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    Home Latest News
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    GPS Phone to Take the Stage at CTIA

    Written by

    Carol Ellison
    Published March 10, 2005
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      Moments after the tsunami struck the shores of Sri Lanka in December, the Tidal Wave Rescue Center launched an effort to locate as many victims as possible through its cell phones.

      The technology that was used was helpful but not exact.

      The center sent text messages to each of the 10,252 international roaming phones in the area asking the recipient to call a toll-free number.

      They received 4,269 responses and began staging rescue efforts. But the problem was how to identify the whereabouts of those who did not respond.

      Next week, at the CTIA show in New Orleans, Siemens Communications and Wherify Wireless will be showing a phone that eases the task—so much that even home users will be able to track the whereabouts of the phone by accessing a protected Web page on the Internet.

      “This is a brand-new space, and there is a tremendous amount of need,” said Peter Fowler, vice president of sales for wireless modules at Siemens.

      “Of all the products we support, this product has, by far, the most compelling business case. If you want to track your child or an elderly parent or a family member who has Alzheimers, you can simply utilize this device and no longer have to worry about their whereabouts.”

      In the enterprise space, too, he said, “theres a very big demand.”

      Although quite a number of location detection technologies already exist for the enterprise, most of those are trunk-mounted in vehicles.

      “It will be interesting to see the applications when you have something that fits into a briefcase or a pocket.”

      /zimages/3/28571.gifClick here to read about Nokias Wireless GPS Module.

      The most obvious need is with international businesspeople traveling to areas of the world where terrorism, kidnapping and other personal security concerns exist.

      “If you have businesspeople traveling in parts of the world where its possible they can be taken hostage and you want to provide them security, theres absolutely no reason why you wouldnt put one of these devices in a persons briefcase,” said Fowler.

      The phone, about the size of a business card, weighs 2.4 ounces and uses Siemens GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications)/GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) wireless technology with next-generation GPS locating technology enabled by Wherify.

      The Wherifone features five programmable functions for one-touch dialing, including 911 emergency services and concierge services.

      The Wherifone can be located through a secure Internet website, or by contacting the Wherify service center from any phone, which offers parents and family members peace of mind about their loved ones whereabouts while providing privacy and information security.

      Currently, there is no de facto worldwide location standard to track traditional cell phones.

      /zimages/3/28571.gifTo read more about GPS offerings at the annual DemoMobile show, click here.

      User location is determined through triangulation, bounding signals off towers in the areas where the phone was last heard to identify signal cross-points between the towers.

      According to Fowler, GPS-based locator technology is not only much more available than triangulation methods, it is much more exact.

      Using triangulation, cell towers essentially ping one another and determine how far a caller is from each tower by the time it takes to get a response.

      “In Munich, where there are many cell towers within a relatively short distance, it might be as exact as within 300 meters,” said Fowler, “but in Iowa where the towers are spread out and there is not a lot of capacity, it may be well over 1000 meters.”

      GPS service can identify exact locations.

      /zimages/3/28571.gifCheck out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, reviews and analysis on mobile and wireless computing.

      Carol Ellison
      Carol Ellison
      Carol Ellison is editor of eWEEK.com's Mobile & Wireless Topic Center. She has authored whitepapers on wireless computing (two on network security–,Securing Wi-Fi Wireless Networks with Today's Technologies, Wi-Fi Protected Access: Strong, Standards-based Interoperable Security for Today's Wi-Fi Networks, and Wi-Fi Public Access: Enabling the future with public wireless networks.Ms. Ellison served in senior and executive editorial positions for Ziff Davis Media and CMP Media. As an executive editor at Ziff Davis Media, she launched the networking track of The IT Insider Series, a newsletter/conference/Web site offering targeted to chief information officers and corporate directors of information technology. As senior editor at CMP Media's VARBusiness, she launched the Web site, VARBusiness University, an online professional resource center for value-added resellers of information technology.Ms. Ellison has chaired numerous industry panels and has been quoted as a networking and educational technology expert in The New York Times, Newsday, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio's All Things Considered, CNN Headline News, WNBC and CNN/FN, as well as local and regional Comcast and Cablevision reports. Her articles have appeared in most major hi-tech publications and numerous newspapers and magazines, including The Washington Post and The Christian Science Monitor.

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