-Caveat Lector-
from:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/306775.asp
<A HREF="http://www.msnbc.com/news/306775.asp">When GPS meets cell phones</A>
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When GPS meets cell phonesPolice will know exactly where those 911 calls
are made,
and a host of other fun services will followBy Bob Sullivan
MSNBC
Sept. 1 — Shalene Wilson was in big trouble. Two men had overpowered
her, stabbed her, thrown her in a car trunk and driven away. But in a
stroke of what might seem like amazing luck, they did not realize she
had a mobile phone. She called local police in Albany, Ore., begging for
help — but they were helpless. In this case, 911 proved just about
useless: The police had no idea where Wilson was calling from, and
neither did she. They spent the better part of the next 24 hours
searching in vain, combing the town block by block while precious time
ticked away. A new technology which would have told police precisely
where Wilson was hadn’t arrived in time to help.
=====
Like car navigation systems, it could offer directions, even to walkers.
It could point out nearby restaurants, even offer up coupons for pizza
places down the block. But that’s just the beginning.
PLACE A 911 CALL from a land line, and authorities know exactly
where the call came from. But place an emergency call from a cell phone,
and wireless carriers can give police only the roughest idea where to
look. In Wilson’s case, Sprint was able to identify the cell tower that
relayed her first call at 9:20 p.m Aug. 4. That gave police a circle to
search that had a radius of one mile, according to Albany public
information officer Marilyn Smith. But Wilson said she was in a moving
car — so police within a 75-mile radius were alerted.
The police chief came in during the middle of the night. Officers
worked overtime looking for Wilson. Sprint technicians worked through
the night. Local TV stations broadcast the unfolding drama.
“We kept running into dead ends,” assistant chief of police Don
O’Malley said.
When ‘911’ is just three more digits
As the night wore on, and Wilson kept calling, authorities became
suspicious. Seven calls and 15 hours later, Wilson’s drama was declared
a hoax. No cell phone — and certainly not her older model, as determined
by Sprint — could last that long without a recharge. And despite her
claims she was on the move, all the cell calls were routed from that
original tower. Bell Labs' Giovanni Vannucci describes how GPS works.
The woman identifying herself as Wilson was never found — though she
did break an Oregon law prohibiting illegal use of 911, and she did send
authorities on a wild goose chase.
Experts say similar, if less dramatic, searches are carried out
daily. Perhaps 100,000 people a day dial 911 from a wireless phone, with
that number on the rise, and 30 percent are unable to tell authorities
where they’re calling from.
But such confusion will end when a new technology called wireless
geolocation is in place. By marrying a Global Positioning System (GPS)
device with a wireless phone, authorities will be able to pinpoint
within about five meters where a wireless phone is when it’s turned on.
It’s a bit of a shotgun wedding. The Federal Communications
Commission has mandated that cell companies have such pinpoint accuracy
by October 2001. So a fleet of software and chip makers, including
Lucent Technologies Inc., are lining up to perform the ceremony. In the
meantime, wireless firms are discovering that a cell phone with GPS
attached can do a lot more than just dial 911.
Like car navigation systems, it could offer directions, even to
walkers. It could point out nearby restaurants, even offer up coupons
for pizza places down the block. But that’s just the beginning.
Researchers at Lucent’s Bell Labs foresee location units being handed to
children so parents always know where they are — or criminals, under
house arrest, for similar reasons. It could even be used to recover
stolen cars or laptop computers.
Steve Poizner, CEO of Snap-Track, which also makes the GPS-wireless
technology, said one of the more whimsical applications of such a
service might involve a family-and-friends circle.
“Imagine you walk into a shopping center — this could tell you which
of your friends are nearby and where they are,” he said.
Poizner’s company has been at it since 1995, and he says he’ll be
selling the product commercially in Japan through NTT’s Dokomo before
the year is out. U.S. sales are expected to start next year. That’s just
the first salvo in the coming battle to offer these wild personal
location services. Battle lines are already being drawn: Snap-Track also
has agreements with Motorola and Texas Instruments Inc. Lucent has a
deal with Qualcomm Inc. And another player in the space, SiRF Technology
Inc., has a deal with Ericsson.
HOW IT WORKS
Merely slapping a GPS receiver on the back of a cell phone wouldn’t
do the trick, for several reasons. Chief among them — it would double
the cost and really shrink battery life.
“And the real killer is, GPS doesn’t work indoors,” said Lucent’s
Bob Richton.
So both Lucent and Snap-Track have designed scaled-down,
limited-function GPS chips that cost “a few dollars” and need little
power. And thanks to a boost from a network of larger GPS devices
scattered around the country, the devices achieve about 100 times the
sensitivity of a stand-alone GPS device, according to Lucent’s Giovanni
Vannucci. Vannucci discusses the privacy implications of wireless
geolocation.
GPS locates by analyzing repeated patterns during a 1/50 of a second
interval, he said. The limited-function GPS Lucent developed can
integrate intervals of up to one second, dramatically increasing
sensitivity. That means it works inside many structures, including some
high-rise buildings.
But the systems are not flawless, says SiRF founder Kanwar Chadha.
They won’t always work in high-rise buildings, and they offer only
limited altitude information. So if someone dialed 911 from the 20th
floor of a 50-story building, police would probably only know that the
person was somewhere between the 20th and 25th floors.
“Guaranteeing 100 percent positioning information is not practical,”
Chadha said. “When you get inside a 50-story building, that’s a
different beast.”
SiRF’s founder says his designers have actually discovered a way to
include a full-fledged GPS in the handset by integrating GPS software
into the wireless phone chip. Chadha says Ericsson will start selling
phones with his chips by early next year.
Garmin’s GPS III puts mapping in the palm of your hand
“Our architecture is more flexible. (Lucent’s and Snap-Track’s)
approach is more the dumb terminal approach,” he said. SiRF’s GPS phones
won’t need a boost from a network of larger GPS devices. “‘Autonomous
mode’ is really important to us.”
PRIVACY CONCERNS
Meanwhile, anonymous mode is important to many privacy advocates,
who think they have something to fear from a technology that allows
government agencies to track people’s movements — even if those people
are dialing 911. Bell Labs researchers say their modified solution
eliminates that concern.
“That’s why I like this technology. It only works when you want it
to work,” Vannucci said. If the locating technology is in the handset,
users can turn it on or off when they want, he said.
MAYBE, MAYBE NOT
Not all proposed solutions to the FCC requirement require adding GPS
to a mobile phone.
With some modifications to existing cell towers, a triangulation
method could also be used to pinpoint caller location — without any
hardware change to the phone.
Handset GPS advocates say that solution raises major privacy
concerns, since users could not turn off the tracking mechanism. And of
course, it would come without the added gee-whiz services.
But such a “network-based” solution might still prove the most
attractive, considering the upgrade of 911 services already under way
has been costly and time consuming. Between 5,000 and 8,000 local,
county and state police call centers require hardware upgrades to
receive advanced 911 information. And while 27 states have figured out
who’s paying for the upgrades, the rest have not.
So adding even more variables, which might delay upgraded cell 911
services even longer, may not satisfy regulators.
“Hopefully the FCC will be flexible,” Lucent’s Richton said.
While commercial trials of such advanced wireless services are set
to start next year, availability will be severely limited at first,
thanks to the variety of standards and hardware being used in the
wireless world, according to Kathryn Condello, vice president of
industry operations for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry
Association.
“With all the choices of technology a consumer has, the companies
have to meet thousands of requirements (to hit the 911 deadline).
Digital, analog. Three-year-old phones. They have to meet them all,” she
said. “So you can’t make the leap that because we do 911 we’re going to
do all these golly gee whiz services.”
In fact, she said, most consumers will have enhanced 911 service on
their cell phone well before they can get a pizza coupon from it.
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Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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