Wider use of GPS may remap how we live

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Jan 11, 2004 | by Francine Brevetti, BUSINESS WRITER

An elderly woman had been caring for her husband afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. He would take a walk daily within a prescribed zone around their home.

One day he began wandering farther afield. Frantic, the wife sought and found the means to keep tabs on her confused mate. She bought a device she could attach to her husband's wrist that would keep her informed of his exact whereabouts.

The device used global position system, or GPS, technology that utilizes satellites to track its location. Such devices are being used to keep track of children and pets as well as the elderly.

But such monitoring is only one way GPS technology is being used today.

GPS is transforming the way we live and communicate much more fundamentally, many think, than the Internet.

Equipped with GPS, you can define your whereabouts on land, sea and air. You can navigate in any of these environments and identify resources in your immediate area.

But GPS is more than high-tech mapping to help you hike. Depending on the mechanism you employ, your whereabouts can also be identified by others -- just as the young and the senile who carry a GPS device can be tracked. Your vehicle and its cargo can be tracked. In the future, your auto insurance may be linked to your driving records amassed by GPS systems.

And it's just this ability to track the trackersthat makes people nervous.

GPS uses satellites to track the position of devices by longitude, latitude and altitude. With such a device, you can locate where you are and map your way to other locations.

The U.S. military has become so reliant on the technology that it no longer teaches celestial navigation. So much for the North Star.

Peter Kastner, an analyst with Aberdeen Research, owns a boat that has a GPS-enabled chart plotter. "I can watch my boat moving down a chart" as it moves through the water, he said.

The brainchild of the Department of Defense for military navigation, GPS is being used in civilian spheres, helping, for instance, "airplanes to land themselves," Kastner said, even though "pilots like to do a little work."

ABI Research predicts the appetite for devices enabled with GPS will reach $22 billion by 2008 -- a lot of dough just to find out where you are.

This wizardry is popping up in consumer products, too -- your dashboard (see accompanying article), cell phone, backpack, telescope, Pocket PC and laptop computer, as well as in first responder and emergency systems. Industrial products incorporate GPS for cartography, civilian navigation and aviation, forestry, wildlife management, construction, mining and agriculture, to name a few.

Lost in the tundra? A wide variety of gadgets equipped with GPS compete for lovers of the outdoors -- bikers, hikers, hunters and fishermen.

IDC Analyst Alex Slawsby called manufacturer Garmin "the leading producer of GPS handhelds and PDAs." Slawsby himself uses "ruggedized" Garmin GPS devices in his car and for recreation.

While Garmin products can be acquired from its Web site ( www.garmin.com, its products can also be viewed at online stores such as REI ( www.rei.com that cater to the outdoors and sporty set.

These products are priced along a wide range. Garmin's Compact GPS12 costs $150. It uses 12 tracking satellites, has a memory of 500 waypoints or 20 routes, and includes map data and grid formulas. But the Handlebar Mount is a mere $18.

Pharos is another manufacturer of GPS-enabled topographical maps for hiking, marine and navigational uses.

Digital Angel ( www.digitalangelcorp.com is a company that offers a product to help track the whereabouts of a patient with Alzheimer's. Its technology combining sensors with GPS help physicians and clinical researchers keep 24/7 tabs on patients.

The company has also stepped up to the plate in offering technology to identify cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalitis, or mad cow disease. Eventually, a company spokesman said, GPS will be incorporated into this protocol for tracking diseased cattle.

Meanwhile, Redwood Shores company Wherify Wireless made a stir with its child locator, a device your youngster wears on his wrist.

Want to know where the little scamp is? Log on to Wherifywireless.com and you'll get a street map and an aerial map showing you where he's wandered and allowing you to page him.

Spokesman Bob Stern recalled an incident in which a child was taken by a father who wasn't authorized to have him.

"The mom had a (Wherify child) locator on her child and issued an emergency call to us. We gave the police the child's location and they recovered the child with the dad in a park."

The device is being popularly used to find children, pets and confused elderly who have wandered away, he added. The child locator costs $400 for the device and $20 to $45 a month depending on the level of service you choose.

Wherify is also perfecting devices that will track offenders. Currently, Stern says, when those under house arrest equipped with a monitor stray beyond their allowed zone, the device informs authorities only that they is errant, not where they have gone. The Wherify device to be introduced later this year would identify an offender's whereabouts.