest new growth area is in handheld devices." This includes cell phones and PDAs as well as sport devices for outdoor adventures, such as hiking. The technology is now so prevalent that Coke had a special promotion for the 2004 summer[6] in which 120 Coke cans were equipped with GPS-enabled cell phones and the recipient needed only to place a phone call (via the can) when they discovered the can.

[6] http://www.adrants.com/2004/05/coke-launches-gps-coke-can-promotion.php.

"Think about this," Adrian quips, "the expression 'Where are you?' will disappear from our dialogues. This is the new equivalent of caller ID. Caller ID was essentially 'location' information, right? The display showed you that Sally is calling from work or Joe is calling from home. We lost that when we went all-cellular." Adrian's point is that, like caller ID, at first we may resist these new locator services, but in the end, we will accept and embrace it. Today, when your phone rings, do you not expect to see who is interrupting you? Might you now expect to also know where they are calling from as well?

Stalking via GPS

Not all uses of GPS are desirable. In August 2004, a Glendale, California, man was arrested for stalking his ex-girlfriend by using a GPS system. The man built a homemade device that combined a GPS receiver and a cell phone with a motion detector. He surreptitiously attached this device to the undercarriage of his ex-girlfriend's car. Whenever the car would move, the cell phone would turn on and periodically send GPS location information to a Web site the man was monitoring. The woman became suspicious when her ex-boyfriend kept appearing at places where she was (such as the airport, bookstores, and elsewhere). She ultimately caught him when he was under her car replacing the cell phone battery. This case points out a new level of concern with being so easily connected (and thus monitored).


Tags or bracelets exist today to allow tracking of children. "Have you ever gone to one of those crazy amusement parks in the summer?" Adrian asks. "Too many people packed into a 500-acre section of the earth. It's every parent's nightmare. I for one would value an amusement park that offered free tracking bracelets to all young children where my PDA could constantly navigate me toward them. In the UK, we're exploring bracelets for child abusers as well. Safety or privacy risk? When pushed, most of us would come down on the side of safety and security."

Nesbit explains that there is a significant recent enabler of this GPS craze:

GPS uses satellites, and a device has to lock on to four or five satellites before it can get an accurate reading. This process can easily take minutes and consumes a great deal of power (and thus battery size) as the system hunts for suitable satellites. This is particularly problematic indoors or under heavy forest cover where signals are weak. GPS was thus relegated to vehicle navigation systems. More recently, cellular and GPS technology have come together in a synergistic way. The local cell sites retain accurate satellite information and prebroadcast this information to cell-GPS enabled devices. The devices are now able to near-instantly lock on to the correct satellites and do so with minimal power consumption. This is why we'll now see GPS-enabled devices be pervasive.

Many of us seem to have an insatiable appetite for details. Inescapable Data could turn this appetite into an obsession. We do not want to know that it is the Smith's house calling us, we want to know that it is Tom Smith. We want to know where he is when he is calling us. (After all, he's interrupting our life; why should he need to hide his whereabouts?) We want to know whether a spouse is still on the tennis court or in the lounge and able to tolerate an interruption. We want to know whether our child is in the movie theater or behind it. We want our cameras to superimpose landmark and geographic information onto our photographs automatically. (Ricoh's Caplio Pro G3, for example, is a camera with a built-in GPS that automatically watermarks photo's with location information.)

On the other hand, there are more productive uses of personal GPS as well. Our Inescapable Data thesis states that it is the coupling of a pervasive technology with other pervasive technologies that results in greater gain. Look, for example, at where the business or leisure travel world is heading. We visit our favorite travel Web site and book a trip to Orlando. The XML output from the travel site is automatically digested by our PDA-based calendar tool and correctly blocks off the appropriate days. The same PDA then automatically traverses XML-based airline schedules. And, as we pass thru DFW on our way to Orlando, using GPS it guides us from gate C21 to gate B18, all the while sensitive to the last-minute gate-change information. A connected relative who we expect to meet at the airport knows our whereabouts as well. Never once do we call to say that we have been delayed an hour, and, of course, we would never discuss where to meet. The relative simply knows where to be, and when. Knowing exactly where we are at all times and advertising that through networks to trusted targets is an Inescapable Data component.

Theme Parks and RFID

A new theme park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, uses RFID bracelets to help parents keep track of children.[7] Wannado City is a theme park designed around children's future career aspirations. The park's slogan is "America's First Real-Play Park," and children get to experiment with being a doctor or a paleontologist or a variety of other careers. The park is large, about 140,000 square feet, mostly indoors but divided in to a tangle of "stores" or locations for interaction, somewhat like a sprawling shopping mall. All visitors to the park get special wristbands that have embedded RFID chips that wirelessly transmit the wearer's identity to the park's various sensors. Kiosks located throughout the park enable visitors to locate members of their party.


[7] http://news.com.com/Theme+park+takes+visitors+to+RFID-land/2100-1006_3-5366509.html?tag=nefd.hed.



    Inescapable Data. Harnessing the Power of Convergence
    Inescapable Data: Harnessing the Power of Convergence (paperback)
    ISBN: 0137026730
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 159

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