back to article Location, location, location... technologies under the microscope

It was 40 years ago that the first experimental Block-I GPS satellite was launched to help test the viability of a global positioning system. In December this year, the US Air Force is planning to launch the first GPS III satellite, to “augment the current constellation of 31 operational GPS satellites,” around the globe. It’s …

  1. Korev Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Retailers can put them around stores so if you've got a compatible app installed, and Bluetooth on, you can be associated with specific types of products and targeted for ads, vouchers, offers, and so on.

    Err no thanks -->

    1. Lee D Silver badge

      Not without me accepting a pairing request, and pretty much I don't have pairing requests enabled unless *I'm* the person trying to add a device.

      Also: What's the point? Hey, guy just about to buy a bottle of ketchup. Here... have an offer and make that ketchup cheaper so we make less money? I don't get it. Or you could just put a barcode in the ketchup aisle if you want to do an offer on a particular brand (hey, put a screen in there and you can change the offer as often as you like).

      Maybe some Bluetooth passive monitoring but, again, what's the point? This guy lingered in the ketchup aisle for 20 seconds and then bought some ketchup. You can pretty much tell the important part of that from the checkout receipt anyway, can't you?

      I remember studies saying that, pretty much, all the brand loyalty cards, etc. doesn't really give anyone that much information that they don't already know. ASDA (Walmart) - one of the largest - don't even have one, do they? You know what goes through your tills, when, and in combination with which other items down to the last iota nowadays, surely? The value in anything further is pretty minimal, just joining someone to their previous transactions on a voluntary basis rather than, say, matching on credit card.

      Pretty much spamming someone who's ALREADY in your shopping mall / store is a pretty dumb idea and just going to drive people away.

      1. big_D Silver badge

        @LeeD with the app, they can track you and they also know what you have bought in the past. Therefore, they won't offer you a discount on the ketchup, but they will try and promote, say HP sauce or Tabasco sauce or something you don't usually buy, to try and get you to spend more.

        That is the point, to get you to put more into your shopping cart than you would normally, by giving you the "special offers".

        1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

          Re: " they will try and promote, say HP sauce or Tabasco sauce or something you don't usually buy"

          Of course they won't. Targetted ads have only ever shoyn me stuff I have already bought.

          Those ad people are completely incapable of showing me stuff I might actually be interested in. The closest they come is when they show me stuff that people have bought after having bought that.

          Clueless muppets, the lot of 'em.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "to get you to put more into your shopping cart than you would normally"

          Just, it doesn't work with many people. Maybe you don't buy Tabasco because you don't like it at all. If you don't usually buy it, there could be a good reason beyond price. Usually, promotions about product you already buy are more effective.

          Many people got smarter while shopping, and they became products and prices conscious. That's why discount stores became so widespread.

          Being bombarded by offers while you're shopping is probably also a good reason to cut it short, and get out as soon as you can - if your mobe rings incessantly while you are trying to but things. I think they will end losing sales because of that - only in those strangely working marketdroids mind the world works as they imagine.

          Anyway, when I enter a store both wifi and bluetooth are off. It saves power, and unless the OS is lying to you, it also avoids tracking. Surely they can't annoy me...

      2. Steve the Cynic

        The value in anything further is pretty minimal, just joining someone to their previous transactions on a voluntary basis rather than, say, matching on credit card.

        The value is that it allows you to see trends in the relationships between products, although a lot of those trends are fairly obvious anyway from just the aggregation of till receipts. And of course given that most of these cards *also* want to be able to send you emails and/or SMS with offers, it allows the store to probe the edges of your buying habits, a bit like the "other people who bought this thing also bought that thing" section on Amazon.

        And linking by credit card numbers, while useful for most people, also doesn't catch people who use multiple cards and/or cash, and it's probably not allowed by the PCI rules.

    2. Chris G

      I think I prefer an irritating shop assistant over a system like that, in fact I even prefer the shop assistants who ignore you over yet another dumb tracking system.

      At one store I used to use frequently, to get to shirts and trousers from the entrance, meant passing through the lingerie section. This was deliberately designed so that you would have to meander past the maximum number of stands, I wouldn't appreciate ' targetted ads' for lady's lingerie.

      I prefer my lingerie with a girl in it.

      1. Captain Hogwash

        It was Ireland's biggest lingerie department I understand.

        1. steelpillow Silver badge

          It was Ireland's biggest lingerie department I understand.

          Upvote for [OK I won't say it yet] reference.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple again

    The article suggests by omission that only Apple allows NFC to do more than payments.The reverse is true, Android had it for years before eventually Apple decided to give developers some access.

    The Chinese and Indians are not very interested in NFC so the combination of them plus Apple has probably hindered adoption quite a lot.

  3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Childcatcher

    BlueTooth? No Thanks

    I really don't want to see personalised adverts for me as I travel anywhere.

    Let's face it, most of us hate pretty well all forms of advertising but having some is a just a fact of life. But the increasing intrusiveness of it into our lives has IMHO fallen victim to the laws of diminishing returns.

    The more adverts the less likely you are to buy the crap that is advertised.

    I skip all ads on TV. As I record almost everything I want to watch it is not that difficult.

    As for BT on my phone? It has never been enabled and probably never will be. If I want to listen to Music, I have it all on my ancient iPod that has a headphone socket.

    We all (at least most of those who read this site) use GPS and other technologies mentioned in the article. Some are of benefit to us and others are being abused by commercial interests. Enough is enough. No more.

    If I had my way I'd send all people who work in advertising to Mars. Let them have the whole planet to themselves and leave the rest of us alone in peace.

    1. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: BlueTooth? No Thanks

      Even most people who have bluetooth don't have it enabled to be always-visible, hence they don't get pairing requests anyway. So they can listen to their bluetooth headphones, join to their car's bluetooth, etc. without ever caring about those people trying to spam them over bluetooth.

    2. Teiwaz

      Re: BlueTooth? No Thanks

      I really don't want to see personalised adverts for me as I travel

      Especially as no matter where they glean any person-product or brand connection advertisers seem to get the connection wrong.

      Recently started getting a greatly increased number of pet supplies ads on the web after a few gmail requests for a particular pet supplies company to stop spamming me.

      My pet just died not long ago, and the emails were upsetting enough.....

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: BlueTooth? No Thanks

        Amazon seems to be the worst, they bombard me with ads for products I've already bought or similar products.

        If I just bought a smartphone, in all likelihood, I am not going to buy another one the next day, week, month or year. Yet I get almost daily mails from them offering me another smartphone and when I go to the site, they are the first thing that is offered.

        The same when I bought a NAS recently, since then the most highly recommended items are other NAS devices!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Amazon spamming

          They just won't stop trying to sell you exactly what you just bought.

          Then you see that they've reduced the price of the thing you just bough and you feel like kicking the cat for being such a sucker...(please don't do this ok!)

          I hate Advertisers and I mean all Advertisers. They can all die a horrible and painful and lingering death as far as I'm concerned( again don't do this folks) . They are rappidly sinking to the same low level as Lawyers and Politicians who are lawyers.

          Yours

          Grumpy of Torquay

        2. Chris G

          Re: BlueTooth? No Thanks

          I literally only use Bluetooth to interrogate my solar power system, before that was installed a few weeks ago I had never used it and don't need it for anything else.

          NFC= No Fecking Cash, for me cash is king, if I don't have the cash for it in my pocket, I'm not buying it.

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: BlueTooth? No Thanks

      "Enough is enough. No more."

      Hey Steve! You need to calm down. Why not have a Moke Coke?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Presumably it would be possible to detect NFC credit/bank cards that a person is carrying as they enter/leave a store. Possibly by using a higher powered transmitter than normal? Even if no cash is taken - is it possible to get a unique "signature" to identify that card again?

    1. big_D Silver badge

      That is why I have all my cards in a blocker wallet.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bluetooth car keys

    Some cars now allow a paired bluetooth phone to act as the keys. Once the phone is in range the cars locks open, and enable the ignition (brake needs to be depressed to start).

    Does away with the need to buy paired keys.

    1. Steve K

      Re: Bluetooth car keys

      ..but a bit of a pain if you lose/forget your phone while out and about.

  6. Duncan Macdonald

    CCTV

    For retail environments, a combination of tracking people by CCTV and identification by one of the other means (eg WiFi at the store entrances) could give good accuracy of what parts of the shop customers visit. Pairing this with WiFi by the checkouts could enable the linkage from WiFi to credit card numbers and from there to peoples name (with suitably placed cameras to catch the face of the credit cards).

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: CCTV and other news

      In other news, sales of Ski Masks, Donald Trump masks and Nicabs have risen by 10,000%.

  7. steelpillow Silver badge

    Location tracking

    I kind of appreciate that my bleepy thing's GPS could let the emergency services find me in an, err ... emergency.

    But I kind of don't appreciate that social media, advertisers, stalkers and government spooks could too.

    These things need effective security and strict access controls.

    1. ThatOne Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: Location tracking

      > GPS could let the emergency services find me

      But all you'll get is localized ads for insurance offices and local car towing services.

      1. Steve K

        Re: Location tracking

        ..and ambulance-chasers too, probably as you are being loaded in to the ambulance.

  8. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Bluetooth, good idea

    Especially as I have it turned off by default, like WiFi and mobile data.

    So please go ahead and base all your advertising on that tech so I can walk through blissfully unawares.

  9. Gene Cash Silver badge

    I remember the early days of GPS, mainly because I'm the sort of bloke that still gets lost in his own house after 15 years. GPS has saved my butt many times. I think it has also saved my life a couple times by keeping me from being lost in bad parts of Chicago and Miami.

    I remember in college trying to find a place, and sitting in the car screaming "WHERE THE FUCK AM I?!?!? AGGGGH!!! AGGGGH!!!" at the map because there were no local street signs at all.

    I remember when Reagan said we (civilians) could have GPS after KAL007 got lost in the wrong place and shot down.

    In about 1990 I had a Lowrance Eagle GPS that was the size of a shoe, and all it did was output lat/lon on a tiny LCD. As no civilian maps had lat/log grids, I had to hunt up aviation maps, which then didn't have much in the way of street grids. I went up with a friend in his PA-28 to use it in flight against the map, and the feeling of "oh my gawrsh, this thing is right!"

    I remember when GPS chipset manufacturers boasted about their "cold start" speeds, which was the time (sometimes many minutes) it took for a GPS to figure out where it was after being turned on. It took a LONG time for people to realize "hey it's probably not too far from where it was when it was turned off... how about we remember that and use it as a starting point for the calculations?"

    Back then GPS could narrow down to about a football field because of military Selective Availability, which what Clinton turned off. I remember watching a GPS map with the DOP (dilution of precision) circle, and seeing it dramatically shrink when SA was turned off.

    About 1998 or so, 45th Space Wing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station had an open house, which meant ordinary folks had the run of the place for a day. I stood 300ft from a fully-fueled Delta II with a brand new GPS-II satellite on it. (I also got to stand on what was left of the pad that John Glenn launched from. I stood where the famous Vanguard "kaputnik" explosion happened. 9/11 put a stop to that kind of shenanigans.)

    I will certainly be going over to Space View park to see the first GPS-III launch.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "not too far from where it was when it was turned off"

    AFAIK, the problem is not how far - but how long. You need updated ephemeris data for the satellites used for computation - they are transmitted by the satellites themselves, but it can take time to acquire all the required data if what you have is outdated. Now most unit can download them from the Internet, to speed up the position computation a lot.

  11. tiggity Silver badge

    Narrowband

    Not sure if this was a deliberate omission.

    Narrowband often used in areas with no GPS e.g. massive (no GPS signal) warehouses, mines etc.

    There has been a lot of effort on NPRS to guesstimate location of a narrowness device.

    This is quite niche but useful in some situations (narrowband has long range, so instead of potentially hundreds of wifi repeaters / APs in a mega warehouse can have a handful of narrowband stations) - drawback of narrowband is very weedy data transfer rates.

    Narrowband is "old tech" but still useful in the right use case.

  12. EnviableOne
    Happy

    RFID FTW

    The Oldest, cheapest and the best

  13. onefang

    "Almost every mobile phone now has GPS technology built-in"

    I don't know any dumb phones that have GPS, mine certainly doesn't.

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