GPS Tracking ROI

I’ve written several times before about GPS shoes.   This particular item here is a re-cycle if I’m not mistaken, it came from Wired Magazine’s blog in response to an initiative of the Aphrodite projects, an international organization devoted to making life safer for sex workers.  learn more about the Aphrodite project here.

Now in today’s Shrub oops, sorry Carnivore, I meant George W. Bush’s ‘eye for an eye”, “blame the victim” world perhaps you don’t really think protection of street walkers has any validity.  It’s OK with me if you want to just say, “let the sluts die” but you should read a little farther into the program and learn from the technique they are using.

Encapsulating a GPS receiver into a shoe is a lot easier than these ugly monstrosities make it look … perhaps they could bring Jimmy Choo or even Manolo on board for a little style advice.  The interesting part is not the ugliness but the fact that unlike almost any GPS people locating effort these guys have been smart enough not to put themselves in the clutches of the major phone (cellular) carriers … you might want to read this post, Mr. Jobs.

You see, as some know but many don’t realize, the GPS does not track anything or anyone.  The GPS provides signals to allow a receiver to learn it’s location, to provide the location back to someone who wants to know the receiver’s location, you must have some sort of data link to carry the data, and any emergency alarm, health and status messages, etc. back to the monitoring entity.  Almost all commercial GPS tracking being developed today uses the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) which is built into the signals of the digital (GSM — Global Standard for Mobiles) cellular radio signals.  In addition to giving the telcos a strangle-hold on who can and can’t provide or use such service, this costs money … obscene amounts if you analyze the telco’s actual costs versus their subscription fees.  License to steal comes to mind … but then we’d be talking about the oil companies, wouldn’t we?

The Aphrodite project uses the APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) a system which uses amateur radio frequencies to send data … this is really a big risque to post on line, perhaps … for free … no beltway Bandits or cellular carriers involved.  See some samples on the APRS demo site. 

Really, really neat stuff, and once again Google (and other mapping services) frees us from the yoke of the “Scarcity Model” of communication technology.