Woz And Motorola To Make Spying On Kids Easier Than Ever

from the what-am-I-missing? dept

Motorola is set to announce that they're licensing technology from Steve Wozniak's Wheels of Zeus - though, they don't say what they're going to use it for. The idea behind WoZ is that they've built some sort of cheap GPS device that can broadcast location over the 900 MHz spectrum (yeah, the cordless phone technology). The plan is that everyone who buys a system from them will contribute their base station to create a greater mesh network to cover the world with base stations that can communicate the location of anyone (or thing) who is tagged with a WoZ location device. It sounds particularly underwhelming. It's not all that different than other offerings, and requires quite a bit of critical mass before it becomes all that useful. At the same time, with just about every mobile phone shipping these days coming complete with GPS included, you begin to wonder why this is needed at all. However, someone has made a believer out of Motorola, so maybe they've seen something special in the system that the rest of us have missed.
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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2004 @ 8:26am

    You must not have kids or a dog

    If they can make these tags small enough to be unobtrusive and powerful enough for a couple-mile
    range, I think a lot of folks would want it.

    Have you ever been on a neighborhood wide hunt for your dog once it gets loose and takes off down the street? Ever wonder if your kid really is just playing at the park or at someones house? Ever let your teenager borrow your car and wonder if they really did go to the library or if they are cruising down at the local mall?

    I would love to have a small tag I could sew into my 5 year olds pants which would let me track him as he plays in the yard or at the neighbor kids house. He's too young to deal with a cell phone so a gps-cell phone isn't the solution. As for your car, think a cheap LoJack where you can hunt down your own car and not get a third party (cops) involved. Not for when its stolen, but for when you loan it to your 16yo daughter who says she is going to the library but ends up at somebodys house party.


    link to this | view in chronology ]


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