Author: Joe Mueller

SPOT GPS Tracking Device: Climbers and Outdoor Adventurers Take Heart

Finding a quality, real time GPS tracking device that is going to work in the rugged outdoors is a top priority for campers, climbers, and outdoor adventurers.  The SPOT GPS Tracking Device tries to meet this need for this particular market.  The problem with many of the other traditional tracking units is that they suffer from a reliance upon the cell phone networks.  When you use the SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger you don’t need to be in cell phone range for the device to work, making it perfect for those who adventure well off the beaten path.

The obvious reason for this being a desirable trait in the tracker is one of safety.  Even if you have the best of the best in tracking equipment but it is unable to transmit your signal over a network so that others know where you are your tracking equipment is useless.  It is money thrown down the drain.  The SPOT GPS avoids this serious pitfall by relying upon commercial satellites instead of cell phone networks to communicate its data.

How the SPOT GPS Tracking Device Works

Since this particular GPS tracking unit works differently from all others that I have come across it seems important that we come to an understanding of how it works if we are to understand it fully.  The graphic below is from the SPOT GPS website (http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=108)

Spot GPS Tracking Device How It Works

  1. The process begins with GPS satellites broadcasting a signal containing information that a GPS device can use for trilateration.
  2. The SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger receives these signals from its GPS antenna and process the information in its  onboard GPS chip.  This process is again called trilateration and is the bedrock of all effective GPS tracking.  It then sends this position information to commercial satellites to move along the chain.
  3. Once it receives your message, the communication satellite will then relay it back down to earth for one of the satellite antennas to pick up.
  4. These satellite antennas are connected to a global network that will route the information generated by your SPOT and send a central processing station where it can be stored and then communicated via the methods you selected.
  5. The final step of the process is the actual delivery of your message.  This can be through email, via a text message, or by means of telephone contact with the GEOS Rescue Coordination Center

The whole design of this system is really quiet remarkable and I am really surprised that more personal GPS tracking devices do not utilize this technology.

SPOT GPS Coverage

Tracking coverage is an incredibly important element in the purchase of any safety GPS tracking device.  You need to know that you are going to be able to use your device when you need it.  Here is a map of the SPOT’s coverage as indicated on the SPOT website (http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=109):

SPOT GPS Tracking Device Coverage Map

As you can clearly see, coverage is best in North America, Europe, and Australia.  East Asia also has good coverage and so does the northern portion of South America.

One additional word about the coverage – this is map focuses on step 2 and 3 from above (SPOT and satellite communication).  That means that if you are in a place where you cannot get a GPS signal then you are not going to be able to use it to track your location or use it to contact emergency personnel.

Pre-order the SPOT 2 Satellite GPS Messenger – Orange (PRE-ORDER) now!

3 Uncommon Ways To Use the SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger

1.  GPS  Safety Device For Driving

Sometimes our driving takes us to paths that do not get cell phone reception.  At such times it becomes important for us to have a way to successfully notify emergency personnel in the advent of a car crash or other medical emergency.  Services like OnStar are simply not going to cut it since they rely heavily on cell phone networks to transmit their information.

That is where SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger comes in.  Through its ability to contact first responders via satellites it can still get travelers the help that they need.  Here is an excerpt from a story about the how the SPOT was used in this exact role:

[SPOT helped save an ] elderly man with chest pains on the remote Alaska Highway of British Columbia. With no phone service, Gary Sleeper used his SPOT Messenger to alert the Emergency Response Center that he was in an emergency situation and needed assistance.

When the International Emergency Rescue Coordination Center (IERCC) received his 911 message … [the IERCC] immediately notified the Canadian authorities, which dispatched a paramedic to intercept the man and his father on the highway. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was to see an ambulance appear. We transferred my father to the ambulance and he was rushed to Fort Nelson while receiving evaluation and medical treatment.”

This small GPS tracking device has a large impact on this family that day even though it was being used in an uncommon way.

2.  Child GPS Tracking Device

One very common application of GPS tracking is for children.  You see it in a wide range of devices and ideas.  The features of the SPOT GPS that would lend itself well to this application are the SOS button, the Help button, the Check-In/OK button, and Custom Message button.   Have three different ways to communicate with your child makes it much easier for them to communicate accurately with you, their parent.

Here is just a touch of some of the different ways that you could use these different communication options in a child GPS function:

  • SOS button – This would obviously be used for the worst case scenarios.  If you child is hurt, in an accident, or kidnapped they should press this button.  This will notify you and the authorities about your child’s location.  I’m not certain the that the police will be notified per se, but at least you know some government agency will be.
  • Help button – This is designed for non-emergencies and to notify parents of your need for help.  Is your child lost on their way home?  Are they stuck at school because you forgot to pick them up?  Are they stranded at a county fair because they got seperated from the pack?  These would all be proper uses of the Help button.
  • Check-In/OK button – This could be used by a kid who is wanting to let their parent know that they got to school, baseball practice, or a friends house okay.  It could also be a way for them to let you know that they have been thinking of you and just wanted to say I love you.
  • Custom Message button -  You can make up to three custom messages with the SPOT GPS tracking device.  Use your imagination or discuss with your child how these three messages should be used and what their content should be.

While this sounds like a great candidate for use as a child tracking device there is one major concern that one should be aware of.  It is that the device is fairly large when compared with some of the smaller child tracking devices like the Amber Alert GPS.  The larger the device, the more likely it will be discovered and discarded in the event of a kidnapping.  This is the exactly the situation in which you want your covert GPS tracking device to stay hidden!

3.  Bring Me Stuff Device

This is a going to be a very uncommon use of this device, but I thought it was so interesting that I’d put it down anyway.  Imagine a very rich man who travels around a lot but has certain things that he wants constantly – like chocolate or massages.  He has hired a bunch of people to cater to his wishes but he doesn’t want to drag an entourage with him every single time he is out on the town.  A man like this just has to take a long a SPOT GPS tracking device and he is no more than a button away from delicious chocolate or a relaxing massage.

Once he presses the help or custom message button his people will be notified of his express desire can be dispatched forthwith to cater to his every need!  Now that is living in the lap of luxury.

Buy The SPOT GPS Tracking Device

If you are interested in purchasing the the SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger then you can pre-order it using the link below.  This product is expected to ship sometime in October 2009.

Pre-order the SPOT 2 Satellite GPS Messenger – Orange (PRE-ORDER) now!

SPOT GPS Tracker In The News

An elderly man was saved by the Spot GPS Tracker after having a very serious ATV accident that left him unconscious.  Luckily, the man’s son had a SPOT that he has just recently activated.  Within minutes of the accident the 9-1-1 button was pressed and emergency personnel were notified of the distress signal.  Shortly after that a rescue team was on the scene and the injured man was taken by helicopter to the nearest hospital.  This just goes to show you the power of a GPS tracking system when adventuring in the great outdoors!

7 Reasons To Begin Tracking Cell Phones Today

By now, we all know that cell phones that have GPS enabled can also be used as tracking devices.  The nature of cell phone networks, but especially the 3G and 4G networks that are now everywhere available, make it possible that almost every single cell phone that is currently being used can be tracked to a pretty precise location.  However, many phones that could utilize this tracking for cell phones don’t. Is there good reason to begin tracking cell phones?  Is this small percentage of adopters a sign that there are no legitimate uses for cell phone tracking?  Here are just a few reasons why more people should begin using this powerful technology:

1. You’re A Fitness Nut

Those that love to use fitness GPS know just how useful these devices can be in helping them stay on track with their workouts and improve their overall performance.  The only problem with these dedicated fitness GPS is that they can be pretty expensive to purchase.  As an example, a Garmin Forerunner 405, is going to cost you well over $200.  Even with the heart rate monitor which greatly increases the information that you can gather with this device, this is pretty expensive for something that you only use when working out.  There has to be a cheaper solution than that.

As it would turn out, there is a cheaper solution.  You can leverage the GPS that is already in your cell phone and turn it into your fitness tracking device.  There are both paid software packages that can do this as well as free ones.  As you might expect, the paid software generally provides a much more robust user experience and has a lot of bells and whistles for you to enjoy.  One example of this type of software is AllSport GPS by Trimble.  In some instances you are  going to have to pay a one time fee while at other times you are going to need to pay a monthly subscription.  Wherever possible and whenever it makes financial sense, go with the one-time fee over the monthly subscription.

Free software, on the other hand,  is going to cost you nothing to use and to install but it is going to “cost” you in terms of features and ease of use.  Many free tracking applications are general purpose and not necessarily designed for fitness tracking.  This makes it a little more difficult to use it in this fashion, but it is certainly doable.

2.  You Suspect A Spouse of Cheating

GPS tracking shouldn't be necessary for married couples, but sometimes it is because cheaters like to lie - they must be found out
GPS tracking shouldn't be necessary for married couples, but sometimes it is because cheaters like to lie - they must be found out.

If you suspect your spouse of cheating then you might want to begin tracking them using GPS.  The reason that using a cell phone to do it is such a good idea is that cell phone generally go with a person wherever they go.  If they are going to a hotel to meet their fellow cheater then you can pretty much assume that they are going to be bringing their cell phone with them.  This makes being able to track their cell phone very powerful and very useful.

But there is one word of caution here, it is generally fairly difficult to install GPS tracking software on your spouses phone without them knowing it or being able to figure it out.  If they are savvy they might notice that there battery is loosing charge faster than normal, or that some of their other activities – like browsing the internet while doing a few other tasks underneath the surface – are going slower than normal.  If they then look at all the running applications on their phone they might notice something is amiss.

Tracking your spouse with GPS through their cell phone is certainly not the easiest thing in the world, but if you can’t afford a standalone tracker then you will find that the cell phone works just as well as these other devices.  You might have to expose your tracking to more risk of discovery, but getting to the bottom of it is worth the risk if money is tight.

3.  Monitor A Teen Driver

Teens take their cell phones everywhere, so when you install GPS tracking software on their phone you will be able to track them wherever they go – even while driving.  The ability to do this is especially important given the fact that teens tend to drive rather dangerously when they are alone or when they have friends with them in the car.  Being able to monitor and regulate your teenager’s driving is a primary concern for many parents who do not want their child to be a statistic for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration  to compile.

There are plenty of ways to help drive better, with one of the most effective being a robust GPS tracking system that encourages and rewards safe driving practices.  For more information on how to make this a reality for your teen please see the following articles:

4. Make Your Own GPS Art

While you may not create a piece like the Mona Lisa, GPS can still be used to create art.
While you may not create a piece like the Mona Lisa, GPS can still be used to create art.

Like it or not, GPS tracking art is a real phenomena.  Many locative artists mainly use portable GPS tracking devices, but there really is not reason that they could not use cell phone GPS tracking for their work.  All they would need to do is get a program that let them track the position of their phone and they would be set.  The tracking would not have to go on in real time so the artists would not need to be constrained by receiving a cell phone signal to do the tracking.  All they would need is the ability to receive GPS satellite signals.

This would mean that the cell phone could be used in all sorts of locations.  Rugged mountain regions, desolate tundras, barren deserts, or lush jungles – as long as you could receive data from 3 satellites in the constellation of GPS satellites then you are good to go.

5. Share Your Location With Friends and Family

It is pretty obvious that cell phones help you stay in better contact with friends and family.  Just being able to call someone from wherever you are at is a great way to stay in better contact, but when you add to that things like internet browsing (for Facebook and other social media use) you begin to get a very powerful social device. Since this idea is already well ingrained in the minds of users, once GPS came around there were many people who saw that this could be just one more way that these practical devices could be used to connect user to their friends. Thus social cell phone tracking software was born.

There are several free tracking systems available for use made by third parties as well some that are made by cell phone providers themselves. Find the social tracking application the best fits your needs and is going to get you in contact with the largest number of your friends.

6. Help You Find A Lost Cell Phone

We have already written extensively on how one might use GPS to find a lost cell phone, so we won’t go into too much detail here. But suffice it to say that this is a very real and powerful method for users to stay in contact with their cell phone – wherever it is. There are a lot of different options available to you depending on which type of cell phone you own and what current features you already subscribe too. For example, MobileMe for the iPhone already has a built in lost cell phone finding feature. There are also some free gps cell phone tracking programs that you can use as a lost cell phone finder as well.

7. Create An Accurate Theft Recovery Device

Speaking of a cell phone’s ability to track down a lost cell phone, MobileMe, and the iPhone, cell phones also work great as GPS theft recovery devices. There are several documented cases where stolen cell phones were used by police to track down the perpetrators of the crime and bring them to justice. All it takes is installing a little extra software on your phone and it suddenly turns into a powerful theft recovery device capable of reuniting you with your stuff when the information is given to the right people (the police or your mob friends 🙂 ).

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As you can clearly see, there are many different reasons to use GPS tracking for cell phones.  What I find most interesting about them is that they are not all mutually exclusive.  In fact, one type of cell phone tracking is often compatible with other types of tracking as well making cell phones even more useful and cost effective purchases.  Why buy expensive, stand alone GPS tracking device when you can use a cell phone at a fraction of the price and for much more than one device could ever accomplish?

Child GPS: A Beginner’s Guide

Is it a good idea to use GPS tracking for children?  Does a  parent acquiesce to some substandard parenting ideal if they use child GPS?  Do these tracking devices work effectively?  What type of kid tracking device works best?  Are there any easy, cheap tracking alternatives?

It is the hope of this short article to try and make answer some of these questions for the parent just beginning to think about using some type of GPS tracking with their children in an effort to keep them safe and secure in our increasingly dangerous world.  There is a sea of information out there about different options for parents and their children, so getting a solid handle on some of the basics is important if we are to find our way to safe harbors.  The last thing we want to do is spend lots of money on something that doesn’t work well.  After reading this you will hopefully be a little better equipped to make good decisions about any potential purchases.

GPS: The Basics

As one famous song once started, “Let’s start at the very beginning / A very good place to start” and begin this discussion about GPS for children and talk about GPS itself. Most people have some level of familiarity with GPS because of the prolific dissemination of GPS navigation devices. Brands like Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan have popularized the use of GPS, but what exactly is GPS? How does it work? And what differentiates GPS navigation from GPS tracking?

GPS stands for Global Positioning System and is a constellation of over 20 satellites currently in orbit around the earth. Each of these satellites broadcasts a signal that contains information about the location of the satellite and the the time that the signal originated. These signals shower down from the heavens and are collected by specialized radio antennas. These GPS antennas then funnel these signals to a receiver which interprets the information from the signal. Once three signals have been received from satellites, the GPS is then able to discover its location through a mathematical principle called trilateration.

Trilateration is best described by the following picture:

Once you know your distance from three objects you can find out your position relative to all three objects. If you also know where these three objects are in the world then you can also know your exact position in the world as well.

A real life example might help clarify this principle. Let’s say that your child is in a ten by ten room. They are located somewhere in the room but neither you nor they know exactly where they are. In the center of each wall is a piece of rope that will be used to measure their distance from that wall. You come to find that the child is located 5 feet from all 4 walls. Where is your child?

If you the do the math you will find that your child can only be in one location, the exact center of the room. This is a lot like trilateration with GPS satellites and is the one way thing that all GPS devices have in common, irregardless of whether it is a child GPS tracker, a pet GPS tracker, a car GPS tracker, or a fleet GPS tracker.

GPS Trackers or GPS Loggers?

Now we should turn our attention to another important distinction in the world of GPS, that between GPS trackers and GPS loggers.  As one might expect, a GPS tracker is something that has the capability of being tracked in real time.  These might also be called real time GPS tracking devices.  These work by collecting the location data using the process of trilateration as outlined above and then sending that data over a cell phone network where it can be stored for user access, which usually means for display on a website.  Real time GPS trackers generally have a monthly subscription to cover the cost of using the cell phone network to transfer data.

A data logger is a GPS device that does what its name suggests, it logs the data that is calculates via trilateration.  Almost all GPS navigation devices are data loggers, so are GPS tracking sticks and other types of covert GPS tracking devices.  While these devices can be very useful for analyzing GPS information after the fact, they are terrible real time tracking devices because you  actually have to have the device in order to view the information.  What good does that do you if you want to find a missing child?

As a result, all child GPS devices are going to be real time GPS tracking devices.  This is without exception.  If someone is trying to sell you a data logger then you want to run out the door!

Types of Child GPS Devices

There are several types of tracking devices for children that you should take a look at before making your purchase.  All of these devices do their tracking in real time.  Some options may be better for some parents than others depending on your own particular situation and needs.  While some trackers will excel in certain situations they will also flounder in others.  Finding the “perfect” child tracking device is not an easy task and you generally have to give up some quality in order to get another quality that you really want.  The main type of child GPS include: GPS cell phones, GPS tracking devices, and GPS watches.

Child GPS Cell Phones

One of the easiest ways for parents to track their children is to use a cell phone. This makes child GPS tracking very easy for parents that already have their children using a cell phone for other reasons.  There are some phones that are specifically designed for this kid tracking.  These generally have very few buttons, and the buttons that they do have are more akin to speed dial buttons that regular phone buttons.  They are fairly easy to use and allow for one touch communication between child and parent.  We have written another article about these phones called Kids GPS Phone: A Brief Introduction.

The second way to use a cell phone to track your kids is to set up a tracking system yourself.  Just get a GPS enabled cell phone and install some GPS tracking software on it.  This can be a relatively cheap if you are already paying for a family plan that includes a data element since many cell phone tracking software packages are free.   All you have to do is install the software on your cell phone and you will have a real time tracking device for your use.

Pros:

  • In some cases, it uses a device already used by the child – thus saving money on device purchase and service plan
  • Very useful devices that allow you to call the phone if the child is somewhere they are not supposed to be

Cons:

  • They are the first thing to get destroyed or discarded during an abduction, they are not easily concealed
  • Cell phone can sometimes be more trouble than they are worth with text messaging, camera phones, and internet surfing

Child GPS Locators

Stand alone child GPS locators are on the rise as GPS technology is creating more powerful devices that fit into smaller and smaller dimensions. One great example of this is the Amber Alert GPS. At a stunningly small 1.77″ x 1.68″ x .78″ this device is among the smallest kid trackers on the market. It uses A-GPS for quick and energy efficient location finding. A one way voice monitoring systems allows parents to listen in on up to 30 minutes of conversation per month in case of an emergency. The device supports bread-crumbing which is great for helping you track down your child. The unit even has a handy SOS button that when pressed by your child will send you their location every 5 minutes until the system has been restored.

The device is easily concealed in a pocket or personal bag, making it less likely to be discarded by someone seeking to take your child. If the device doesn’t get taken then you can be sure that there is going to be a higher chance that you will recover them.

Right now, the Amber Alert GPS is being offered with a $100 discount. If this is an interesting option for you then I would recommend heading over to their website in order to find out more information about this GPS device and how it might help you and your family stay safe.

Pros:

  • Small, light-weight GPS tracking devices are extremely easy to conceal
  • Extremely accurate position information, especially when using A-GPS

Cons:

  • Limited battery life means you need to stay on top of charging the device regularly
  • Expensive – can cost $100s  for the device and anywhere from $100 to $400 a year in service plan coverage

Child GPS Watches

A child GPS watch is the third and final option available for those seeking to find a way to track their children.  In many ways, these are the ideal from of child GPS.  What would be a better GPS tracking device than an inconspicuous child’s watch?  Then throw in some cell phone functionality, like one button calling, and you have a power child safety device.

When you look at the current selection of GPS tracking watches for kids you are going to find that we are much closer to the ideal device described above than one might suspect.  There are already a few models planned that do in fact incorporate real time GPS tracking technology with cell phone communication.  Since most real time tracking devices already utilize the ever expanding cell phone network, this marriage was a perfect union for watch manufacturers.  Now that they have the concept they just need to execute it in a way that works for parents and for kids.

Child GPS WatchHowever, many of the current child GPS watches that actually do exist are nothing like one would hope.  Their GPS works almost exclusively outdoors, making them woefully inadequate as a child safety device.  They also do not feature A-GPS, voice communication, and they are bulky and extremely ugly – just take a look at the watch to the right!

Pros:

  • Watch can easily be seen as a normal watch and will not be removed by an attacker
  • Easy dual use device – it tells time and tracks your child
  • Children can easily be convinced to use the watch through the power of fun

Cons:

  • Bulky design makes them a pain to wear and very suspicious  to would-be abductors
  • Yet to reach its full potential – many of the most promising tracking watches are still in the design stage and have yet to be released for sale

Where Do We Go From Here?

As you can see, each type of child GPS is going to have its own set of strengths and weaknesses.  As the market stands today, there is no outright winner in regards to what you should equip your child with, but hopefully this guide has given you some good handles to go out and find the right type of tracker for your specific needs.  If you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them below in the comments section and one of our GPS tracking editors will do their best to answer it for you.

Spotlight GPS Pet Tracking Device

A few years ago I had the opportunity to watch three awesome dogs for a couple weeks during the summer.  The house I got to stay at was pressed up against a canyon and the dogs would love to run back and forth between the back yard and the front yard chasing rabbits and enjoy to cooler night time air.  On one night in particular, the dogs persisted in their barking a little longer than usual.  Curious to see what was happening I walked outside to check up on the dogs.

Boxer

Like I mentioned, the family I was dog sitting for had three dogs, a Boxer, a Bichon, and a Yorkie.  The Boxer was obviously the biggest of the bunch and she was the first one that I saw, here large frame and light fur was easily spotted in the dark evening air.  The next one that I saw was the Bichon. His white coat made him easily seen despite his small stature. However, the smallest of the dogs, the Yorkie, was nowhere to be seen.  I felt my heart sink into the bottom of my stomach as I turned around and ran back into the house – something had happened to the Yorkie.

Bichon Frise

I frantically searched for a flashlight.  It was after 10PM and there was no way I was going to find that dog if I didn’t grab a light.  After finding one I ran back outside and started shining the flashlight everywhere I could think the Yorkie could be hiding.  There front yard at that time had lots of low bushes that the Yorkie loved to run and skulk in when chasing rabbits, so that was my primary search location at first. I could not find her. Then, in desperation, I shined the light into the canyon. About 100 yards away from me I saw two glowing eyes starring back at me in the sage.  The Yorkie had been taken by a coyote.

Yorkie

I began searching the perimeter of the front yard in order to see if I could find a path that the coyote might have used after taking the Yorkie. I found what I thought was one and immediately started rushing down it in the hopes that the dog was still alive. I had not idea if the coyote still had the Yorkie or if it had eaten her already or it had just left her for dead somewhere in the brush. With flashlight in hand I made it about 20 yards down the canyon slope until I saw some small, glowing eyes in the brush. It was the Yorkie, laying still and motionless in the grass.

To make this long story a little shorter, the Yorkie thankfully survived the attack and it now living a healthy life. I think she survived mainly because she had a thick dog collar on that protected her throat and neck from the crushing of the coyote’s jaws.  She has even had a puppies since the attack and is doing extremely well.

But the reason I mentioned this story here is that there is a new GPS pet tracking device out that would have really helped during this stressful and scary situation. The name of the device is Spotlight GPS.  This GPS tracking devices is designed specifically with pets in mind and offers a variety of features that make it one of the best GPS pet recovery devices on the market.

There are two main features that would have been particularly useful in my case. The first is that the device has a GeoFence feature which will send the owner a text message and/or email when the animal leaves the designated home area. As soon as the Yorkie was taken I would have been notified via a text message on my cell phone that she had gone outside the yard. I could have been outside in a matter of seconds and gotten a much better hand on the situation. While in this case it would not have matter much in questions of life and death for the dog, it could have and that is why a GeoFence feature is so critical.

Also, if you are just dealing with the more common lost or stray dog this feature is very useful. You know almost the exact moment that your dog left home so you have a pretty good idea about how far they could have gotten from home. You could be able to be on the road back to your house in no time at all so that you can find and locate your pet. Since the Spotlight GPS is also a GPS tracking device you will have accurate real time data about where your dog is right now.  This information will prove invaluable for recovering your lost pet.

The second feature that I would have loved to have that summer night is the  bright LED beacon that is visible from 100 yards away.  All I would have had to have done if the Yorkie was equipped with a Spotlight GPS was to text “spotlight on” to a certain number and the light would have turned on automatically.  The light would have served as my pet locator.  I wouldn’t have had to fumble around for a flashlight because the light would have led me straight to her, saving me precious time.

If you are interesting in buying the Spotlight GPS you should also know that the upfront price tag is not the only cost associated with this GPS locator.  They also have service plans ranging from $15 a month to $7 a month, depending on the number of “emergency events” that you want to have covered.  The plans range from 100 events per month to 25 per month.

There are certainly other useful features to the Spotlight GPS that make it a great buy. The battery last for an impressive 10 days, making it one of the longest lasting pet tracking devices on the market. It also partners with the American Kennel Club for the recovery of animals and works very well with implanted RFID pet microchips. The device is also water resistant so it can stay on outdoor animals as long as they don’t go swimming in a pool, river, or lake.

Overall, the Spotlight GPS pet tracking device is a useful addition to an animal lover’s pet safety system. It fits easily onto your pet’s already existing collar, making it a great collar GPS tracker. Those that can afford it will love the convenience and reliability of this A-GPS tracking device.

GPS Cell Phone Tracking Finds Stolen Cell Phone, Catches Criminals

There is recent news that an Apple application called MobileMe has been instrumental in recovering a stolen iPhone and catching the individuals who stole it at gunpoint.  This isn’t the first time that a GPS enabled iPhone has been used to catch criminals red handed, and it certainly won’t be the last.  GPS tracking for cell phones is only going to become more prevalent, and stories like this are going to spread the word about just how powerful GPS is on our mobile devices.

According to reports from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the owner of the iPhone was mugged by two individuals around 1 a.m.  The thieves took the man’s wallet, pin numbers, and iPhone while one of the assailants held what appeared to be a gun.  As the police would later discover, the “gun” was just a pellet pistol.

After handing over his belongings, the victim ran away and called police.  The victim then got on a computer and used MobileMe’s Find My iPhone feature to locate his cell phone.  He presumably passed this information along to the police who were then able to track down the thieves at a gas station.

Even though two suspects were involved in the robbery, three were arrested in connection with the crime.

iphone-thief-1iphone-thief-2iphone-thief-3

GPS Tracking As Theft Recovery

Using GPS tracking as a way to recover lost or stolen property is a great way to make use of this powerful technology.  The example from this news story is just one of many different ways that being able to track  your phone could be useful.  What if your purse gets stolen at a night club with your cell phone it?  Or how about your car?  Or your backpack while you are at school?  Wouldn’t it be great if you could just rush over to a computer and be able to give police laser targeted information about where you think your belongings are?  Of course it would.  That is why we think that the use of GPS tracking in cell phones is such an important thing for consumers to do if they can afford it and are able to do so.

In fact, you don’t even have to use the tracking on the cell phone primarily for theft recovery.  Many of the tracking applications available on mobile devices are social in nature, letting friends or family members know where you are during the course of your day.  If this is the type of thing that appeals to you then it also works great as a GPS theft recovery system as well.  All you would need to do to make use of it would be to go to a computer and log on and check out where your phone is.

If you are using the phone to monitor the driving of a teenager then this too will work in the theft recovery role.  Heck, it could even work in a find a lost cell phone role too since teenagers are so absent minded sometimes.  Again, all you would need is to have the phone turned on and for it to be receiving a signal from cell phone towers.  If these conditions are met then just run over to a computer and you can find out exactly where your phone is through the power of GPS.

What Is MobileMe?

The truth of the matter is there are literally dozens of different GPS tracking and phone location programs for cell phones – but the program used in the this particular example was MobileMe for iPhone.  This is a subscription program that currently runs for $99 a year (~$8.30 a month).  If this were just a GPS tracking application then this would be way over priced, but it isn’t just a tracking app.

It allows iPhone users to sync there data between their personal computer, whether it is a laptop or a desktop.  You are given a single email account (johndoe@me.com) that is always kept up-to-date.  If you check your email on your iPhone while you are out on the town then when you get home that email is going to be marked as read.  The same is true of your work PC as well.  This can be a pretty useful feature for on the go professionals or students.

Another feature is the ability to push contacts from your iPhone to your PC without having to hook anything up.  If you are out and you meet a client, contact, or study partner that you want to shoot an email all you will have to do is get their information into your cell phone and the information will automatically be synced with your Outlook account or Address Book on your Mac.

The last push feature that MobileMe offers is the push calander option.  Like the other two features, this turns your iPhone it the perfect mobile calendaring device.  You don’t have to worry about manually updating your home calendar of manually syncing your different devices together to make sure that appointments you make at your desk get put into your cell phone and vice versa.  MobileMe takes care of it all and does so seamlessly.

You also get a cool photo gallery feature, online file storage, and access to me.com.

In additional to all this, they have a Find My iPhone feature that is the source of interest in this news story. What this feature does is it allows users to put a special message on a lost or stolen iPhone, wipe person data from your iPhone remotely, and get a GPS derived location of your cell phone.

As you might suspect, each of these features is pretty powerful. Being able to display a message on your phone could help in the event that you forgot is somewhere. You could say something like, “Oi! I left my mobile phone at the coffee shop. I am on my way to pick it up right now. Please leave it at the counter for me please.” Or if it is stolen you could say something like, “You shall not steal. – God.” Either way, you get a message across that will keep your cell phone safe and hopefully get it back into your hands quickly.

The information wipe feature is also useful because it helps protect your privacy and the privacy of those on your list. Do you really want a thief to have the information of all your most intimate contacts? Do you want them to know your Grandma’s address? Or know where all your girlfriends live? No! Being able to wipe this data off your phone is a very useful feature.

And finally, MobilMe lets you find the location of your phone. If it didn’t this news story wouldn’t be much of a story.

Is all this worth $99 a year? For some it is going to be. For others it will not be. Thankfully, there are other options for those who want to use GPS tracking on their cell phone for theft recovery.

Free GPS Applications For The iPhone

Many phones on the market have the ability to be tracked with GPS, not just “cool” mobile phones like the iPhone. As a result, there are many free tracking programs available for a wide range of mobile device. Many of these programs only work with subset of all the GPS enabled cell phone on the market, so finding one that works for your particular phone is going to take some work – but free is a really nice word, so the work is worth it.

One free GPS tracking software package that is particularly well received is Instamapper. This program works on a lot of different phones and communicates the tracking information in a lot of different ways. It is completely free to use (but check out some warnings about free GPS cell phone tracking) so you really have no reason not to at least give it a try. It could be the difference between catching a criminal and letting them get away with their crime.

Golf GPS Systems For Cell Phones

We love cell phones.  They can do anything … well, almost anything. For golf lovers, they now provide a way for users to turn these every day devices into golf GPS systems.

Over the past decade the place of the cell phone has become more and more prominent.  Just 10 years ago they were still fairly rare.  Today, it is crazy not to have one.  They have become the repository of our entire social lives, holding all our personal information in their small but powerful computers.  Cell phones now interact with nearly every aspect of what we do on a daily basis.  Cell phone applications are making various things obsolete – day planners, watches, alarm clocks, phone number memorization, navigation GPS, digital cameras, MP3 players, and golf GPS.

Very soon, cell phones are going to be the only piece of electronica that we are going to need – ever.

As far as golf GPS systems for cell phone go, there are two main routes that people can go.  They could choose to use some free software or they can go the paid route.  As we all know there are pros and cons to going with either solution.  Paid services cost money while often making things really easy for users and often have very rich feature sets.  Free services are free but generally take a little more work to get running properly and generally have less features than a paid counterpart.  This is some gross generalization and isn’t always the case in every situation, but you get the general idea.

The rest of this article follows this division between free and paid golf GPS systems for cell phones.

Free Golf GPS Systems for Cell Phones

Did you say free?  Getting our GPS golf tracking software for free is certainly better than having to pay for it out of your own pocket.  Some golf systems for cell phones not only cost money, but they also have an annual fee!  Here is a list of some of the free golf GPS systems for cell phones currently available:

Free Caddie

This is a golf GPS that gives you the basics for your cell phone.  No more. No Less.  In its free version (yes, there is a paid upgrade version) you get to know the distance from where you are at to the front, center, and back of each green on supported courses.  As far as supported courses go, Free Caddie offers a pretty good selection in terms of the number of courses available for use.  If they don’t have your specific course on file, you can always make one using their course creator.  The course creator is available in both the free and the paid version of Free Caddie.

Right now, this  golf GPS tracking system is available on a wide range of phones including Windows Mobile Smartphones, the iPhone, Blackberry phones, and Java enables phones.  There are plans on adding it to the Palm Pre, but who would want to do that after their privacy invading cell phone tracking software.

GolfLogix

This free application is from the same makers of the GolfLogix GPS-8, a Garmin golf GPS system.  GolfLogix is a free golf tracking software that is designed for Blackberry.  It also has a iPhone version, but it is mostly used for the various Blackberry versions.  It is currently supported on:

  • BlackBerry Curve
  • BlackBerry Bold
  • BlackBerry Tour
  • BlackBerry Storm
  • iPhone

In terms of course coverage, it appears that this golf GPS system has a few more courses than the other free application listed above.  With over 24,000 golf courses mapped this is bound to have the course you regularly play.  Unfortunately, it does not appear to have a way for users to build their own course files.  This is a feature that most definitely needs to be added to this GPS tracking system if it is to reach its full potential.

Also, by limiting the phones that can use this software the folks at GolfLogix have really narrowed their market considerably.  If you are a traveling business man or woman who likes to play golf then this is probably going to be the service for you, but if you don’t have a BlackBerry then you are out of luck.

Paid Golf GPS Systems For Cell Phones

Green Finder

To be honest, Green Finder is a way over priced.  Right now it costs $35 per year.  When you consider that it only has 10,000 courses that is a ridiculously high price.  I would avoid Green Finder unless it is the only golf GPS software that works for your cell phone.

Like some of the free versions, it is compatible with BlackBerry, iPhone 3G, Android, and phones that run Windows Mobile.  It also has a software in the workd for Palm Pre.

iGolfScorer

This paid service is definitely not a cheap golf GPS system, coming in at just under €35 ($50), but this is a lifetime price.  This already makes it cheaper than Green Finder.  Also, you get a lot of features with iGolfScorer that you just don’t get with other golf GPS applications.  Some of the features include:

  • On the course scoring
  • Pro-level statistics
  • Side games for betting
  • Shot distribution and tracking
  • Handicap calculator
  • Email your scorecard feature
  • And free web analysis

This is certainly a very full featured golf GPS system.  The only problem that American users are going to find with this software is that it is heavily weighted toward European users.  We find this first in the phones compatible with the software.  There are just a handful of phones – all of which are made by Sonny Ericsson or Nokia.  This means that the most popular GPS enabled cell phones on the American market won’t even run the software.  Also, the course that the software supports is heavily weighted toward European users.  Of the 2,000 courses on iGolfScorer only 260 are US courses.  Chances are, your home course isn’t going to be one of them.

Most American’s won’t be able to use this software, but it make a great European golf GPS system for cell phones.

IntelliGolf

The last golf GPS tracking system that we are going to look is IntelliGolf.  It currently runs just under $40 and looks to be a pretty solid golf GPS features wise.  There is an additional upgrade that costs you $30 and allows you to do a host of things with the data you collect on your cell phone – like make printouts of your statistics and grants you the ability to interact with other IntelliGolf user data.  I probably wouldn’t get the upgrade since this type of data isn’t that useful to me in my own golf game, but some users will really like this type of information.

When it comes to compatible cell phones, IntelliGolf is compatible with the following phones:

  • Palm OS or Treo
  • Windows Touch
  • Windows Non-Touch
  • BlackBerry Smartphones
  • P900/910 Smartphones
  • P1i/W950/P990 Smartphones
  • Nokia Series 60

IntelliGolf also boast having course data on over 25,000 courses – the largest of any software package on the list.  It also has a very robust feature list, including:

  • Score cards for up to 5 golfers
  • Tracks shot statistics
  • Automatically keeps track of side games
  • Lets you recall past course statistics for players

The website for this product is a little cheesy, and could be updated to give the system more credibility to first time users.  But aside from that, this seems like a fairly useful golf GPS system for your cell phone.

Conclusions

If you can, go with a free golf GPS system.  If you don’t like it, you can always remove it and not worry about all the money that you just wasted on the software.  If you love it and find yourself craving even more features then you can take a look at some of the paid systems out there.  But until you give a test drive using a free service I think you should stay away from paying if you can.  Even if you really like a friends version of one of the systems it is always best to take a look at the golf GPS system on your own before making a purchase that you might come to regret at some point in the future.

Free GPS Maps From Open Street Map

Free.  It is a word that we all love to hear.  This is especially true when it comes together with the words GPS maps.  It is also something that many of the current GPS manufacturers do not offer to their customers.  While many do allow recent purchasers to update the map on their GPS device to the latest version within 30 days of purchase, they then go and charge you anywhere between $50 and $100 for each subsequent map update.  If you are the type of person that likes to have the most current maps every year that can end up costing a lot of money.  Free GPS maps is certainly better than paid GPS maps.

Alternatively, some companies (like TomTom) have turned to crowdsourcing map updates so that users can help each other make the maps on their navigation devices better. TomTom’s service is called MapShare and allows users a high level of control over how they are able to update their maps using user generated content for free.  They boast to have the largest navigation community in the world, and they probably do since TomTom is a truly international community.

But the maps provided by TomTom and their MapShare service are not going to help every type of GPS enthusiast.  For starters, the update data can only be used by TomTom devices.  This leaves out those that use Garmin, Navigon, Lowrance, Magellan, and other GPS units from the wide range of GPS manufacturers.

The second problem is with manufacturer specific crowdsourcing efforts is that they only improve the maps for that specific manufacturer.  In my view, this has two major problems.  The first is that is it creates an inefficiency in the system.  The second is that the effort only benefits a select group of individuals.

So how can we create free GPS maps that all people can use irregardless of the particular GPS tracking device that they use?  Use Open Street Maps, that is how.

What is Open Street Maps?

OpenStreetMap-RomeOpen Street Maps (OSM) is a really cool user driven world map.  It takes data taken from GPS tracking devices and turns it into information that is publicly available for any one to use for any reason.  It is much different from Google Maps in that the data is truly free – as in free speech – and is not bound by any limits or conditions – as in free beer.  This makes it somewhat superior to applications like Google Maps since it can be used in new and inventive ways without having to worry about lawsuits or other unpleasant occurrences.

Who benefits from Open Street Maps?

The short answer is everyone.

While it may not be the best GPS map in the world, OSM is at least among one of the best free GPS maps available.  It has data from all over the world and gives users access to everything about the map.  It also has a lot of things that many traditional navigation GPS maps simply don’t have.  Bike trails, hiking trails, shortcuts – these are all user entered, which can make them extremely useful for travelers who are trying to go to a new area where they may never have been.

Here is a list of people who might benefit extensively from OSM:

  • Cyclists – Knowing the streets where biking is acceptable is important for those moving to a new area, especially if you use your bike as your primary mode of transportation.
  • Hikers – Getting quality map data for a hike out in the wilderness can sometimes be pretty difficult.  If your destination is popular or you have friends that you like to exchange data with, doing so on a traditional GPS device can be problematic.  But with OSM you can do tap into the popularity of a locale or share mapping data with a friend very cost effectively – for free!
  • European travelers – OSM is much bigger in Europe than it currently is in the USA.  This means that instead of having to drop a nice chunk of change on some new European maps on your Garmin you can use OSM to get free Garmin GPS maps instead.

What can you do with Open Street Maps?

My one complaint with OSM is that it is not readily apparent how one can use the mapping information on your own GPS unit.  Most people are going to be looking for free downloadable GPS maps, and if OSM can’t provide that then they are going to look somewhere else.  Can someone use Open Street Maps to download free GPS maps?

Again, the short answer is yes – but it does get a little complicated.

Each specific GPS manufacturer has its own hoops and hurdles to jump through and over if you are going to want to use OSM data on these GPS devices.  If you are looking for a few guides on how to do so for the major GPS brands here they are:

In almost every case you are going to have to go to a third party that is going to allow you to use the OSM data on your GPS tracking unit.  To me, this is the biggest flaw of the whole OSM system – no clear method of using the data on your GPS.

To be honest, this is expected.  There are just too many different type of devices out there and too many companies trying to keep their piece of the pie their piece of the pie.  TomTom, for example, guards their mapping information so tightly that you have to do a serious work around just to use the OSM data on it.  Of all the companies listed above, Garmin is probably the easiest to use – but even with then you have to do some work to get the maps working right.

So while it is super cool that OSM is provided free GPS maps, they have a long way in actually making them useful for a large part of the GPS using public.

With this problem, should I still use Open Street Maps?

OpenStreetMap-mapping-teamYes!  Where are you going to get free, open source maps from if you don’t use OSM?  Well, there are lots of other places to get them, but nobody does it quiet like OSM.  You also have to realize that the more people who use something like this the better it gets for everyone involved.  Many hands make the work light, so it becomes very cool when you have thousands of people in your area working toward mapping out things for everyone for the common good.  Just imagine what it would be like if people who went to Yosemite got together and created awesome, free Yosemite GPS maps.  Any hiker who went there would benefit from everyone’s efforts for years and years after you death.  You could end up helping hundreds of thousands of people enjoy the outdoors because of your contribution to OSM.

When it comes down to it, when you want free GPS maps the best place to go is to the people.  Open source, crowdsourced solutions are going to provide accurate information that does the most good for society and for the individual.  When information is free, especially GPS tracking information, all people benefit.  While there are some things that Open Street Maps can do to improve the accessibility of the information, it is already an exceptional product.  I hope that it catches on quickly so that future generations of GPS users can benefit from it.

The Cell Phone Tracking Software That Keeps On Taking

Just a few weeks ago the blogosphere was in an uproar about some cell phone tracking software that came pre-installed on the Palm Pre that conveniently sent your location information to Palm HQ.  At the time many saw this as a gross invasion of privacy, especially since Palm did not really make it clear to users that this type of activity was going on.  They hid it in the privacy policy, expecting users to actually read these things instead of just accepting them so they can get on with using their new toy.

But, according to some interesting patent information recently uncovered, the folks at Palm want to use your location information for a lot more than just helping you use Google Maps.  They want to use it to sell you stuff.

Here is the actual language in their patent, taken from the very first line under the claims heading (emphasis mine):

1. A mobile device, comprising: a processor; and a memory coupled to the processor and configured to store user-specific data; wherein the processor is configured to access data indicating a position of the mobile device and provide advertisement data based upon the position of the mobile device and the user-specific data.

To cut through all the patent speak used in this … patent, let’s sum up what they said in the following manner.  Palm wants to use your position and information specific to you in order to display laser targeted ads to you on your mobile phone.  This then raises the question, What user specific information do they want to use?  And how are they going to go about getting this information?

Well, as one might expect, there is more of this information in the patent.  The next 5 entries in the patent read as follows (emphasis mine):

2. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the user-specific data includes data associated with at least one of a date stored in the memory and data provided by an address book of the mobile device.

3. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to provide the advertisement data further based on a prospective position [presumably from the date book] of the mobile device.

4. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to provide the advertisement data further based on a historical record of the mobile device, the historical record including a record of at least one of a historical rate of travel of the mobile device and a historical position of the mobile device.

5. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to access a rate of travel of the mobile device and provide the advertisement data further based on the rate of travel of the mobile device.

6. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to provide the advertisement data further based on a likely mode of transportation of a user of the mobile device.

The Palm-Pre: The Heart of The GPS Tracking ControversyNow if we let ourselves think about this, we can see that this is some pretty scary stuff.  Palm just wants to use GPS cell phone tracking to make a buck or two, but they are doing so at the expense of your privacy – and that is just wrong!

There are a couple points that are particularly disturbing, and remind me a lot about the decision made by the New York State Court of Appeals that ruled a warrant was needed to use GPS tracking on a suspect.  What you will find next is an edited excerpt from the courts majority opinion expressing their deep concern about warrantless GPS tracking:

One need only consider what [companies like Palm] may learn, practically effortlessly, from planting a single device [to track your cell phone with their advertisement driven cell phone tracking software] . The whole of a person’s progress through the world, into both public and private spatial spheres, can be charted and recorded over lengthy periods …. Disclosed in the data retrieved from the transmitting unit, nearly instantaneously with the press of a button on the highly portable receiving unit, will be trips the indisputably private nature of which takes little imagination to conjure: trips to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, the by-the-hour motel, the union meeting, the mosque, synagogue or church, the gay bar and on and on. What the technology yields and records …  is a highly detailed profile … of where we go,  … of our associations — political, religious, amicable and amorous, to name only a few — and of the pattern of our professional and avocational pursuits. When multiple GPS devices [or cell phones with webOS running] are utilized, even more precisely resolved inferences about our activities are possible. And … it will be possible to tell  … who we are and are not with, when we are and are not with them, and what we do and do not carry on our persons — to mention just a few of the highly feasible empirical configurations.

Big Brother Company GPS Tracking

Again, this is talking about the police tracking a suspect with GPS, but it also correlates rather nicely with the activity of Palm in this instance.  Do you really want Palm delivering ads on your phone based upon your current destination or one of your previous locations?  Is that really going to make your life better?

For example, let’s say that you have been having some bowel problems lately and have been going to get a colonic regularly as part of the treatment.  Once you have made a recovery are you going to want to have ads displayed on your cell phone for a colonic every time you drive in the general vicinity of the clinic?

Or what if you made an appointment to get a massage at a local massage parlor.  You have never gotten a message before and this place was close to your home when you looked on Google Maps.  You add it to your mobile phone’s address book.  When it comes time for you appointment you head on over to the massage parlor and you enter it and there are tons of scantily clad Vietnamese women walking around the waiting room.  You get this sick feeling that this might not be your sort of massage parlor and you leave.

Well, if you were using a cell phone that didn’t feel a need to invade your privacy and track your position with GPS then this embarrassing experience would be over.  However, it seems possible with the vision expressed in the patent application submitted by Palm that you would be reminded of that fateful day with advertisements as you head in that general direction.  Yuck.

Then there is the issue of what Palm could do when they start correlating different pieces of data between cell phone users.  Let’s say that you are a generally very respectable, moral person who attends an event that draws people from a bunch of different backgrounds.  It could be a church service, or a PTA meeting, or even just a mom event at a park.  Now let’s say that another person who attends these events does not necessarily hold the same value system that you do – they could drink, or smoke, or go to clubs, or do something else that you don’t necessary disapprove of, but certainly don’t want to do yourself.  Now, would you want Palm to suppose that because you meet with this person you also must like doing what they do and therefore display ads for these activities on your cell phone?

While this last scenario isn’t necessarily in the patent information, it sure seems possible – and that possibility is scary.  What business does Palm have knowing this type of information about us and serving advertisements on our cell phones?  I think that this is pretty bad and should be stopped.

Now I need to make it clear that I don’t think GPS tracking is bad in and of itself.  I think that it can be a great way for a  business to improve efficiencies by tracking their fleets.  Fleets that utilize GPS for the purpose of driver routing and maintenance have been able to realize huge cost savings and increase the overall output of their fleets.  This is a great way for businesses to utilize GPS tracking, whether by cell phones or by traditional GPS tracking devices, and to benefit their companies bottom line.

But a business should never invade their users privacy so that they can better target them with advertising – that is just lame.

Another perfectly viable use of GPS tracking in my opinion is the use of this technology by the police to catch criminals. While some may think it odd that I think that the police can track a suspect without the use of a warrant in light of my disgust with Palm for invading their users privacy, I don’t see a contradiction. The police are trying to uphold justice – catch murders, stalkers, rapists, thieves, etc – while Palm is just trying to make an extra buck. Which aim do you think is a little more noble?

Another perfectly legitimate use is to track family members, such as your child, teenager, or spouse. I think that this is entirely in line with the dynamics of a family and the way that it ought to work, as long as GPS is used as a supplement to good parenting techniques and with open communication between spouses. It should never be used as a replacement for these things, and if it is it is being used poorly.

GPS tracking is also great in fitness applications.  GPS running watches are just one of the many different ways that tracking technology has been appropriated for use in fitness.  These devices are powerful training computers that fit easily on your wrist and work, look, and feel like a regular watch that has all the power of GPS infused within it.  When paired with a heart rate monitor there are few things that can compare to the power of a GPS tracking watch.

Finally, GPS tracking is also a great way for people to stay connected with friends and family.  The cheapest alternative out there is certainly the cell phone, and this is why it is so tragic that Palm is turning GPS enabled phones into privacy invading devices.  All that you needed to do to make your phone into a GPS tracking cell phone was download some free GPS software and you were already well on your way to having an easy to use tracking system for your family or friends to use to find you.  Now that Palm is invading your privacy many people might be more wary of pursuing this route, and that is unfortunate in my opinion.

While there is little doubt that GPS tracking is always going to have a commercial aspect to it, it is sad that the desire to make money off of position data has led some companies *cough*Palm*cough* to disregard their user’s privacy and use their information without communicating it to them in a useful way.  I hope that other cell phone companies and GPS tracking providers are watching this debacle and learning the lessons the easy way: don’t steal users GPS location information for advertising – make sure they opt in to it themselves!

Related Information:

Palm’s Patent Application

Car Tracking, Google, Cell Phones, And Real Time Traffic Updates

The folks over at Google are turning car tracking into a public service, using the data in an impressive effort to provide traffic information for free to users of their popular Google Maps for Mobile cell phone application. This is a great leap forward in providing useful and reliable information to users all over the globe, but especially in the United States. Being able to get traffic information for free on your GPS enabled cell phone is just another reason to begin ditching those cumbersome and increasingly obsolete GPS navigation devices.

Many traditional GPS navigation devices end up charging you for a traffic service – $50 for a year of MSN direct on one device or $90 for a lifetime subscription on one device (Some devices give you traffic updates for free, like the Garmin Nuvi 265WT). If you turn this into a monthly charge, most people are going to end up spending an additional $4 a month to get traffic. This is no comparison when it comes to the free, real time traffic updates provided by Google.

Another advantage to the Google data is that it is crowdsourced. Crowdsourcing is when a task is given to a large crowd of individuals to perform. Generally speaking, crowdsourcing is a great way to gather information. Google is able to do this because they have thousands of customers who currently run their free cell phone tracking application Google Maps for Mobile. All a current user has to do to make their information available for Google to use is turn on the GPS location sharing feature on their phone. This will add your phone’s speed and location to the massive amounts of data already being sent to Google by users all over the roadways. The more information they have, the more reliable their traffic data is going to become.  GPS tracking for cars is now becoming useful for everyone.

Now why is Google doing this? Is it just out of the kindness of their own heart that they are making this car tracking information  available to anyone who wants to use it, free of charge?

Google Maps Real Time Traffic DataWell, there are a couple different things that this Internet giant could by trying to accomplish by using cell phones to track cars and get accurate traffic information. The first is the most obvious: they want to improve their current product and services. Google Maps is a wildly popular web application and is becoming just as popular on mobile phones. If they can increase this application’s usefulness they can solidify their user base and create lots of Google Maps evangelists. This could cut into the market share of other online map providers like MapQuest and MSN.

Since cell phone make great car tracking devices it is pretty obvious why they chose to leverage their existing cell phone user base instead of creating a brand new Google GPS navigation unit.  That just wouldn’t make any sense for the long term since car navigation units are on the decline (or at least so say I).

This strategy also has a long term objective as well, creating Google brand loyalty. That way, when they produce something new – like the Android cell phone – they already have a customer base that will become interested in their new product offering. In fact, the Android cell phone is probably going to receive a marked boost from Google having a strong presence in the world of mobile applications. While it is my understanding that this GPS enabled cell phone is not doing that great in terms of market share, I’m sure that Google is in this one for the long haul.

So it would appear that in addition to wanting to help out there users they are also are interested in making some money. This is obviously going to the be goals of a corporation so users should not be too concerned about this fact.

There are, however, a few things that you will want to look out for if you are going to be letting Google take a peak at your GPS coordinates and your speed information. The first is you will want to make sure that Google is going to watch out for your privacy. If you want to find our more information about how they plan on keeping your private data safe I recommend that you read their official announcement made here: The bright side of sitting in traffic: Crowdsourcing road congestion data

For those that don’t feel like jumping to another page I will sum up their privacy measure. They are as follows:

  • Google makes all phones anonymous, so no one using the data will know for certain that your phone is the one providing the traffic information
  • They also will delete your starting point and your destination point from their database, essentially crippling someone wishing to use the info to know exactly where you came from and where you are going – even Google
  • Another layer of privacy protection is expected in the sheer volume of traffic data they plan on collecting, if you are one of a hundred motorists handing over your personal information to Google then it stands to reason you will be harder to find

This is all important information given the fact that some companies (*cough*Palm*cough*) like hijack your personal information, including your phones unique identifier, and send it back to Palm HQ with their unwanted cell phone tracking software.  Companies need to take privacy concerns seriously if they want user to entrust their data to them.

The second key consideration is how sending all this data is going to affect your data plan.  This is probably the more important of the two considerations since this is mainly going to be about money for a lot of people.  I have not extensively tested this, so take it with a grain of salt, but I am assuming that if you are already using Google Maps for Mobile extensively and you are fine with your current data plan then you won’t have anything to worry about.  But if you push your data plan to its max with your current use then adding the load of sending your GPS coordinates to Google will probably push you over the edge.

For some people, this can mean hundreds of dollars depending on what your cell phone provider’s policy is with account overages.  This will turn your free real time traffic updates into fairly expensive traffic update.  But this is the problem with free GPS cell phone tracking.  If you can’t cover the expense of sending your data over the network then it isn’t going to be free.

In the final analysis I think that most people are going to benefit a lot from this type of data.  According to one recent report released by Navteq, a major supplier of GPS maps, people spend 18% less time when they have access to real time traffic updates.  If you extrapolate that data over the course of an entire year that will turn into 4 whole days of time saved.  Now that is car GPS tracking that I can live with.

But is Google going to succeed with this car tracking system they have created or will it fail?  Are cell phones really the tracking device for cars that everyone thinks they are or will the data provided by the modern marvels fail to live up to expectations?  Only time will tell for certain, but I for one am extremely optimistic.

A Lil’ Bit O’ GPS Humor

Here is a little bit of GPS humor thanks to one Tim Hawkins, a comedian who likes to use clean humor and “cover” songs in his sketches. If you have not heard about him, he is really funny. Last night my wife and I were cracking up watching a ton of his videos on YouTube. I have included some of his other videos below that really don’t have anything to do with GPS, but they are really funny (or at least I think so). So without further ado, Tim Hawkins:

It is pretty nice to have a GPS tell you exactly where to go – but it would be even nicer if it could help married men read their wife’s mind!

This next one is a good little ditty about Chik Fil-a and demonstrates his love for the “cover” song:

This one made me want to pee my pants:

In all, Tim Hawkins does a pretty good job of making you laugh and keeping it clean. Great comedian!

GPS Tracking Is Not All Good

Perhaps I should have named this article Why Crazy People Should NOT Use GPS Tracking because I think that that statement is just as true as the one I ended up picking as the title for this post.  There are some crazy people in this world who will do all sorts of evil with things that are normally very useful and good for society at large.  This seems to be an unavoidable fact of existence.

But when you read (very sad, very disturbing – consider yourself warned) stories like this, where you have a person use the power of GPS to do terrible things it just makes you sick.

For those of you who didn’t click through and read the post the story goes something like this (very sad, very disturbing – skip past the indented paragraphs if you don’t want to read it):

There is a man – a controlling, small little man – who tries to make himself big by pushing around his wife.  She eventually gets fed up and decides the ditch the dude.  There is another man involved.  The small man is upset that his wife isn’t home to cook him dinner or something and enlists the help of his teenage daughter to use the GPS in his wife’s cell phone to track her location.  When he finds her his wife tells him that she is leaving him and that she isn’t going home with him.  The small man leaves angry.

But it gets worse … much, much worse.  The small man, in a total act of cowardice takes out his anger against his wife on his own children.  While they sleep, one by one, he walks through his home with  loaded gun and proceeds to fire round after round into his own children.  Four lie dead in their beds where they slept.  The fifth child is found shot dead in the bathroom where there were signs of a struggle.  Sickening.

The small man then goes to the spot where he last saw his wife, presumably to find here and kill her as well.  When he doesn’t find her, he is apparently overcome with guilt over the horrendous thing that he has just done and he takes his own life.

Now this story is one of the saddest that I have heard in a long, long time.  What would posses a father to do such a thing?  How could he even think of doing any willful harm to his children?  It makes me sick to think that such a thing can happen.

But the purpose of this site is not to discuss what it means to be a man, or to show how a husband should lay down his life for his wife and children – not steal their lives as they sleep, or to how one ought to treat his wife with love and respect.  We are here to talk about GPS tracking and its application in society.

So was the GPS in the cell phone responsible for this tragedy?  Was it a cause?  Are the children dead because of it?

I certainly don’t think so.  Sure, the cell phone GPS did lead to the discovery of the infidelity.  It did contribute to the spark of hate and violence that would eventually lead to such a terrible tragedy, but it was by no means responsible for it.  The situation was already terrible – the man had been abusive to his wife since she was a 13 year old girl.  There relationship was one built on violence, fear, and control.  You had to know that the end of it was not going to be good – but no one could have expected it to end like this.

GPS did not have anything to do with the emotional and relational sickness that marks this terrible tragedy.  It was not the satellites that pulled the trigger on the gun.  It was not a GPS receiver that someone implanted the thought to kill children in the wicked man’s head.  No, GPS had nothing to do with the actual evil in this situation.

But it does highlight s0mething interest that I have been trying to point out about GPS tracking for some time now: if this technology is used wrongly it can have devastating effects.  It seems that the amount of good that a technology can do is only proportional to the amount of evil that it can do in the hands of perverse and wicked men.  I hope that cell phone GPS doesn’t get abused like this often, but I know that this is just a pipe dream.  It is probably happening right now as we speak … and that makes me profoundly sad.