GPS tracking news

It is surprising how many high end phones are lost or stolen today. I found a figure of 9% on the web (if you can trust a web source) and it has been one of those things we have looked at as a tracking company for some time.  As the saying goes all good things come to those who wait,  and we did wait.  Now that KoolTrax mobile is priced at an impulse level of £9.99 and works on Nokia Series 3 as well as Blackberry and iPhone it seems like we might be there.

Security to protect your phone or find it if it is stolen, along with a host of other functions, could not be cheaper.  You will have to be quick of course.  No point finding where it is if it has made it to China or Russia!

Did you know that only 8% of phones in the USA are based on the Symbian operating system.  Typically Symbian is the Nokia OS, compared to 74% of phones in the UK.

Well nothing lies quite like a statistic, and the truth is this is the data for Smart phones but it shows a very interesting trend.  In the US they buy from US manufacturers.  I wonder if this it deliberate.  Windows phones, Blackberry and iPhones dominate and the rest just don't feature much.  For a company writing software for phones it is hard to work out which to focus on, handle the language complexities of Europe or try to make ourselves US centric.  What do you think?  Of course we try to do both.

We at least speak the same language as the US.. OK that is debatable, (I remember a US colleague laughing out loud every time I used the word "Whilst" in a sentence, and I cant truly enjoy a "high five" they way they can) but the efficiency of being able to sell the same product to 400 million people across the pond is hard to resist.

In January we will be launching the mobile phone tracker.  Yes we already have one "KoolTrax Mobile" however it runs on phones that use windows mobile, and as an operating system this is not that common.

Simultaneously we are launching a business version i-Traks Mobile and the consumer version KoolTrax Mobile and making them available on the Blackberry, and the i-phone and then shortly after  on the Nokia N95 and similar phones.

The pictures of the products are attached to this blog, and if you fancy making your phone into a tracker the PC platform is free so it is easy and the software is not expensive.

There is also a dedicated i-traks.com website for business users to get the most from our services.

We have just launched a bundle of software that is really good value.   Well yes I would say that but: Imagine holding your phone in your hand and being able to see a map and zoom into the location of any of your friends and family!  That's thats this is all about:

New Windows Mobile GPS tracking software bundle released

December 2008 - New software that enables a Windows GPS PDA to display the accurate, real-time location of other participating PDAs has been launched today in a low price bundle for two PDAs, creating an affordable, downloadable personal GPS tracking system for just £49.

The location tracking is GPS-accurate, works worldwide to within a few metres, and is updated continuously. The tracked units are displayed on a map for easy navigation.

The bundle contains:

• 1 X GPS software and login for KoolTrax™ Handset for mapping & tracking
• 1 X GPS software and login for KoolTrax™ Mobile for tracking only
• 1 X software and login for KoolTrax™ PC  for mapping and administration

Users can add as many KoolTrax™ phone software downloads as they wish to locate friends, family, children, vehicles and colleagues who will  appreciate not having to carry an additional tracking device (although a dedicated GPS tracker is available where providing a PDA is not appropriate, for instance, monitoring someone with Alzheimer's or other dementia, or tracking a small child for security).

In a typical setup, one phone will run KoolTrax™ Mobile GPS locator software so that it can be located, while another will run KoolTrax™ Handset which shows a map on the screen on which is displayed its own location and the position of the other phone. The location of both units are also viewable on an Internet connected Windows PC that is running KoolTrax™ PC.

Blue Tree Systems' KoolTrax™ PC (included) allows users to administer the phones remotely, for example to set inside/outside geofences, see the breadcrumb history, set the position tracking interval, and set up contacts for alerts (by email or SMS).

Mike Smuts, Managing Director of Blue Tree Services, commented "We have for some time provided GPS tracking devices for people who do not, or will not carry mobile phones. KoolTrax™ is a natural extension of this service.  Anyone with a compatible phone can have real time tracking as an option, ready for every day use or trekking, climbing, sailing, or if they simply want to let their family know when they will be home. With this bundle they can give one of the software logins (say for KoolTrax™ Mobile) to their friend and see where they are when they are close.  New versions for Blackberry and i-phone are planned for the end of January."

Key features include:

Ø      No limit to the number of KoolTrax™ trackers you can watch on your PC

Ø      An alert button - for emergencies

Ø      Boundary alerts

Ø      Breadcrumb trail history

The GPS PDA tracker bundle can be downloaded from here http://www.bluetreeservices.co.uk/koolTraxHMOffer.php . This offer is for a limited time only.

Cool eh?

We have been involved in a few TV programs but the latest one is a first.  We make custom trackers for special purposes but never one for the Moon Rat.  This chap is about to be tracked for 48 hours in the rainforest. The challenges are considerable but together with Icon Productions we hope to overcome - I will blog the results, good or bad!

The demonstration server now shows units in Australia, Switzerland, Belgium, UK and Ireland.  It is great to see tracking units all over the world.  Normally, because of data protection you cant see all of the trackers with one login.  You have to login to an administration account for each customer and access to these is controlled. Today we can see sales demo trackers charging across Belgium going to the beach in Australia and heading down the M1 towards London (and parked on the M50 in Ireland in a traffic jam!).

I spent some time on an emergency line we run for people who have lost a relative they are caring for.  Today I was called by a lady who's husband has Alzheimer's.  They were out for the day and he had disappeared. She was away from her computer and did not know where to look.  Normally this would have resulted in the police getting together a search party and scouring the area.  Luckily she had done everything right. She had charged the KoolTrax Ranger and set the tracking interval to 600 seconds because she was with him (so no need to drain the battery).  He had the unit on him and she called us as soon as she realised there was a problem. As it happens he was heading for the mountains (Scotland) and she was on the other side of town heading the other way.  I directed her to him in about 15 minutes and the hardest part was when she could see him in the field in the distance but could not catch him as he was moving too quickly.

It occurred to me that this man was about to be lost in the Scottish mountains in very cold weather, and was saved with little fuss or expense. The cost of the KoolTrax Ranger is about £299+VAT the cost of a search party would be many thousands of pounds.  Makes you think, the police should give these away!

There are several versions of KoolTrax Mobile available today. Just in case you don't know, KoolTrax Mobile is a fairly inexpensive location program that runs on your windows mobile phone.  It is designed to report your location only; there is no map on the phone as there is with KoolTrax Handset.  However there are variations, and the most interesting to me is the "clock in" version.  Imagine that you are working on a building site (unlikely in post credit crunch world but lets go with it), you turn up press the "clock in" button on your phone and then you get on with what ever you do.  The head office is aware of whom they have working wear, and if you have need of others, call the office and they will instantly know where they are.

This version is called KoolTrax MTM (Mobile Time Management).

Reverse geocoding sounds like something you do in rally car to go backwards.  It is actually the term for working out the street name from the gps coordinates. This is useful because the coordinates are no good to humans for direction finding.  So put simply reverse geocoding is a way of making sense of machine telemetry speak.  So who cares - I hear you ask, and what has this to do with taxis?  Well let me set the scene for you.  It is late on a Friday night, you might have had a few drinks and you really really want to go home now.  You could go and stand in the taxi rank, or you could send a text to your favourite taxi firm who comes to get you.  You ask the bar tender (or waiter or ....) what the post code of their establishment is, and you text it to you cab company.

Today you might have a person who has a look to see which taxis are close to you and then you might get a call from the firm itself.  However, now you can cut out the middleman. Your text goes to a server, it has a look at all the taxis carrying a Blue Tree Ranger and then selects the closest free taxi, and sends them your mobile number along with an approximate location.

The responding taxi driver gets to the location and gives you a call. 

Sounds like a lot of work?  Not really, all you see is your text and a phone call from your taxi.  You might get a confirmation text from the server but that is it.  The taxi firm sees the jobs being allocated to the taxis but does not touch them, which reduces costs and possibly fairs.

Ultimately you stay warm, relax, and get your taxi really quickly.  You probably never use a different taxi firm again.  Good all round.  So where is this system?  You will see a taxi firm offering it soon so why not try it out!

We pride ourselves on our infrastructure.  We design and build our own hardware, and we write the software for the PC, Phones, servers and even the firmware for the Rangers.  So we have traditionally kept the server to ourselves.  We did not install it on other peoples systems and we certainly did not give them access to any of the servers.

However there are some people out there who do not trust us!  Shocking I know, but fine upstanding chaps that we are, this is not enough to quell the fears of companies trying to protect their executives etc.

As a result we have created a package which is a completely closed system.  I have to say that it is pretty damn good (but then I would say that wouldn't I).  So here is a description of it:

Blue Tree's high security option is called Stand Alone Security and involves the entire location system being operated from within the client's infrastructure.  This means that you as the client operates and controls the server at the heart of the location system. Neither Blue Tree nor any other company has access to the location server or the information on it. All tracking information is encrypted on the trackers themselves and is only decrypted when it reaches the location server inside your company. 

All data access is also controlled by you, including access to logins, audit trails of who is watching whom, as well as the data history of every unit.

This system is completely closed and all information is controlled by you the client company.  The level of encryption is adjustable depending on the performance required from the trackers.  (For example if you need 128 bit encryption you may only be able to obtain a position every 20 seconds instead of every 10 seconds).

Ranger Firmware

Each Ranger has customised firmware installed to secure the location information it collects. As the information is gathered it is encrypted before transmission.  This prevents any scanner from "capturing" the information from the mobile phone network.  The Rangers are also "port specific" which means that a dedicated port on the server listens only for a specific Ranger making the system more resilient and improving server performance.

OK so who cares?  Well, now any company can own and operate a complete and secure tracking system from their offices.  They do not have any data in the public domain and their infra structure requirement is minimal.  Pretty cool if you are a security company!