Wozniak Unveils Latest Startup
from the little-tracking-gadgets dept
A year and a half ago, we wrote about how Steve Wozniak was starting a new wireless company using GPS to "help everyday people track everyday things". Well, now, a little more has been revealed about the startup, and that initial description still applies. The company, called Wheels of Zeus (to play on the whole WOZ thing), has basically created a new network (running over the 900 MHz spectrum) that will let GPS-based tags communicate with a home-base, to tell you where the tags are located at any given time. The idea is that you put these tags on your kids or your pets, and can keep track of them. While the technology is slightly different, the end-result isn't all that different than some other location-based products out there (unless I'm missing something). While this might be useful for pets, it seems like mobile phones will have this sort of capability built into them in the not-so-distant future, leaving Woz with a fairly limited market (unless, as is possible, I'm missing something). Of course, there's also the question of privacy - but the folks at WoZ insist that there's no issue, since it's all a voluntary system, where the owner of the base station and the tags is tracking their own tags. Of course, that's nice, but if I were a kid wearing such a tag, I might resent my parents spying on my every move. As a dog, I might not care as much.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
tracking device in cell phones
i am in the process of doing a university project for entrepreneurship.
Me and my friend came up with an idea of putting a tracking function on your cell phone, which would be linked up to tracking bugs attached to your belongings (wallet, keys etc) we wanted to know if the idea is feasible firstly, also in your knowledge of these systems would it be expensive and how would your cell phone pick up the other bugs
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
tracking device availability
Andy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
locating my glasses
[ link to this | view in chronology ]