Win A SPOT GPS Satellite Messenger

This contest has officially closed.

Want to win a free SPOT GPS Satellite Messenger with one year of service? Then you have found the right place. All you need to do is leave a comment at the bottom of this post saying why you would like to win and you are entered into the contest.

If you want more ways to win, just head over to our official contest page and check out the four more things you can do to increase your chances of winning. If you make use of them all, you can have a total of 74 different chances to win!

About the Spot Satellite Messenger Tracking Device

Spot GPS Satellite Messenger

This is an extremely powerful and useful personal GPS tracking device that can be utilized by many different people in many different situations. One of the main reasons for this versatility is that it works 100% off of satellite technology, making it usable in conditions where most GPS trackers will not work. It is especially great for those with a love for the outdoors since their adventures can often take them far from family, friends, and society.

The SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger is a GPS tracking device and wireless communication device rolled into one. While there currently is not a voice functionality on this unit, one can still communicate in several nuances ways with this device. For example, one can:

  • Send a SOS/911 message. If you are in a serious accident or situation this one button call for help can be, quite literally, a life saver.
  • Send a Help message. If your situation is not dire but you need some help from a friend then you can notify them of your need with the press of a button.
  • Check in with loved ones with an ‘Ok’ Message.
  • Send a custom messages back to your family with your GPS determined location.

With four distinct ways to communicate with someone, the SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger is very useful tool to have out in the wilderness for extended periods of time.

Here is a cool little graphic about the coverage area for this tracking device:

SPOT GPS Tracking Device Coverage Map

If you are interested in learning more about this messaging device here are some articles that we have written up about it:

Remember, if you want to win the simplest way to enter is to just leave a comment below briefly explaining why you want to win a second generation SPOT GPS Satellite Messenger. If you want additional ways to enter to increase your chances of winning check out the ways to enter this giveaway.

This contest has officially closed.

GPS Tracking Jammers: Problems and Uses

Update 4/16/2012:  GPS jammers are illegal and should not be used.  After several events in recent years the US government has really began to crack down on GPS jammers since they pose a significant risk to public safety and  national infrastructure.  Consumers should not buy these devices unless they are approved by the FCC.  Any jammer in use should be retired and an alternative method to ensure location privacy should be employed since penalties for jammer use could exceed $100,000 and include jail time.

To anyone familiar with GPS technology, it is no surprise that GPS tracking jammers can cause all sorts of havoc to tracking systems irregardless of their use. Anti-theft devices, fleet tracking systems, personal navigation devices, and airline navigation systems will all fall victim to small, low power GPS blockers. That is just the nature of the whole tracking system.

Because of this inherent flaw, there are some good uses for GPS tracking blockers, but there are also some rather nefarious uses as well. But before we get into all that, let’s first see how and why tracking systems can be so easily tampered with.

Why GPS Is So Easy To Block

When you rely on satellites that are thousands of miles away (around 12,500 miles to be exact) it becomes very easy to interfere with the signals that the satellites emit. Bob Cockshott, a conference speaker and leader of a government funded technology program in the UK, puts it this way, “The problem is that the signal from the satellites is extremely weak – it’s the equivalent of picking up the light output of a 25-watt bulb on the satellite.” The problem seems to be that the signal from the satellites are so weak that disrupting them would be as easy as preventing someone from seeing a 25-watt light bulb from thousands of miles away.

In other words, the task is a simple one. There are GPS tracking blockers that can be powered by the cigarette lighter in a car that have enough power the not only jam the tracking or navigation in your car but also of a car that is very close to you. According to Wired Magazine, 2 watts of power is enough to disable a car-based GPS device while a blocker powered at 20 watts will be enough to cover the area of an entire airport. In other words, that is not very much effort to bring down a very large amount of GPS relates systems.

The Problem With GPS Tracking Jammers

The potential abuse of this flaw in the system could be used for purposes that do not have the greater good of humanity in mind. While it would be best if no one every took advantage of the flaws in the GPS tracking infrastructure, it is already happening on some level all over the world. Here are some of the more common instances:

Car Theft

Car Theft Gone Wrong

When GPS tracking for cars is installed in a vehicle it can be a very formidable way for the police to catch criminals and drastically reduce auto theft. But when a GPS tracking jammer is also installed in the car as it is being stolen, the criminal is able to get away without anyone knowing that the vehicle has been stolen. The owner won’t get an alert letting them know that their vehicle has left their geofence. Even when they wake up to find their car missing, they will not be able to track it because the jammer will have essentially taken the vehicle off the grid in terms of the person’s tracking capabilities.

High Jacking

Another serious concern is the use of GPS blockers by organized crime to boost cargo carriers without being able to be tracked. Most fleets have some sort of GPS monitoring system installed in their vehicles in order to help with fleet administration and improve customer service. These systems also help companies recover stolen vehicles.

But if criminals are using blockers, then no amount of fleet tracking capability is going to help the company figure out where its vehicle is. It will also prevent the police from quickly tracking down the stolen vehicle. The goods will be stolen and that will probably be the end of it.

Attacks Against Humanity

If someone was sick enough, they could also do serious damage to the infrastructure of various public and private services, causing widespread destruction and mayhem. I won’t go into to much detail about this point for fear of somehow encouraging evil, but there are serious risks for certain systems that only use GPS for timing and routing information.

The (Legal) Uses of GPS Tracking Jammers

Despite the many different negative uses of a jammer, there are also some very useful applications for this technology. It is important to note that all technology is essentially amoral. It is neither good nor bad in and of itself. Instead, it is the use of the technology that is either good or bad. This is no different for GPS tracking in general or for GPS tracking blockers specifically.

One of the common themes that you will find below is that the best uses for a GPS jammer is to combat an improper use of a GPS tracker. But this should be expected given the nature of what a jammer/blocker is!

Stop Stalkers

Ninja Stalker Stalking

If you are being stalked by someone who is using GPS to do so you should feel completely within your “rights” to purchase a jamming device and install it in your car. No one should be able to find out exactly where you are so that they can watch your every move so that they can plan some sort of wickedness against your person. Such violations should be blocked. If you are particularly paranoid, think about getting a blocker to place inside your car in addition to occasionally searching the wheel wells of your car.

Escape Illegal Government Tracking

You might be surprised how often a government official has secretly and illegally placed a tracking device on your vehicle. For example, there is currently a case going on right now in Louisiana where police illegally installed a GPS tracking device for a friend. The victim did not buy a jammer, but if he did he would have been able to put an immediate nix on the illegal activity until he eventually found the tracking device. Now I don’t want to imply that there is a great government conspiracy going on where the government is in the business of tracking private citizens without warrant or reason, because I just don’t think that this is the case. But there is some truth to government employees abusing their powers and using GPS tracking for their own ends. This type of thing should be blocked by using GPS tracking jammers.

Prank our Friends

Sometimes there is nothing quite like a good laugh, especially when it is at the expense of a good friend in good fun. To pull off this prank successfully, all you need to do is install a GPS jammer in their car while you travel with them to a destination using GPS navigation to get there. Be sure that you look up how to get to the place and commit them to memory. Then make your friend a bet the you can given them better directions than their GPS can. Make it a big bet, like $100 or more. Once they agree, just turn on your jammer and direct them to your destination like their GPS would have if you weren’t blocking it. When they get ready to pay you for your knowledge, reveal the prank and have a great laugh.

GPS Jammer and Blockers In Review

It is clear that these devices are amoral in nature, but that they can be used for both great evil and great good. Some governments, like that in England, have decided to make them illegal to sell or use. While this may help cut down the trafficking of these device, it will not ultimately end their use – especially by the criminal element. But I guess that is the English way. I hope America keeps GPS tracking jammers legal, but just educates the public about their proper use.

Sources:Wired, Guardian

Image Sources: Alan Vernon, mikemol

Claim Of Using GPS Tracking To Prank Google Street View Car In Berlin Is Prank

According to F.A.T, Free Art and Technology Lab based out of Germany, they have pranked a Google Street View car by installing a GPS tracking device to it while it was parked outside Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany. They claim that they were able to somehow attach a tracking device or a GPS cell phone to the car and then receive updates every 2 minutes about the location of the vehicle. They even made a map of the whole think, posting it on their website.

According to some reports, there were even people who used the information displayed on the website to track down the car and perform obscene gestures, shout profanity, or display their private parts in the general direction of the vehicle.

This story has received insane amounts of media attention on the internet and has even gotten a mention of a few TV channels as well, including G4TV:

F.A.T Google Tracking Prank

If one looks carefully at the evidence that is presented on the F.A.T website I think that you will can come to the conclusion that they did not actually track a Google Street View Car with GPS, but instead they merely made a fake one and drove it around like it was from Google and filmed funny and obscene episodes to shame the Internet Giant.

My entire case rests entirely on the their most recent post about how to build a fake Google Street View car. In it, they display the following two pictures (the one on the left is a photo of an actual Google Street View car and the one on the right is of their fake car):

Google Street View Car OriginalGoogle Street View Car Fake
Original Google Street View CarFake Google Street View Car

Let me point out some of the major differences between these two cars – it will become very important later. The first difference is the size of the magnet on the side of the door. The real car has a small magnet while the fake one has a large magnet that takes up most of the door.

The second, and probably more important difference between the two is the camera and GPS tracking apparatus on the top of the car. I have highlighted some of the differences in the pictures below:

Top of Original Google Street View CarTop of Fake Google Street View Car
Top of Original Google Street View CarTop of Fake Google Street View Car

Hopefully my skillfully crafted circles and arrows highlight the points of difference enough that I won’t have to spend too much time showing how these are different.

Now here is some footage of the people at F.A.T pranking what they claim to be a Google Street View car. This one is supposedly of a driver drinking while driving:

This is supposedly of a driver picking someone up who is urinating in public:

As you can see in these videos, the car is obviously the fake one created by F.A.T. If the sign on the side of the car is not enough evidence then perhaps taking a closer look at the GPS tracking and camera apparatus located on the top will reveal that it is in fact the fake tracker created by the F.A.T group.

Add to this the information found in this post, Pantless Germans Flash Google Street View Car, and I am led strongly to believe that the whole claim of GPS tracking one of these cars was completely false. I did not include this video because it does have some profanity that could be objectionable to some people, but in the post they say this:

Hot off the press. See also Gizmodo, BuzzFeed, CrunchGear, Reddit, BasicThinking, BoingBoing. Stay tuned for more Google Street View car tracking at fffff.at.

That last sentence seems to indicate to me that they are representing this as video taken from the GPS tracking of the car, when it is obviously not. The video is clearly of the fake car that F.A.T created.

Thus, I think it can be clearly seen that their claim is false and that the claim itself is the actual prank. The videos are made in an attempt to ‘eff Google’ and make them look bad.

If you are interested in learning some more about this group, there is a little blurb from their about page:

The Free Art and Technology Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. The entire FAT network of artists, engineers, scientists, lawyers, musicians and Bornas are committed to supporting open values and the public domain through the use of emerging open licenses, support for open entrepreneurship and the admonishment of secrecy, copyright monopolies and patents.

So in the final analysis it seems like F.A.T. just wanted to make Google look bad and advanced their false claim of GPS tracking a Street View Car in an attempt to bring attention to their cause. I certainly don’t blame them for their attempt, but it is important that we all see what they actually accomplished.

Feel free to check the sources yourself at: Free Art and Technology

Lost Cell Phone GPS Tracking Explained

Almost everyone has had the experience of misplacing or losing their cell phone. We also all know what it is like to search and search for our lost cell phone in the hope of finding in some obvious or not so obvious spot. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some way to leverage a cell phones built in GPS technology to help it “find” itself? Lost cell phone GPS tracking is real and is a very powerful and efficient way for people to recover their mobile phones once thy have misplaced them.

This article is going to attempt to give an introduction to how GPS locates cell phones in the world and how this information can be used by owners to find their lost cell phone.

GPS: What Is It?

The Global Positioning System (of which GPS is the acronym) is a network of satellites that orbit the earth and specialized receivers here on earth that interact with each other. The system was developed by the US military in an effort to get a better understanding of where their forces were at any given moment and has been around fro several decades. It was made available to the public under President Ronald Reagan and since then there has been an explosion in the use of GPS technology by regular citizens. We are all familiar with GPS navigation technology, and this is one of the most prolific uses of GPS in the consumer market.

The way GPS works is through a mathematical principle called trilateration. The simple explanation of trilateration is this – if you know where three things are in the world and you know your distance from each of those things then you can figure out exactly where you are. If that doesn’t make much sense then just take a look at the picture to the right. You can know where Point B is in the world if you know where P1, P2, and P3 are.

The world of the Global Positioning Systems, the satellites that orbit the earth are represented like P1, P2, and P3 in our picture above. These satellites emit a signal through the air the travels at a certain speed. This signal contains information like the time that it was sent and a uniquely identifying id. This information is then process by a GPS receiver, which is the same as point B in the picture above. The receiver takes the information sent by the satellites and finds out its distance from each of P1, P2, and P3. It then does some fancy math and finds out exactly where it is right now.

Some GPS receivers that are used for navigation will then show the user this data in map form so that they can know where they are. GPS tracking devices will take the data and send it out over a cell phone network (GSM tracker) or over a communicate satellite (satellite tracker). Still other devices, known as data loggers will simply store the data on its hard drive for download at a later time. Whatever GPS device you are using, they all work of this same principle of trilateration and all fit into the same category.

GPS In Cell Phones

A few years ago GPS receivers began to find their way into cell phones. Then there was a move by the federal government that required cell phone carriers develop a way to help them find out the location that 9-1-1 phone calls made from cell phone originated. The carriers had the option then of using their own GSM networks to create a tracking system based off of the same principle as the GPS network. Some carriers went with this option. Other carriers decided to go ahead and put GPS in cell phones that they were going to provide to their customers.

There are a lot of different things that people use GPS in cell phones now these days. The first and most obvious is navigation. Almost everyone likes to get turn by turn directions spoken to them, especially when traveling in new and unknown places. Cell phone navigation has become to prevalent that some industry experts suspect that the cell phone is going to surpass the PND (Personal Navigation Device) as the navigation device of choice in just a few years time.

Cell phone GPS is also used for all sorts of fun apps and internet surfing features. If you want to know of good restaurants that are near you right now, there are internet searches and apps for that. If you would love to find out the prices of homes in your neighborhood then there is a real estate GPS tracking app for that too. There are literally tons and tons of different ways that GPS is being used by everyday people for any number of normal activities. It is safe to say that GPS receivers in cell phone are making the world a thoroughly more navigable place.

GPS Tracking of Cell Phones

But this article is about lost cell phone GPS tracking, not about all the cool things that GPS is doing for cell phone technology. So to help us understand how GPS can help us find lost cell phones a quick word needs to be said about the GPS tracking of cell phones. A brief definition of GPS tracking should be given: GPS tracking is the ability to track the location of a person, vehicle, or object as it moves throughout the world. There are two types of GPS tracking, passive and active. Active tracking occurs in real time and lets you find out where something is right now. Passive GPS tracking has to do with data loggers, which find out your position and then store it on the device for use later when you can download the information into some tracking software.

Anyway, the tracking available in cell phones is real time GPS tracking – and this is important because it will allow you to use it in order to find a lost cell phone. It would work something like this. You download a GPS tracking application onto your cell phone from among one of the many different free GPS tracking applications or software available. Once it is downloaded and installed you just keep it running on your phone so that you will have a running GPS log of your location. If you ever lose your cell phone, you can find out the last place it was when the battery still had a charge.

In order to use your GPS to help find your lost cell phone you need to have the following conditions met:

  1. Your cell phone must be turned on.
  2. You must have a GPS tracking application installed on your phone.
  3. The tracking app must be running. This will ensure that the GPS is actively reading signals from the satellites in order to find out its location. It will also then send that information over the cell phone network so that you can view it on the internet.
  4. Your cell phone must be receiving signals from satellites. If your phone is buried beneath 100 feet of concrete then there is no hope of finding it!
  5. Your cell phone must be getting a signal from cell phone towers. If it is not then you will not have a method of sending information to the Internet for you to look at it.

If you meet all of these criteria then you should be able to find a lost cell phone with GPS tracking.

We have also included a larger list of apps that you can download to smart phones of several different varieties. Just check out our post about free GPS cell phone trackers.

Ways to Use It

One of the most important ways that this technology can be used is to help children keep track of their cell phones. GPS cell phones for kids are great because they provide excellent safety for our children, but they are no good to use or to them if they lose them. If you need to know where their lost mobile phone is just log onto the computer and figure it out.

The same is true for businessmen who have a cell phone with all their work contacts and email on it. If they were to lose this device it could disastrous for their next sales call if not for their entire career. If they have GPS tracking installed on their Blackberry then they should have no problem finding their phone and avoiding certain disaster.

If you would like more information on how to use your cell phone to find itself, please check out How to Find a Lost Cell Phone with GPS Tracking. It should provide you with some helpful tips on what you should do and give you some ideas of the different programs available for use in this type of tracking.

GPS tracking works great in cell phones. Their small, light-weight nature makes them a perfect fit for the way that most people live their lives. It also is the perfect vehicle for tracking because it is connected to GSM cell phone networks, giving them the ability to send large amounts of information long distances almost instantly. This could not be done with standard telephones. Telephone GPS tracking wouldn’t even make any sense since they are static and do not move anywhere.

Do you have any helpful tips for people trying to utilize lost cell phone GPS tracking?

Stay Warm and Keep Your Cold Weather GPS Tracker Powered Up

The frosty winds of winter are upon us and what could warm our hearts more than being able to recharge a GPS tracker miles from civilization while giving ourselves a nice little boost in warmth as well?

Well, that is a silly question (obviously) because there are a lot of other things that would warm our hearts much more than that.  Like puppies.  Or sitting down to a meal of Mexican food with Conan O’Brian.  Or the thought of standing way up on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower and motioning that you want to get down by slithering down the steps like a snake.  All those might warm your heart when stranded and overtaken by the delirium of frost bite.  But if your are getting a warmed heart from one of these things you probably would have benefited from a jacket designed to keep you warm and recharge various electronic devices, including your cold weather GPS tracker.

Refugium Cold Weather JacketThe name of this magical jacket is Refugium and it is currently being sold by Mountain Hardware for $230.00 MSRP.  From what I could tell from a quick glance through the online retailers offering this product they were all selling it at a price between $229 and $230.

I have to admit that the name sounds pretty cool to me.  Refugium.  I almost immediately get the image of a wandering individual on a snow encrusted mountain surrounded by silence and the death of winter.  From the looks of things, he stands cold and alone – the enemy of a season that strips the earth bare to make it new again.

But on the inside of his protective shell the man enjoys the warmth of his man-wrought refuge.  A lightweight power source fills his Refugium with warmth derived from countless hours of ingenuity combined with the slow plodding of man into the technological age.

But not only that, his Refugium also keeps a wide variety of his personal electronic devices well charged as well.  Cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, and GPS tracking devices all can get some much needed energy love from this mobile power and heating system.

Woah.  Did I just lump GPS tracking devices in the same category as personal electronic devices as mobile phones, iPods, and cameras?  Does that even make any sense?

There are a few good reasons why a GPS tracking device would pair wonderfully with a jacket like this.  The most obvious reason would be that of survival.  Outdoor adventurers usually do not take a break from their adventuring just because there happens to be 4 feet of snow on the mountain.  They still want to do the next big thing.  If they are going to be out in the wilderness for prolonged periods of time chances are they are going to take a GPS tracking device with them, especially if they have friends and family who are concerned for their safety.

And if they are using a tracker it is probably going to be a satellite GPS tracking device since this type of tracker does not rely on a cell phone network to get its location information out to friends and family.  After all, there is not very much cell phone coverage on Mount Whitney, Mount St. Helens, or Mount Everest.  But there is access to the sky, which is home to the satellites used in the GPS system and the commercial communication satellites used  by such tackers as the SPOT GPS tracking device.  If you are a serious outdoorsman whose adventuring takes you far and afield from the hard crust of civilization then a safety device like a satellite tracker is going to be one of your best friends in the event of an emergency.

It might work something this.  An adventurer is out in the midst of the beauty of nature when a storm suddenly approaches.  He is still on the face of the mountain, exposed to the storm as he traverses a particularly treacherous portion of his journey.  The driving snow causes his dangerous journey to become downright perilous as the cold weather begins to attack his footing and the sensation in his extremities.  Blinded by the sheet of white falling steadily, our adventurer misses his next step, falls, and badly injures himself.  After a brief effort to try and find a safe haven to weather out the storm our adventurer resigns himself to endure the rest of the storm in the open and activates his cold weather GPS tracker in the hope that the signal is going to break through the terrible storm that is surrounding him and allow him to contact some rescue personell.  He really does not feel like he had much time since he can feel the warm liquid of his life blood running down his leg.

Unfortunately, the storm is interfering with his GPS’ ability to get a signal from the Global Positioning Satellites as well as the commercial communication satellites that his GPS uses to find its location and to communicate with the authorities.  After a few hours trying to find a trace on his position, the adventurers’ cold weather GPS tracker is beginning to get dangerously low on power.  If his device looses power then it is all over for him as he slowly bleeds to death on the mountain.

Luckily, this is not the end for our GPS adventurer.  He is wearing this Refugium cold weather jacket with its portable power supply.  He docks his GPS into the power supply port and is able to get a few more hours out of his GPS tracking device.  This is just enough time for the storm to dissipate enough for his SPOT GPS tracker to get a strong enough signal to find its location in the world and to make contact with a communications satellite.  The authorities are notified and within a few more hours our adventurer is rescued.

While this is kind of an extreme example, I think it does make the principle extremely clear about how a jacket like this could be used to make GPS tracking last longer in the coldest and harshest of conditions.  It also exmplifies why it might be a better idea for individuals using such a jacket system as they engage in dangerous activities to forgo using it on frivolous items like cell phones (which do will not work in remote areas), iPods, or digital cameras and to instead use it to keep their cold weather GPS tracker alive and active.

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?

Who’s To Blame For Spouse GPS Tracking?

I got a very interesting comment that I assumed was in relation to my post on Tracking Your Spouse With GPS. I’ll quote most of it below, but the general gist of the comment was that if a husband is cheating on a wife then it is the wife’s fault for being fat, ugly, stupid, withholding sex, etc. I think that this is the most absurd comment that I think I have ever heard in my life – so it almost doesn’t even warrant a response. But just in case someone comes along and is convinced by some of the arguments because there is no rebuttal I have decided to write this post. It will also allow me to make a few comments on the topic of who is to blame for GPS tracking a spouse and what can be done once the cheating has been discovered.

Here is the comment:

MMM. . . which is the greater betrayal, banging some broad on the side, or surreptitiously sneaking a high tech digital tracking device on your spouse, without his knowledge.

One thing, as a husband who cheated on his wife and is now on his second marriage (with whom he was cheating, and who herself was cheating on her hubby), I can tell you what the problem is.

YOU. For you it is easier to get a gadget, catch him in “ultimate betrayal” and make it all his fault and turn him into your puppy, than it is to work on the real problem. Are you fat, uninteresting, do you nag, did you give up that whole “makeup” thing years ago for a comfy flannel nightshirt and sweat pants. More interested in the latest gossip from your neighbor than hitting the gym, and wearing something sexy with candles and a surprise dinner when hubby gets home? Did you stop doing that “other” stuff, except on birthdays.

Of course, he could have turned into a complete slob that you are no longer interested in. . . but then, ask yourself, if he is so disgusting you don’t want to do him, why do you care if he is doing someone else?

Skip the gizmo, go to marriage counseling.

The first part of his argument is to throw into doubt whehter it is actually more evil to commit adultery or to track your spouse without their knowledge.  He really doesn’t offer any arguments for why this is so, he just makes a naked assertion of the fact by posing it as a question.  Because of this, his point makes absolutely no sense to me and leaves me answering him like this, “The greater betrayal is banging someone on the side! Why don’t you see that?”

Then he begins his next paragraph with this wonderful gem:

One thing, as a husband who cheated on his wife and is now on his second marriage (with whom he was cheating, and who herself was cheating on her hubby), I can tell you what the problem is.

The person who wrote this comment is himself a cheater.  As a cheater, he is trying to establish himself as an authority on why a person might cheat on a spouse.  Because he cheated he must know the psychology of a cheater and must be qualified to tell us all the “real truth” about why a spouse might cheat and why it is a “greater betrayal” to track a cheating spouse.

However, all that his admission does for me is diminish his credibility.  He has admitted that he cannot be trusted.  He is a man who makes promises and breaks them when it becomes convenient for him.  This fact is extremely important it ought to inform how we should see everything else that he has to say.

The very next thing that he says is that the reason spouses cheat is because the other spouse is the problem.  Really? You broke your promise to somebody and then you say that they are the reason why you broke YOUR promise? I doesn’t work that way. The only person who can break a promise that they made is the person who made the promise.

What is going on is that he is trying to make his moral, intellectual, and emotional failure all about his spouse.  He calls her fat, uninteresting, a nag, frumpy, a gossip, and a prude.  Is that really true? Probably not.

Then he tries to show some compassion for the wife whose husband has cheated.  He suggests that maybe the reason that she is being such a prude and denying her husband her body is that he has turned into a “slob.”  But then he seems to think that since you don’t want to be intimate with him that this somehow give him the right to be intimate with some other woman!  After all, why would you care that a person who promised that they would be faithful to you is being unfaithful to you.  That really doesn’t matter does it? 

The commentor seems to think that breaking the marriage promise is no big deal – that marriage is something that is worthless and without deep meaning.  But that is exactly the type of thinking that I would expect from someone who has cheated and is without remorse. Marriage to such a person means nothing. They have proven it by their actions. 

He doesn’t seem to understand what marriage is and why people make vows to each other during the marriage ceremony.  A promise is a promise, and when you break those promises you have to take it seriously.

He then actually gives some good advice in the very last sentence of his comment.  Going to marriage counseling is a very important thing for a couple to do if they want to salvage a relationship after one spouse is caught cheating on the other.  Cheating is always a signal that a relationship has some sort of sickness within it, and finding out what that sickness is and working on its cure is of the utmost importance when you want to save the marriage.

But the sad thing is, most cheaters will not admit a need for marriage counseling until they are caught in their cheating.  And a spouse often cannot catch their spouse cheating without some type of GPS tracking.  When it comes to tracking your spouse there are really two different options available to wives and husbands who suspect that their spouse is being unfaithful.  The first is to track their cell phone.  A lot of the newer cell phones have the capability to be tracked by GPS if the proper software is installed on the device.  There is plenty of free GPS tracking software out there, but not all of it is compatible with every type of phone out on the market.  Also, a problem with a free tracking method is that they are generally not very covert – making it rather difficult to use it to catch your spouse in the act of cheating.

Another option is to track your spouse’s car with GPS.  GPS tracking for cars is a very popular application of GPS technology and has been used extensively by businesses to improve fleet performance and increase revenues. As a result of this usefulness, GPS manufacturers have tried to make these devices as cheap and accessible as possible to a wide range of businesses. A nice side effect of this effort is that it has made these devices available on the consumer market. While car tracking is a very effective means of tracking a cheating spouse, it is far from perfect. While the movement of a car does tell you a lot about a person’s activity, it is not the same as a cell phone which is often taken everywhere a person might go. However, what car tracking gives up in ubiquity it gains back in covert tracking capabilities.

Most car tracking GPS devices are extremely covert and can fit securely inside a wheel well or under the rear bumper. Unless your spouse has a habit of looking in these places there is often very little chance that they are going to find out that you are tracking their movements via GPS.

Whichever method of spouse GPS tracking you might decide to use, it is my opinion that you are well within your rights to track your spouse in this way. Some people might disagree with me, and it might be illegal in some states for spouses to track each other without their express consent, but that is my opinion. And the cheater bears full responsibility for their own cheating, they are to blame for their own promise breaking. They are the liar and are fully responsible for their own actions.

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.

New Teen GPS Tracking Devices From Spy Centre Security

Spy Centre Security, a GPS tracking and “spy” device store has announced a new line of GPS tracking devices that they are marketing specifically for parents of teenagers.  According to their press release they have devices starting at $199 the “[make] it possible to get constant updates on your teenagers’ car.”  My initial thought was that if they have a real time teen GPS tracking device for that price then they are going to be pretty competitive in the tracking market.  The only other real time device that I am aware of is the Zoombak and that is retailing right now on Amazon for $125.  Most other real time trackers are going to cost from around $250 and up.

But upon further investigation, it appears that the claims made in the press release are a little misleading.  To those that don’t understand the distinction between a data logger (passive GPS) and a real time tracker (active GPS) could have been duped by the claim made by the following sentence:

At Spycentre.com we now sell GPS products starting at just $199 making it possible to get constant updates on your teenagers’ car.

(While this sentence does come from a site not associated with Spy Centre Security, it does contain their contact information and is very similar to a press release posted on the companies website on September 11, 2009. This leads me to believe that the message is legitimate.)

Consumers need to know the difference between a data logger and a real time tracker if they are to really understand how to best track their teen and to sift through clever marketing attempts of GPS manufacturers.

Teen GPS Tracking Data Loggers

A data logger is a GPS tracking device that simply records the position of the device at set intervals determined by the user or by the device itself.  In order to access the information that the device records, you must retrieve the device and download the contents onto your computer.  GPS tracking software then interacts with the data and plots it on an interactive Google Maps like interface.

Canmore USB GPS Tracking Stick

This type of tracking is great when you only need to know somethings trip after the fact.  For example, if you enjoy launching hobby rockets and you want to know how high and how fast your rocket travels then using a data logger is a great way to get that information.

One of the newest types of data loggers to hit the market are GPS tracking sticks.  These devices are as large as a USB stick and very similar in build and shape.  They even have a male USB connection built in for a simple downloading process.  Just plug the device in and watch the software take over and do the work of analyzing the data for you.

Certainly powerful stuff, but not what most parents think of when they want to know where there teen is. These devices can be great for getting a good understanding of your teen’s driving habits – but they are not good for knowing where your teen is when they are late in getting home. They are not good when a natural disaster strikes and you need to know where your teen is right now. For that, you would need a real time GPS tracker.

With that said, a data logger is what is currently being offered for $199 on the Spy Centre Security website. I wonder how their tracking stick compares with this $145 one from Amazon?

Teen Real Time GPS Tracking

A real time GPS tracking device is one that is able to send its position information from the device to a third party so that the position of the device can be seen in real time.  This is what most parents are going to think about when they are looking into GPS trackers for their teenager.  They are also fairly expensive devices that will end up costing you hundreds of dollars up front and a regular subscription fee for the data transfers between your tracking device and the company’s servers.

The real time trackers available through Spy Centre Security are certainly expensive.  The cheapest models that they offer run $450 and have a service plan of $30 a month according to the press release mentioned above.  The first year of use will run $810 – a steep price to pay for being able to track your teen’s car with GPS.

The Cell Phone Tracking Solution

The obvious solution to this issue is to find a cheaper, real time tracking solution for parents of teenagers.  The best solution that I have come across is to turn a teen’s cell phone into a GPS tracking device.  Many of today’s cell phones already have a GPS antenna inside the phone that allows them to pick up GPS signals from outer space, eliminating the most obvious hurdle off the get go.  And since most teenagers want the latest and greatest cell phone you know that they probably already have a GPS enabled cell phone on them right now.

All that you now need to do is download some GPS tracking software for cell phones and you have a fully functional GPS tracking system in the palm of your teen’s hand.  There are plenty of paid services out there for parents looking at a paid option.  Most cell phone carriers offer something that you can take a look at that will add a nominal monthly fee to your cell bill.

Another option open to parents is to go with free GPS tracking software for cell phones.  This might take a little more work on your part of monitoring and installing the system, but can you beat free?

In the end, whatever you decide to do with your teen is really up to you.  Teen GPS tracking devices are relatively new, but that should not deter parents from taking advantage of this new and powerful technology to help them raise honest, law-abiding children who drive safely and come home on time.  While some might balk at tracking their teen with GPS, here at GPS For Today we feel like there are plenty of reasons why parents have every right to track a teen driver.  If you are interested in reading more about what we have to say on this topic here are some of the more important articles: