Category: Cell Phones

GPS Tracking: Google And The Future of Cell Phones

Recently I read an interesting article in the local paper about Google’s entrance into the world of cell phones.  If you have not already seen the plethora of commercials out there about all the cool stuff the Motorolla Droid cell phone can do then you need to get your head out of the sand and watch some TV.  Heck, I don’t even have a TV and I have seen tons of commercials advertising this mobile phone aimed to take away some of the iPhone’s market share in the world of high-end smartphones.  If you think about, cell phones like the iPhone and Droid are the future of not only mobile communications but also the internet and GPS tracking.  The future goes through the smartphone.

Because of what is at stake here, the advertising has become downright cutthroat when it comes to pointing out the flaws of other phones and a competitor’s cell phone network.  If there was any doubt about this, then you have to look no farther than the following advert:

The message comes across loud and clear: iPhone = iDon’t ; Droid = iCan.  Everything about this commercial screams out against iPhone and tries to offer the Droid as an alternative smartphone.  They even get the same sort of feel that an iPhone commercial tries to give with their choice of music, all of which is used to enforce the message of the mobile phone commercial that iPhones suck.  Again, you can clearly see this for yourself by looking at this commercial that has the ubiquitous “iPhone commercial song” in it.

The cell phone wars are upon us, but do we ever stop and let ourselves ask the question, “Why?”  Why is Google, Apple, Verizon, AT&T, TMobile, and Sprint spending millions upon millions of dollars in an effort to come out with the most widely used smartphone and cell phone network?

The answer is money, plain and simple.  According to David Yoffie*, a professor at the Harvard Business School,  “The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility.  That has the potential to change the economics of the Internet business and to redistribute profits yet again” (as quoted in the San Diego Union Tribune, January 5th, 2010, section C3).  People like Google and Apple want to corner the smartphone market because if they can do it they have the potential to ‘control’ the way people use their cell phones and the Internet.  This control is has the potential to make huge profits for whoever is on the cutting edge.

* This is pulled from David Yoffie’s bio page at the Harvard website:  Professor David B. Yoffie is the Max and Doris Starr Professor of International Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean, Chair, Executive Education at Harvard Business School.  Professor Yoffie’s research and consulting have focused on competitive strategy, technology, and international competition.

Google made their money on the cutting edge of Internet search.  Their search advertising business, Adsense, makes billions of dollars each and every year. Now they want to be able to ‘control’ mobile phone search and to be the premier ad service for these devices as well.  From this standpoint, you can see why there is so much fighting going on over cell phones and smartphones.

But what about GPS tracking, where does it fit in?

The answer really has two parts.  The first is that mobile technology and mobile Internet surfing is enhanced with positioning technology.  People like to be able to find restaurants that are near their exact location, get instant turn by turn directions from their cell phone, and to be able to surf the web or stream Pandora while riding the bus to work.  They love the Internet, they love GPS, they love cell phones and they love it when you can combine all three into a seamless user experience.

The second is that ads can be better served when a person’s location is know by the person serving the ads.  To a certain extent, companies like Google already are able to do this by taking information from a person’s IP address.  Their rough geographic location is then taken into consideration when serving them the ad.  For example, a person living in San Diego might get ads relevant to San Diego divorce lawyers when they are on a website that serves Google Adsense and is about divorce law.  To a certain extent, this enhances a users web viewing experience, improves the click-through rate for the ad unit, and helps Google make some money.

We have already seen how the Palm-Pre is trying to make use of GPS tracking to serve better ads and how this has caused quite a stir in the cell phone and Internet community.  Hopefully other phone companies are learning from the thrashing that the this phone has been getting and will let users know about how their location information is going to be used and give them clear and easy ways to opt out of this ‘service.’

Either way you look at it, GPS tracking is going to be a huge part of cell phones in the future.  The only question is who is going to be in the drivers seat of the smartphone era?

GPS Tracking, Cell Phones, and Augmented Reality

I really think that one of the future enhancements that is coming down the line for all cell phones is some sort of augmented reality. We are already beginning to see the beginning stages of this in the cell phone market and it is quickly becoming integrated with navigational GPS. We did a recent article on a navigation GPS app for cyclists on the i-Phone called ARider. It is really only a matter of time before we begin to see some very interesting and very useful GPS tracking cell phones with augmented reality. The question is no longer if this type of thing is possibly, but when it will be cheap enough to be made available on the mass consumer market.

Just think of the possibilities. A family could stay in contact with each other visually, spatially, and temporally. In order for us to see just how cool this type of GPS tracking technology will be we should come with some type of thought experiment that will allow us to wrap our heads around its coolness. We’ll assume that we have a family of 4 who all own cell phones. Mr. GPS is 45 and works as a high powered executive at a mid-sized paper company in the mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern United States. His wife, Mrs. GPS, works as a nurse administrator in a hospital in the center of the city. The couple live with their son, Wants-To-Be-Tracked, who is 11, and their daughter, Needs-To-Be-Tracked, who is 7. Wants is currently going to a college preparatory school, plays ice hockey on a traveling team, and loves to take their dog, Pet GPS, on long walks around their suburban neighborhood. Needs is a rambunctious little girl who loves to go exploring and is far too friendly with strangers.

This typical, upper-middle class family is fragmented and finds itself spending more time away from each other than they do together. If you don’t count the number of hours that each of them sleeps under the same roof, they probably spend about 15-25 hours together each week. Most of this time is spent eating, watching TV, or traveling in a car together. This is a sad state of affairs, but probably typical for many in their situation.

Anyway, this family is looking for ways to stay connected with each other and to make their lives more efficient. As it stands right now, it is hard for the working parents to know when their kids need to picked up and what they need to do each and every day. They have errands to run, children to shuttle, jobs to work, and a house to maintain. On top of all this, they are being bombarded by the media about all the terrible things that could happen to their children these days. In order to get all this done they need some technological help.

This is where a cell phone that integrates GPS tracking technology and augmented reality can be a real boon for this family. Imagine that Mrs. GPS has dropped Needs off at the park with some friends for a play date. While she waits for the date to be over, she heads on out the grocery store to pick up some frozen meals for their dinner tonight. While Needs is with some friends, she is also prone to wander and the mother who is there watching the kids has been known to try and pick up men while the kids play. Mrs. GPS wants to make sure that Needs is safe and staying where she is supposed to be staying so she busts out here GPS tracking cell phone with augmented reality to see what is going on.

The way that this device would work is that the cell phone that Needs has will be transmitting her location to the cell phone company. The cell phone company will then make that data available to Mrs. GPS on her phone. This data will then go through a mashup (a program that takes data from one source and plugs it into another program) that will put that data onto a mapping application, like Google Maps. Then, she will be able to see where here child is. It might look something like this, but instead of the fast food restaurants shee would be able to see her child’s location:

bionic-eye-gps-mashup-app

Now wouldn’t that be cool? Well, that is only just one of several different scenarios where this type of augmented reality integrated with a GPS tracking cell phone could be extremely useful.

Another is two lovers who want to make a make secret and spontaneous rendezvous. For this you would certainly need to let your lover track you and vice versa, but that shouldn’t be too much a problem if you are married to the person! Then, if you want to hook up with your spouse you just bust out your augmented reality cell phone and find out where they are in relation to you – then you head on over and track them down. This works particularly well if you are both at a large social function (like a club or party) or if you are in a park or other such venue. I recommend that anyone who is into this type of thing do this, it is like geocaching for love!

You might also want to use augmented reality GPS tracking in order to stay in contact with your friends and meet up at fun and interesting times. At the same party but don’t know exactly where your friends are? Simple bust out your cell phone and you can have an instant picture of exactly where your friends are. You won’t have to worry about losing your girlfriends by dancing with a cute guy, just make sure you have your cell phone on and you are good to go!

Still another way that you could use this type of GPS tracking technology is as an employers to track your employees. This could be really useful for any number of reasons, but is sure to improve overall worker productivity and to make your operation much more efficient.

More GPS Humor related to Augmented Reality

Here is a quick little video that take a small pot shot at GPS tracking cellphones and augmented reality:

Facebook Cell Phone Tracking Ad: Is This For Real?

The other day I was watching my wife play some Farmville on Facebook when I noticed this very strange ad in the left sidebar. From what I could tell by looking at it, it appeared to be a GPS cell phone tracking service. The text of the ad read, “Do you think your husband is cheating? Find out instantly where he is right now LIVE.” Doesn’t it seem like this is going to offer someone the ability to track their spouse with some sort of GPS tracking device?

Facebook GPS Cell Phone Tracking Ad

Well, I should probably come out with it right away. This is not a genuine GPS tracking service. It is a scam that is only going to end up costing you money in the long run and violating your privacy.  This Facebook cell phone tracking ad is designed to get careless people to opt in to receive text messages to their cell phone that will end up costing them money.

This is the way the deal works.  You click on the ad in Facebook and you are taken to a webpage that looks something like this:

Mobile Spy Cell Phone Tracking Landing Page

Pretty snazzy, right?  Looks legit, right?   Well, it isn’t.  A closer at the fine print at the bottom of the page will tell you exactly what you are going to be getting.  Here is a copy of what the website says:

*Service Explanation: By enrolling in TheMobileSpy.com’s service, you will receive three pieces of content. First, you will receive a report of the three most recent phone numbers to have searched for your location with our service. Second, you will be able to search three phone numbers by area code and prefix (NPA-NXX) to see their registered geographic area. Due to the nature of mobile phones and privacy laws, we will be unable to provide real-time location information. However, you will receive the most up-to-date information regarding NPA-NXX registration. Third, you will be enrolled in a periodical fun facts subscription on your cell phone. You must have cookies enabled for this service to operate properly. Remember, the numbers you search for with our service will be recorded and may be disclosed in someone else’s report!

For those that don’t want to read the big block of info you here are the three things that you get by handing over information about yourself and your cell phone:

  1. You will get access to three numbers that have searched for your number.  I’m not exactly sure what happens if no one has bothered to search for your number yet, but I suspect that nothing happens.  You are out of luck.
  2. You will also get to search for three numbers to find out “their registered geographic area.”  This, I assume, is code for saying that if the number you searched for is in their data base then they will tell you in what geographic the phone was registered.  But be careful, “due to the nature of mobile phones and privacy laws, [they] will be unable to provide real-time location information.”
  3. You get a lame “fun facts subscription” that will text “fun facts” to your cell phone for 6 dollars a month.  Now that is really lame.

If you are still confused about how this service works exactly, let me try and explain it a little better.  Since this ad was targeted to wives tracking their husbands I am going to use that throughout our example.  A wife is on Facebook – since everyone and there mother is on that thing – and she comes across this cell phone tracking ad while commenting on photos of her elementary school friends.  She is a little intrigued by the promise find out instantly where her husband is right now LIVE and clicks on the ad.

Step 1

She then goes to the website and fills out her information including her location and her phone number.  This information is then stored by the website in some database for them to use later.  After she submits her number, she gets information on all the people in the websites database that had searched her number in the past.  Since she has a relatively new number nobody shows up.  She feels good that she doesn’t have any crazy stalkers out there.

Step 2

She is then prompted by the website to ask about three numbers she is interested in knowing the location of.  She obviously enters her husbands number since that is what the ad is promising – being able to track her husband’s cell phone live – and she also enters in two of her best friends’ numbers just for fun.  The website then searches its database to see if it has information on any of the numbers that she searched.  It doesn’t, but it keeps track of her number and all the numbers that she searched.

Step 3

Sometime later she gets some stupid text from a strange number saying something like, “Penguins are really birds that cannot fly.  Isn’t that crazy?!?”  When she gets her cell phone bill at the end of the month she sees this strange charge for $5.95 and wonders where the heck it came from.

Step 4

This is where this service gets really terrible.  Let’s now assume that her husband sees a similar add on Facebook about tracking his wife’s cell phone.  He clicks through and fills out the stuff.  He puts in his number from step 1 and gets his wife’s number in the results.  How did this happen?  The website remembered his wife’s search so that it could use that information for future searches.  Now the husband know that his wife has been searching for him so he turns around and does a search for her.  He gets some information that he already knew about her location, like a zip code or something, and that is that.  He gets the same stupid text a little bit later and the $5.95 fee for this “service.”

A word from the wise, do not fall for this Facebook cell phone tracking ad!  It does not deliver what it promises and is not a GPS tracking service.  Instead, it is a scam designed to cost you $6 a month for the rest of your life you can’t figure out how to cancel this crappy thing.  Don’t waste your time, your privacy, or your money on this crap.

Cell Phone GPS Tracking Is Being Used By FEMA

According to the Sprint website, this telecommunications giant has made a deal with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that will supply the disaster relief organization with 2,000 GPS tracking units for day-to-day field work and emergency use. The acquisition of the cell phone GPS tracking devices comes at an opportune time for FEMA who is required to have a vehicle tracking system in place by the hurricane season, a season which has all but passed. The addition of these devices should make FEMA much more agile and useful in the field, increasing their ability to serve the public by responding quickly and efficient to natural disasters.

The devices being deployed are Motorola i365 phones (pictured to the right) and cost around $40. Here is a quick little blurb describing this rugged, useful mobile phone:
i365 Sprint GPS Tracking Cell Phone

Released for Sprint, the Motorola i365 is a rugged and durable handset certified for military specification requirements including humidity, blowing rain, dust, shock and vibration. It features Nextel’s push-to-talk communication for quick conversations with up to 20 members of families, friends, and coworkers. Featuring an embedded Global Positioning System (GPS) chip, the i365 uses E911 emergency location services to get audible and visual turn-by-turn driving directions, mapping locations, or conducting local searches.

This cell phone is a great fit for the conditions and circumstances in which FEMA does most of its work. Many more “refined” mobile devices just would not cut it in the harsh conditions where the Nextel i365 flourishes.

In addition to these 2,000 GPS tracking cell phones FEMA is also receiving access to two of Sprint’s products that are going to help them use these cell phone to their fullest potential – Nextel Direct Connect and TeleNav Track. Let’s now turn our attention to these two services and see just how FEMA stands to benefit from the real time tracking and communication capabilities that they offer.

What Is TeleNav Track?

TeleNav Track is a very useful and complete cell phone software package that can assist business and organizations in a wide range of activities related to highly mobile work forces, integrating workforce management, GPS tracking, and navigation features into one package.  The main goals of the software are to boost productivity, control costs, and the manage risk.

Boosting productivity is obviously the goal of any profit based business, but it is also an incredibly important characteristic of effective disaster relief agencies like FEMA.  GPS integrated software like TeleNav Track helps businesses boost productivity by doing three things very well.  The first is that it gets employees to locations quickly and effectively.   We are all very familiar with GPS navigation devices and how useful they can be in helping us navigate new and unfamiliar territory.

The second is that is relays the employees position back to a central dispatching center which can keep track of all the moving parts in the complex world of mobile businesses.  The idea of a central hub where information is gathered and then decisions are made is even more important in a disaster situation.  Not only does the data need to be sent from the GPS enabled cell phone, but information must also be sent to the cell phone so that field agents can be kept abreast of the situation and their tasks.  The ability to see all these moving pieces and to make good decisions with that data is the second benefit of a service like TeleNav Track.

The third and final think that this does is that it helps business reduce the amount of waste engaged in by employees. If employees know that you can know their exact location in real time then they are less likely to goof off when on the clock.  It is a very powerful tool as an employee to go up to an employee and ask them why they spent 2 hours parked at a shopping mall when they should have been out on the street working when they know that you know that that was exactly what they were doing.

In addition to being able to boost productivity, GPS tracking management systems like TeleNav Track also help you reduce costs associated with doing business.   Just think about this one a second and you will see several ways in which you can see an immediate benefit to your companies bottom line or help ensure tax payer dollars are being well spent (in the case of FEMA).  As was mentioned above, GPS tracking devices can help keep employees more accountable for their day to day activity.  This increases productivity because it gets people working more, but it also helps reduce costs because you will no longer be paying people to do nothing.

Another key element that TeleNav Track offers is the ability to do a lot of paperwork electronically.  The savings that this type of switch can generate is certainly nothing to sniff at.  Electronic time cards have helped companies reduce pay roll administration costs by as much as 80% – which is money that could be poured back into the business.  While this really doesn’t have much to do with the GPS side of these devices, it is the same information delivery system that sends the GPS coordinates from your cell phone that also sends out electronic documents as well.

And finally, many GPS cell phone tracking systems help companies manage risk by putting their eyes on their assets at all times.  They can know how many of their employees are out on the field, where their vehicles are, and make decisions about the best way to use these assets to better the business or to better serve the people.

What is Nextel Direct Connect?

Probably the best way to introduce you to Nextel Direct Connect is to show this video clip:

Aside from being a really cool feature for any cell phone, GPS-enable or not, Nextel Direct Connect also offers three main benefits to businesses:

  • Accomplish more quickly. Being able to connect quickly with co-workers to in just a few seconds to share information is powerful when decisions need to made quickly and information is in a particularly fluid state.
  • Keep conversations quick and simple. In and out conversations get more accomplished and force employees to boil down their content into potent sentences laced with meaning and information. Every word is heard and business can move at the speed of thought.
  • Talk to many at once.  Being able to send instructions out to 20 people at a time is something that few normal mobile phones can accomplish – yet this is exactly what the i365 cell phone is able to do with Nextel Direct Connect.

When this technology is combined with the TeleNav Track system you get a powerful one-two punch for the folks at FEMA.

Will FEMA GPS Cell Phone Tracking Work?

I certainly hope so.  The technology is certainly useful and I can see no good reason why they can’t make full use of these powerful cell phone GPS tracking devices to better serve the American people in times of dire need.  The combination of push to talk technology with the powerful GPS management software should provide phenomenal results for FEMA.  We’ll just see if this turns out to be a good use of government GPS tracking or if it ends up being misused and under utilized.  Only time will tell.

GPS Tracking For Real Estate Agents and Prospective Home Buyers

If you are prospective home buyer or a real estate agent who wants to get on the fly, real time house price data then you might want to check out Smarter Agent, a GPS tracking application for real estate prices on your cell phone.  There are several products that Smarter Agent offers that couples the power of GPS position data with the public record information that would be very useful for home buyers and real estate agents alike.  It appears that the application has both free and paid components, letting you give the service a shot before you upgrade to one of the different paid services.

Free Real Estate GPS Tracking Services

From what I can tell from the website and my own playing around, you can get the Homes For Sale cell phone application for free from their website.  This software will turn your GPS-enabled cell phone into a powerful home finding tool.  All you need to do is install the software onto your phone and then take it with you to the neighborhood that you would like to buy a home in. With just the press of a single button you will have a map display of your location and the location of the 10 nearest homes for sale around you.  Users can zoom the map in or zoom the map out so they can get a tighter or wider view of the listing and surrounding area.  If you want to see more information about the home then just scroll to and take a look.

If you would prefer to see things as a list, this free GPS cell phone application lets you you do just that.  It lets you see the top 10 properties that are the closest to the exact location where you are standing according to the cell’s GPS tracking chip.  The list view allows you to view property details, plot results on a map, save your search, or expand it to see additional properties in your vicinity. There is even the ability to save your search if you thought that the listings were particularly important to your home search.

Smarter Agent’s Homes For Sale also displays some detailed information about each listing if you want to give that a look.  You can see such things at the house’s address, the sale price, the number of beds and bathrooms, the square footage of the home, the estimated mortgage given certain parameters like interest rate and down payment, and the taxes that the home owner pays when that information is available.  This information can be huge for those that are just getting acquainted with an area and want find out where some of the houses for sale are located.

In all, this is a great way for people looking for a solid GPS real estate application to get their feet wet for free.

Paid Real Estate GPS Tracking Services

The main reason that Smarter Agent is offering their Homes for Sale application for free is that they are hoping that people will buy their premium product, Recently Sold Homes. For $4.99 a month you can have access to information about the closest homes sold within the last three years.  The information available from this GPS application includes the last sold price for homes nearby, the last sold date, and the square footage of the home sold.  As you can imagine, this can be very helpful information for getting an understanding of how competitively prices some of the current homes for sale are.

While this information is not going to be incredibly precise, it is still helpful for those that are new to a region to get an idea of what is going on in a region’s real estate market.  If you are just starting out with a real estate search then you might want to consider getting your GPS tracking cell phone out and installing Homes For Sale.  If you like the way it works and are particularly interested in homes in a certain area then you might want to buy the Recently Sold Homes application as well.  The $4.99 might save you some considerable time in your searches.

Compatible Sprint GPS Cell Phones

Homes for Sale is available on the following Sprint mobile phones:

  • Blackberry Curve 8300
  • Blackberry 8800 World Phone
  • Blackberry Pearl
  • Blackberry Tour
  • LG 535
  • LG LX 550 Fusic
  • LG LX570 Muziq
  • LG lx400
  • LG Lotus
  • LG Rumor
  • Motorola KRZR K1m
  • Motorola RAZR V3m
  • Motorola SLVR L7c
  • Motorola RAZR2 V9m
  • Palm Pre
  • Samsung A900
  • Samsung A920
  • Samsung M500
  • Sanyo Pro200
  • Samsung M610
  • Samsung M620 UPSTAGE
  • Samsung A727
  • Samsung M520
  • Samsung Instinct
  • Samsung Rant
  • Samsung S30
  • Sanyo 6600 Katana
  • Sanyo 7400
  • Sanyo 7500
  • Sanyo 6650 Katana 2
  • Sanyo 8500 Katana DLX
  • Sanyo 8300
  • Sanyo 8400
  • Sanyo M1
  • Sanyo 7050
  • Sanyo Pro700

Compatible AT&T GPS Cell Phones

Homes for Sale is available on the following Sprint mobile phones:

  • Apple iPhone
  • Blackberry 8100 Pearl
  • Blackberry 8300 Curve
  • Blackberry 8800 World Phone
  • Blackberry 9000 Bold
  • Blackberry Pearl
  • LG CU400
  • LG CU500
  • LG CU575 Trax
  • LG CU515
  • LG CU720 Shine
  • Motorola KRZR
  • Motorola SLVR L6
  • Motorola SLVR L7
  • Motorola RAZR V3
  • Motorola v365
  • Motorola RAZR2 V9
  • Motorola V3xx
  • Nokia 6085
  • Nokia 6555
  • Samsung A437
  • Samsung A707
  • Samsung A717
  • Samsung D407
  • Sony w300i
  • Sony w580i
  • Sony w810i

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GPS tracking is becoming more and more important for cell phone users as more and more applications are becoming available that allow users interact with the world around them in such a way that they get what they want, when they want it, and where they want to get it.  We are becoming a mobile society, GPS and cell phone technology are giving use everything we could every want when it comes to have relevant, location-based information in real time.

Subprime Lenders Get a GPS Tracking Solution Just For Them

Owners of  Buy Here Pay Here (BHPH) car business have a new weapon to lower skips and repossession.  It is a new GPS tracking device from Proconn and it is called The CUBE.  The new, credit card sized tracker is available through Proconn’s subprime automotive finance brand GoldStar GPS.

This technology could not be making it onto the market at a better time, consider the economic climate we are in and this quote from a business owner in the industry, ” … BHPH used car dealers [are] closing their doors all around me….”  Business all around are feeling their profit margins shrink and find themselves needing to run a much tighter ship.  GPS tracking has historically been able to provide this for all sorts of business in types of circumstances.

Why Use GPS Tracking In BHPH?

GPS tracking devices have been proven to be incredibly useful already in several similar applications. Probably the most similar use that I am aware of is in the theft recovery market. In particular, police have been very successful using GPS tracking bait cars to recover vehicles that are specifically designed to get stolen. BHPH GPS tracking works in much the same way.

But what does this doe for a BHPH car business owners? Here are a few benefits:

  • Lower the cost of repossession by saving time – If you know exactly where a vehicle in need of repossession is, you save tons of time in the search process. You can find the car in just minutes and have it towed away in no time at all.
  • Get a grip in your assets management – another major issue that some owners face is having too many cars out and not enough resources to keep track of them all. Once you reach a certain number of vehicles on the road you need some help keeping track of them all and a GPS system is just the thing the doctor ordered.
  • Increase your loan portfolio with less risk – The obvious outcome of the two reasons mentioned above is that you can increase the number of cars that you lend at a reduced risk to yourself and your bottom line. This means that the company can bring in more money, which is always a good thing.

The Cost of The CUBE and GoldStar GPS Tracking

Now the question remains, how much does all this cost? The short answer is that it depends. There is no cost mentioned anywhere on their website and a Google search did not generate any results.

This is to be expected since most business-to-business deals are negotiated. You can certainly contact GoldStar GPS for more information on their pricing structure.

GPS Tracking Features

The CUBE GPS Tracking DeviceWhat is clear on the company’s website are all the features that come with their GPS vehicle monitoring system. Here is a quick run down of some of the feature that this car recovery system sports:

  • Daily Location Report – You will automatically be given the location of the vehicle that you own at least once a day.  This is a “free” location check and will not count against the total number of locates you can make in a given month.  The information is also stored to create a vehicle history so that you can easily get an idea of where the vehicle has been while out of your possession.
  • Stop Report – Another way to get information on your vehicle is to set up stop reporting.  Once a device is no longer in motion for a specified period of time the device will send the location to you so that you can know where the vehicle is making stops.
  • trakSMS™ – This is a wonderful feature for the The CUBE GPS tracking device.  It is a way for a user to remotely control certain aspects of the vehicle’s GPS tracker.  With a simple text message from any text capable cell phone you can find out the speed, direction, and address of the unit as well as have the ability to lock or unlock the doors  and to cut the engine.  How would a person evading repossession like that!
  • Warning Buzzer – This feature lets car owners send a buzz to car users letting them know that a payment is due soon.  If payment is late, dealers can then disable the vehicle.  Fear is a great motivator to get payments in on time.
  • Real-Time Alerts and Notifications – The GoldStar GPS tracking system lets you set up custom alerts that will notify owners of when the car is on the move or whether or not the car has traveled outside one of the six owner generated GeoFences.  This is great when you think a customer may be trying to skip town with your car.
  • State-of-the-Art Mapping and Imaging – This vehicle tracking system utilizes the latest and greatest in GPS tracking software user interfaces.  You can either use Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth to see the units location in a wide variety of views (road map, satellite, or hybrid).

This is a well rounded device that is relatively easy to install and incredibly powerful for business owners looking to improve their profit margins and ensure the safety of their business by keeping tabs on their assets. If you have never though about using a car GPS tracking device for your BHPH car business then now is the time.

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?

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.

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.