Is Your Phone Spying On You?

ONE ADVANTAGE -- or disadvantage, depending on your point of view -- of mobile phones is that they hide your location. When people call you at home or work over a traditional landline phone, and you answer, they pretty much know where you are. But when they call your mobile phone, you could be just about anywhere.

(If someone tells you they're at their desk, but you hear waves, seagulls and calypso music in the background, be suspicious).

The golden days of automatic cell phone location cloaking are about to end. GPS and other "location awareness" technologies are being built in to new mobile phones. And soon they will be able to track your whereabouts -- or, at least, the whereabouts of your phone.

Location services based on GPS are popping up in Europe. In Switzerland, a company called Sunrise provided GPS-assisted drunkenness services in a trial. The Swiss CPR Group's GeoGeny technology was tested by Sunrise during the holidays in volunteer taxis used to drive drunk people home. The location service was used by dispatchers to track and locate the drivers in real time. The trial was a success, and national carriers across Europe are mulling the addition of GeoGeny-based location services.

In the U.S., AT&T Wireless already has what it calls a "Find Friends" feature that tells you roughly where other AT&T customers are.

Eventually, location awareness in phones will be standard everywhere. Like most new technologies, this will be a mixed bag of goodness and gotchas.

On the one hand, GPS will surely come in handy when you're lost -- or when your phone is lost. It will be nice for parents to know where their kids are, and a convenient way for emergency workers to find people in need. Fun services will emerge, such as blogging sites that enable you to phone-blog pictures during your vacation, and have your blog automatically reflect the geographic location of the pictures.

On the other hand, location systems -- like other networked computer systems -- are potential targets for hacking and abuse. The last thing you want is for criminals and malicious geeks knowing your exact location at all times. And location services will inevitably prove to be fraught with problems. They will never work as well as people will want them to. For example, GPS doesn't work indoors or near tall buildings. If you live in Manhattan, fuggetaboutit.

On yet a third hand, various products and services will emerge to make GPS-enabled cell phones much more usable -- and desirable. Bell Labs announced this week "rules based" server software that gives users control over who can access their location information -- and how.

Other non-GPS technologies are emerging to provide many of the benefits of GPS location awareness, without the added expense of GPS electronics, but also without the accuracy. A new service available in Australia called Text Track enables parents, employers and others to find out roughly where a phone is by querying it via SMS. The phone replies with an SMS message revealing the location without ringing or notifying the carrier of the phone. "Zones" can be set up -- for example, if junior is grounded from going to the mall, that location can be flagged -- and parents get a message if the zone is violated.

This is just one early application out of thousands yet to be conceived.

Location awareness is coming to a phone near you. Where are YOU ... on the location issue? Do you want it? Or do you want no part of it?

She Loves Me. She Loves Me Not. She...

A new Pocket PC application from V Entertainment called "Love Detector" can tell you if that special someone really cares for you -- by listening to the sound of his or her voice, according to the company that created it. It works by detecting "excitement" in the voice of whoever is speaking. A PC-based version, called Love Sense, works the same way.

Two Oscar Films Online? In Your Dreams, Hollywood! They're ALL There (But One)

The mainstream press reports that two Oscar-nominated "screeners copy" films have been leaked on the Internet. The issue is considered controversial because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the people who run the Oscars) threatened earlier to avoid sending screener copies (VHS tapes used by designated voters in deciding who to vote for) so those movies wouldn't find their way to the Internet. But the web site WAXY.ORG has pointed that out all the candidate movies (with the exception of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King) have already been posted.

Rise of the Machines: Segway-Based Robots Play Soccer

Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Gator

...But were afraid to click "Yes." My friends over at PC Pitstop have put together a concise informational guide that tells you how to deal with the "drive-by downloads" committed by the company formerly known as Gator and now called Claria (the software tracks your web surfing and launches pop-up ads based on what site you're at). The site was so truthful, clear and useful that Gator sued PC Pitstop, though that lawsuit has now been resolved. The site includes the results of a user survey conducted by PC Pitstop about how aware victims, er, users of Gator are about how the software was installed on their computers; free or low-cost alternatives to Gator applications; step-by-step instructions for removing Gator; info on how to recognize Gator's software and confusing ads; a link for complaints to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission; and other Gator survival tools.

USB Humidifier Blows Off Steam (So You Don't Have To)

A company called E-Lets makes a USB-powered humidifier, which is designed to relieve dry eyes resulting from staring at a computer monitor all day.

Contribution Site Wasn't Working

Lying with PhotoShop

Publicists, celebrity rags and fashion magazines are among the heaviest users of PhotoShop, which they use to make the "beautiful people" beautiful. But now geeks are striking back with some creative PhotoShop work of their own.

Brigham Young University basketball star Rafael Araujo has tattoos all over his arms. But the school's media guide features a picture of Araujo without any tattoos, thanks to PhotoShop. Brigham Young is a Mormon (a.k.a. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) university, so that somehow explains why they like to pretend their basketball players don't have tattoos.

Proof You Can Buy Anything on the Web

Just fire up your browser and all this can be yours:

An in-urinal soccer game

Celebrity bed pans

and even Dirt from Saddam Hussein's hole !

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Craig Crossman's Computer America features Mike Elgan every Thursday night. The show runs from 7pm to 9pm SVT (Silicon Valley Time). Listen to Computer America on your local Business TalkRadio station or over the Internet every weeknight. Don't miss Computer America!

Gotta-Get-It Gadgets

ECER Technology's $49 TiltCONTROL plugs into PocketPCs, Palm OS organizers or even Nokia N-GAGE devices to provide software navigation and control not by pointing and clicking but by tilting the gadget this way or that. Tilt navigation has long been a staple of advanced-but-unlikely lab research for the handhelds of the future. Now it's real (in case you're leaning in that direction).

Samsung SDI reportedly plans to introduce the world's largest plasma monitor -- an 80-inch PDP "in the second half" of 2004. The 1,920 x 1,080-pixel screen will be HDTV-compatible. The current record holder is LG Electronics, which offers a 76-inch screen.

NEC has allowed reporters from Nikkei's Beijing Bureau to photograph and fondle its credit card-sized mobile phone, called the N900, now under development. The "N900" will measure 85mm in width, 54mm in depth, 8.6mm in thickness and weigh 70g. The phone sports a 1.8-inch color TFT-LCD (128 x 160 dots). It also features a 300,000-pixel digital camera.

A new USB cable called the Twin Cam T4 lets you plug two USB cables into your PC, which combine and terminate into one device connector, so the power from both USB ports flows into that one device. It's the perfect cable if your peripheral isn't getting the power it needs from one port. You be careful out there, kids!

O'Neill unveiled this week a snowboarding jacket designed by Infineon Technologies AG called "The Hub" with built-in controls for a mobile phone and MP3 player. The controls, including a "keyboard," are made of fabric. Sound is transferred into built-in speakers in a separate helmet. The collar sports a built-in microphone for the cell phone, so you can yak away as you're flying down the slopes...

...which is not to be confused with a new jacket from ScotteVest, which has two solar panels built into the back of the shoulders, and a jack for charging the MP3 player or cell phone in your pocket. The panels charge a built-in battery. Each pocket in the jacket has a jack for charging gadgets off the battery. The garment is still in the prototype stage, but will be available for $300 this spring, according to ScotteVest. (Good luck explaining it to airport security.)

Philips Electronics announced what it calls a Key Ring digital camcorder, the KEY019, at CES in Las Vegas, Nevada. The KEY019 features 24 minutes of continuous MPEG4 video recording, according to a press release. It also serves as an MP3 player and digital storage device.

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Wacky Web Sites

The big chain junk-food restaurants like McDonalds, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut go to great lengths to build distinctive restaurant buildings that convey their branding. But sometimes they sell those buildings to small business owners, who try to redecorate them so they don't look like the original chain buildings. The Not Fooling Anybody web site chronicles their valiant, but ultimately futile, redecoration efforts.

Most online zip code search engines are useful, but boring. Not the Zip Code finder created by Ben Fry.

Fascinated by the art of TV and movie make-up? Neither am I. But you may becomes a little more intrigued after checking out the The Makeup Gallery web site.

For reasons unknown to science, press photographers -- no doubt bored after years of taking dull pictures of dull men in dull suits -- like to use backgrounds to create the illusion that political leaders have halos over their heads. Naturally, a web page has been created to illustrate this observation.

The Fontifier web site turns your own illegible handwriting into a downloadable font -- free.  

Twisted Games

Cannon Fodder

Donkey Kong Jr.

Viral Pursuit

Mystery Pic o' the Week

What is it? Send YOUR guess to [email protected] (be sure to say where you live). If you're first with the right answer, I'll print your name in the next issue of Mike's List!

LAST WEEK'S MYSTERY PIC: No, it's not a "plasma ball," a "photospectragraph of belly-button lint" or even the "last recorded picture of the Beagle 2 before landing on Mars" as suggested by some readers. In fact, it's a "visual representation" of the Internet from the Opte Project. Launched by Barrett Lyon, the idea was to "use a single computer and single Internet connection to map the location of every single class C network on the Internet." Mondo Mike's List congratulations to Gregory Buggy from Woodstown, New Jersey, USA, for being first with the right answer!

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