Another Company Wants To Track Fido With GPS

from the roving-rover dept

Wed, May 9th 2007 5:29pm — Carlo Longino

Just four years after a Japanese company launched a similar product, a company in Sweden has announced the "world premier" of a GPS dog collar that lets owners keep track of their pets. The collar has a GPS chip and a cellular modem; when an owner sends an SMS to the collar, it responds with a message detailing its location in text or map form. Like GPS applications for tracking kids, the device can also trigger alarms if the dog wearing it wanders outside a preset zone. While the company behind the device says it can help solve dog owners' "worst nightmare", it's hard to imagine too many of them ponying up the cash for the device and ongoing service. These sorts of tracking applications are continually mentioned as part of the future -- but the only problem is that people don't really seem all that interested in them.

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8 Comments

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Anonymous Jerk, 9 May 2007 @ 5:57pm

If you remember, back when desktop computers were 'young', a 20MB hard drive cost nearly $1000, and took up more space than a CD drive. Now, some 20 odd years later, I've got a keyfob that can handle nearly 200 times that amount (and I only paid about $100 for it
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Ajax 4Hire, 9 May 2007 @ 6:20pm

And the next logical step is to collar
your baby, your 3-year old child, your car, your teenager's car, your teenager, your frail ailing parents, yourself.

It will be portrayed as "saving the children", protect the young ones from predators, helping the senior citizens "Help I've fallen and I can't get up!"

The government does this now to newly released felons.

Whoa, mark of the beast.
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The Swiss Cheese Monster, 9 May 2007 @ 6:26pm

I want to know where my fucking tools keep going.

My socks too.
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Mark, 9 May 2007 @ 6:53pm

Tools for sale on Craigslist
I have a nice selection of tools available on craigslist, please email if interested. Also, WTB - 17 single socks, not matched.
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evilwulfie, 9 May 2007 @ 8:02pm

WTF ?
mark get a grip
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Cixelsid, 10 May 2007 @ 4:28am

WTF
I used to have socks. Before the accident. Now I have to get around on a trolley.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 May 2007 @ 12:12pm

I'd pay a resonable price for such a device and a fee per "ping" for the service. Requirements:

Small enough to go on the dog (and preferably a cat)
Batteries for 5 years or more.
No fee until I "ping".
Reliable coverage (for me, only in metro areas).
Very very reliable overall.

Being able to locate a lost pet would be great. I have lost a couple of animals down through the years and can be EXTREMELY painful. I'd probably be willing to pay $100 for the device and $1 or $2 per ping (so I could test every so often).

Yeah, I know, it wouldn't ALWAYS work (thief would remove the collar, for example), but if it ever worked, it's just so much better than... "Gone and tough sh--".
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Charles Griswold, 13 May 2007 @ 3:43pm

Re:
I want to know where my fucking tools keep going.

My socks too.

What ticks me off the most is that it's only my left socks that go missing. If I could tag all of my left socks with GPS units, that would be very cool. I'm sure that you could get sock-tracking chips for less than $200 each.

:-D
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