GPS-enhanced cell phones act as predator alert
Published 9:00 pm Saturday, April 8, 2006
When 11-year-old Jessica Lunsford was kidnapped and murdered last year, Joe Dawson immediately began gathering signatures to enact stricter penalties for registered sex offenders.
Now, Dawson is teaming up with a California-based technology firm to introduce the first cell phone that uses the Global Positioning System to alert parents when a child is walking near a sexual predator’s home.
CATS Communication Inc. allows parents to build a “geofence” around every listed child predator that lives within their ZIP code. The phone alerts parents through e-mail, text message or pager if their child enters that zone, said the company’s vice president, Jon Kudla.
Linked with the Family Watchdog’s national database of registered sex offenders, the phone will update with new zones every time the a new name is added to the database.
“It’s important for parents to know when their children are interacting near those people,” said Kudla, a father of three.
The feature, which hits the market in the next 60 days, costs $19.99 a month for the first phone and $9.99 for each additional phone. It’s part of Cat Trax, a Nextel wireless phone CATS introduced last year with capabilities to track kids with a GPS chip.
Other products, like Wherifone and Teen Arrive Alive, also help parents keep tabs on their children’s whereabouts and driving habits – for example, how fast a teen is driving on the highway.
Those aren’t make-believe ads: Advertising has been creeping into video games in the past few years as virtual billboards that hawk real-world products like soft drinks and computer gear.
The publisher of online science-fiction game “Project Entropia” is taking the idea one step further by giving players the tools to put up their own advertising in the game.
The latest release of the game, created by MindArk PE AB of Sweden, features advertising billboards. Through a PowerPoint-like system, players create animated ads and buy time on the billboards.
So far, the ads have been promoting player-organized in-game events like fashion shows and hunting competitions, as well as businesses like stores and hunting grounds, said Marco Behrmann, MindArk’s director of player relations.
MindArk said it was the first player-oriented advertising tool built into a game.
In another virtual world, “Second Life,” players who master its tools can create almost anything they want, including advertising, and enterprising players have created their own ad-exchange program on a Web site.
MindArk also announced a collaboration with New York-based Massive Inc., which distributes ads from companies like The Coca Cola Co. and Warner Bros. for inclusion in more than 100 games. Ads distributed by Massive will show up on billboards in Project Entropia.
Wanna buy a town?: The owner of a picturesque Northern California town is accepting bids on online auctioneer eBay, nearly two years after purchasing the hamlet.
Bridgeville, with a population of about 18, was first put up for sale on eBay in 2002, but the winning bidder backed out of the deal after discovering that many of the buildings were falling apart and that garbage was strewn over much of the town’s 83 acres.
“I spent a lot of money and a lot of effort cleaning it up,” said Bruce Krall, the Orange County commercial mortgage banker who owns the parcel now.
Bidding starts at $1.75 million.
The town, which was once a hub for a local stagecoach route and a stop on the Pony Express, includes eight houses, a post office and a cafe, Krall said. A school serving students from kindergarten to eighth grade as well as a fire station are nearby, but they aren’t part of the property up for sale.
Bridgeville wouldn’t be the first unusual item to go up for bidding on eBay.
In 2004, a Florida woman used the online auction house to sell for $28,000 a grilled-cheese sandwich that purportedly had the image of the Virgin Mary on it. That same year, a woman from Indiana charged $65,000 for a metal walking cane she said her 6-year-old son believed contained the ghost of his grandfather.
Geneva to host major telecommunications show in 2009: Telecom World, a major international trade show for held every three years, will take place in Geneva in 2009, a U.N. agency said.
Geneva beat out Birmingham, England, the Persian Gulf port of Dubai and Paris to reclaim the fair, the International Telecommunications Union said Monday. The Swiss city hosted the event for three decades until losing out to Hong Kong for the 2006 show.
“The Geneva authorities have made rigorous efforts to underline their support for the event, and have provided the most cost-effective package for the exhibitors, participants and organizers alike,” Yoshio Utsumi, secretary-general of the Geneva-based ITU, said in a statement.
Geneva lost out to Hong Kong two years ago, when the U.N. agency cited the city’s high costs and the allure of staging the show in Asia to highlight business opportunities in China and elsewhere.
High costs in Geneva – resulting in part from the strong Swiss franc – have irritated participants. At recent events, reservation companies in search of easy money have reportedly snapped up hotel rooms and then rented them to exhibitors and visitors for three or four times the regular price.
