future-stalk

Feb 04 2009

The future is here, and it is invasive! Check out Google Latitude.

20 responses so far

  1. PortcullisChain
    on 04 Feb 2009 at 9:28 am

    Any idea what cell carriers are compatible?
    -PC

  2. Chad
    on 04 Feb 2009 at 9:30 am

    Oh mos definitely not.

  3. PortcullisChain
    on 04 Feb 2009 at 9:31 am

    Oh never mind….I can’t play.
    -PC
    http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=105928&topic=15483

  4. aly hawkins
    on 04 Feb 2009 at 9:44 am

    This is so…Enemy of the State.

  5. Chad
    on 04 Feb 2009 at 9:55 am

    You know what WOULD be cool?

    Something like this that you could turn on for a brief amount of time, with the other person’s consent, like an iChat or something.

    There are times, like let’s say when we have the kids at D-Land, and one of us is in Adventureland and the other in California Adventure, it’d be hip to be able to make a call, say, “Hey! Let’s meet for lunch @, (insert overpriced crappy Disney food here), and then turn on the 2 way homing beacon.

    Dunno… might be cool.

    But to establish a thing where everyone expects that they can see where I am all the time.

    No thanks.

  6. june
    on 04 Feb 2009 at 10:27 pm

    Creepy.

  7. Doug
    on 05 Feb 2009 at 12:12 pm

    I’ve got nothing to hide. It would be boring, however to watch my hereabouts. Many days my travels consist of my 100 yard commute to the office and back home.
    BTW I believe it can be turned on and off at will.

  8. michael lee
    on 05 Feb 2009 at 12:54 pm

    Doug, as an employer of staff members who often do their work in unscheduled and remote locations, would you ever consider making this kind of technology a condition of employment?

    “If you want to work here, you have to agree to let me track your location during the hours that you’re working from home.”

  9. Bobby
    on 05 Feb 2009 at 2:12 pm

    Can you say “call forwarding?”

  10. Doug
    on 05 Feb 2009 at 2:59 pm

    Mike, what a great idea. Visit google.com/latitude on your mobile web browser now.

  11. Chad
    on 05 Feb 2009 at 3:15 pm

    I think the thing that’s most disturbing to me is the possibility that in the future, everyone will EXPECT to have the right to know where you are in real time.

    It’s not the technology that weirds me out, it’s the cultural expectation.

    “Hmm… Chad hasn’t updated his Facebook status in 6 days… I hope everything’s alright.” The virtual world has implications on the real world, however misleading they may or may not be.

  12. Doug
    on 05 Feb 2009 at 3:41 pm

    This reminds me a bit of the movie “Eagle Eye”

  13. aly hawkins
    on 05 Feb 2009 at 6:33 pm

    A TRULY terrible film. Didn’t robots with a life mission kinda get done with 2001: A Space Odyssey? Seriously, how hard is it to avoid programming AIs with moral imperatives?

  14. Chad
    on 05 Feb 2009 at 6:44 pm

    Chad is sheepish to admit that he enjoyed “Eagle Eye.”

    Chad is also sheepish that he’s begun to think about all his commentary in the third person. Thanks, Facebook.

  15. Sharolyn
    on 05 Feb 2009 at 8:44 pm

    We have a cop friend who says, if he could, he’d implant this in his children.

  16. michael lee
    on 05 Feb 2009 at 11:24 pm

    So, I’ve been thinking a lot about that thing right there, Shar. Our generation of parents has access to tools to track and monitor our children that no previous generation has had. I think the whole independence/safety balance has reached a brand new level in our era.

    Should we make our children turn on GPS locators so we can track their cell phone location? What about embedded chips to track them in case of kidnap (or in case of ditching school)

    I’m thinking about setting up wireless security cameras at the new house, which I’ll be able to log in to remotely and check on the house. It’s a short step from there to watching our teenage children every moment that they are home.

    I wonder what the consequences will be of children who are “kept tabs on” for 18 years.

    On the flip side, how awful would it be to have something happen to your child, and to think, “I could have prevented this with a little more invasion of their privacy.”

  17. Julie Beveridge
    on 06 Feb 2009 at 9:19 am

    It is a fine line with teens. Invasion of their privacy vs. keeping them safe. I wish the answers were easier, but I am afraid they are not and they wont be any time soon. One of the smartest decisions I made in my life was working when my kids were in elementary and staying home when they hit middle school. They think they don’t need you then, but let me tell you I learned they need you more the older they get. Of course, I am thinking this would be a great system for my 19 and 21 yr old, I seem to need to find them more often than my 15 yr old. HMMMMM, which phones does this work with.

  18. Sharolyn
    on 06 Feb 2009 at 10:45 am

    I *think*, in the case of our friend Rob, that he would only check it in a circumstance of crisis. I doubt he’d “keep tabs” on them… he has just seen and heard too much as a cop. Also, I recently read “The Shack”, in a which a fictional four year-old girl is kidnapped, and yes, you think: “This could have been prevented with technology.” That would be kind of weird if you could track your kid at school: “Oh, he just used the bathroom… now he’s going down the slide…” I agree, there is such as thing as too much technology!!

  19. Sharolyn
    on 06 Feb 2009 at 1:01 pm

    Although you don’t need Google Latitude to be a “helicopter parent” – one who hovers. It certainly would be an enabler to that dysfunction.

  20. Sharolyn's Husband
    on 06 Feb 2009 at 6:01 pm

    I would not mind knowing where my future teenagers go when they leave the house. It would also be great to know how fast they went to get there. Teenagers don’t think well enough to be entirely safe. At least I didn’t. I barely do now. Maybe Sharolyn should get that for me.

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