Rockford .Net User Group

At the last .net meeting we talked a bit about smart phones like the Nokia N95 and the iPhone. Both of which are nice, but the Nokia is extremely expensive, is one of those "slider" phones, and the screen looks kind of small (for the price). The iPhone's interface looks great, but it is tied down by Apple and AT&T trying to milk the concept for all it's worth.

I've been wanting to get a mobile phone for a few months. Surprisingly enough the last time I had a cellphone was in Japan (Mar-July 06, probably used 95% of the time for text messages). My main gripe is having to pay those crazy monthly fees when I can get by without one just fine. I've wanted something for emergencies though, hence the dilemma. So I was thinking, either go extremely cheap and get one of those prepaid phones and never use it, or get something cool like the N95 and at least use it as a PDA.

I didn't like the look of phones with big QWERTY keyboards, I didn't think the N95 was quite worth the cost, and like I said.. the iPhone isn't accessible without spending 2 years of my life with it. So I was going to just wait for something that had the features I was interested in.

I then noticed a phone called the Pharos GPS Phone 600.
http://www.pharosgps.com/gpsphone/

Unlocked quad band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Windows Mobile OS
WIFI, Bluetooth
2mp camera
and most importantly a SiRFstarIII, 20 channel, WASS enabled GPS with mapping software.   The SiRFstarIII is said to get good signals in buildings.

Seeing as this thing has Windows on it, it should be good with those awesome surface computers that Microsoft is developing.

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My Programming Blog

My company develops GPS software (http://www.gpsfootprints.com) and I am always looking for a new device with integrated GPS. More and more are coming out. AT&T has five right now that I know of. I personally, picked up an AT&T tilt and am very happy with it so far.

I looked at your website.  It's an interesting product.  What I don't understand is why everyone uses the GPS acronym for tracking capability.  Does your software take the GPS data and send through wireless internet/phone back to a server somewhere?  Or do you just track the person by cell phone towers?  Maybe my gripe is more with TV shows that always do magic tracking with "GPS", haha... anyways.

I could see some limitations if the person is away from a power source for long periods of time.  Having the GPS active and sending a continuous stream of data over the cellphone Internet connection must be bad on batteries.  Although mostly likely, the clients would be cable companies and similar services where their techs spend a lot of their time in a car driving from place to place (allowing the phone to charge while driving).

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My Programming Blog

NMEA data is read from a GPS device (integrated or otherwise) and sent via a wireless data connection to a server. Battery life is equivelent to talking on your phone for about five hours. No charge and you are dead. So, somewhere along the line we are counting on them re-charging in the car.