CJ Kucera quoted: > >> NEW YORK It sounds like a chapter out of "Spy vs. Spy": Researchers >> at Carnegie Mellon University have launched a project called Camera >> Watch that lists Internet cameras that monitor public spaces, letting >> Web surfers try the role of bored security guard. > What I *really* would like now is so simple that I still don't know why it's not available: a system so that I can keep track of the _approximate_ location of a cell phone. Cell Phones are all the time connected to a nearby station, so this system would enable me, for example, to know how far my wife has gone to her remote hospital job _without_ having to call her and distracting her while she's driving.
A very likely future utility.
On the other hand, there are people who already complain about the fact that the cell phone service can locate their phone and the possibility that the company could be forced to give that information to law enforcement agencies who might be interested in tracking them because they were suspected of illegal activities. They even object to it being possible for their phone to be located in the case that they call 911 from the phone so that the police, ambulance, fire truck, etc., could be dispatched to their location in case they can't or don't give their location to the 911 operator.
And while some people would indeed want to use it as Alberto suggested, to make sure his wife safely gets to work, I suspect that a lot of people would use it to track their spouse who they suspect of having an affair, or for stalking ex-spouses who have not thought to get rid of the old cell phone yet, etc., and if the service were introduced it would be a matter of only a short time until we start hearing news stories where the someone was murdered by a jealous [ex-]spouse who tracked the victim via the cell-phone locator system Alberto suggested. Even if the system gave only an approximate location, as Alberto suggested, that would probably be enough to know that s/he is not "working late at the office tonight", and in many cases an approximate location would be enough to let one know that one's cheating spouse was indeed at the home of the particular friend or business acquaintance with whom said cheating spouse was suspected of having the affair . . .
What I want is a cheap pre-paid cell phone to give my kids.
Don't they already have those? Or is it a matter of how you define "cheap"?
-- Ronn! :)
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