News: December 2001 Archives

There's a new technology coming to mobile phones -- the GPS. Once $100,000 per unit, it's now the size of a quarter and costs about 100 bucks a pop... the next generation of mobile phones in the U.S. will incorporate them by law.

What this means -- the current GPS system can figure out where you are to within a 3 to 6 meter range, and scientists are working on a way to create text messages attached to the space you are currently occupying -- these messages would then pop up for any other similarly equipped phone/PDA that passes through the same space (presumably if you scan for it, or if it passes your 'approved users' screen).

Think about this -- every point on the planet has it's own personal pop-up web page. Read reviews of restaurants from previous customers who stood in the same line that you did. It is the internet envisioned in David Brin's Earth (one of the more realistic-but-optimistic near-future fictions I've ever read).

Man, the hide-and-seek game you could play with something like this. Can you imagine?

The high-tech treasure hunts.

Thing's gonna make Majestic look like Pong.