Actsoft, a small Tampa company, can tell you exactly where The Pope is. They’re tracking the papal entourage using GPS-enabled cell phones as the pope travels through New York (pdf).
Sprint’s Direct Connect phones will be used. The walkie-talkie like phones can be recognized by the chirp which indicates someone is trying to contact them.
Actsoft software was placed onto about 600 Sprint cell phones that were handed out to the papal entourage. Each phone is programmed to send its GPS coordinates to a central location – through Actsoft – which is shared with communications technicians and security personnel.
Actsoft can plot the location of any member of the entourage down to a few dozen feet. For instance, last Friday the Popemobile drove from New Jersey, across the George Washington Bridge and down the east side of Manhattan to the United Nations Plaza where the pope gave a televised address to the United Nations.
One of the company’s fastest-growing divisions tracks parolees who have agreed to wear ankle bracelets that can detect signs of alcohol consumption.
ActSoft Software enables the wireless handset to interact with the Bluetooth Ankle Bracelet worn by various offenders and individuals on probation. Actsoft now tracks about 1,200 parolees nationwide with the system, including about 250 parolees added in the past two weeks.
Using Novatel Wireless modems and remote tracking, administrators at an EMS Communications Center in Central Florida’s Lake-Sumter are leveraging a customized GoogleMaps application to monitor vehicles in real-time.
They use Junxion Box routers with Merlin PC720 EVDO modems, which have built-in GPS. Junxion’s Field Commander tracks and manages Junxion Box routers from a single web browser. The cellular modems provide the range necessary for connectivity in most of the rural areas of the two counties while the Junxion Box provides in-vehicle WiFi.
Nanomatic today announced a mobile version of its popular “Real-Life” location based social network.
Myrimis.com/mobile, is available for free use on internet-enabled mobile-phones and allows the user to set up their own “Real-life” location based social network. Family members, friends, pets and assets like cars, boats, home can be tracked — with innovative services like virtual-caring for persons, pets, home and car security.
In other news, Google Maps now has predictive traffic reports. By looking at the traffic history for a road, Google Maps predicts how fast traffic will be moving on your route. Google has traffic maps for 30 major US metropolitan areas. You’ll know if your area is included if you have a button labeled Traffic in the upper right of the map. Yahoo has offered a live traffic congestion maps for some time.
Other Dailywireless articles on Location Services include; Mapping Portland Startups, Yahoo’s OneSearch: 2.0 Listens, Location Services Mobilize, Chrysler: Wi-Fi Car This Year, MyLoki: Share Your Location, Ekahau Vision: Stargate, Seoul River: Destination Unwired, Skyhook + Locr = Location Tagged Photos, The Opposite of Digital Signage, Tracking Tour de California, Emergency Communications Applications, WiFi Party Music Bot, Whereboutz: Free Location Tracking, Microsoft Mobilizes Ads, Google Maps Tracks w/o GPS, and Navigation by Cell Phone.
