GLOBAL – The brainchild of the Nokia Research Center, Nokia Locate Sensor continues to grip our collective attention and spark chatter on possible alternative uses for its innovative lost ‘n’ locate concept. With that in mind, two weeks ago I asked for your suggestions – ideas on how you think Nokia Locate Sensor could best be exploited and even improved.
The response was great, with many of you putting forward a heap of fascinating ideas for Nokia Locate Sensor. We’ve chosen six of our favourite suggestions, and want you to vote for which you think is best. Once we close the poll in a couple of weeks we’ll take the top three ideas to the NRC team working on Nokia Locate Sensor, and do our best to get a response from them with feedback and thoughts on your concepts, including whether they’re possible.
Click through to read more about each suggestion and to vote for your favourite alternative idea for Nokia Locate Sensor.
Here is our shortlisted selection of ideas from Nokia Conversations readers (scroll down beneath the poll for full details on each concept).
Emergency services tool
Brian: “In an emergency situation (like a hurricane evacuation) they could be issued to all citizens in the evac area, and be used to monitor the successful evac of all people, alerting emergency personnel to the stranded or ill.”
Bike ride tool – linked to Sports Tracker
Dion O’Neill: “I’d like to use one of these on bike rides. I often drop my brother when we are riding and it would be great to have a warning go off when that happens so I know to slow down and wait for him to catch up. Link it into Sportstracker and then it could tag the places I drop him, as well ! A additional signal when the sensor comes back into range would also be great.”
Child monitoring tool
Nuno Pereira: “I think this technology could be used to keep track of kids in day nursery (+4years old)…”
Alcatraz: “Keeping track of kids in shopping malls. There is no bigger gut-wrenching feeling than letting your kids hand go for 1 minute then suddenly discovering they’ve wandered off and you can’t see them.”
Asset Protection tool in offices
Farhan links to more detail on his post on senseapplied.com.
“No need to attach an odd looking lock on the laptops , attach the devices to expensive portable hardware like Laptops / sensitive data disks , important files and as they are carried out of the room / Office the dedicated system starts beeping and also pinpoints the location of the unit being moved.”
Pet tracking tool
Micky: “I can see it coming in handy for pets, dogs, and cats for example. Attach it to the pets collar, and you can keep track of them should they venture out of the home, or their boundaries.”
And one of the more future-orientated ideas…
Extension to Nokia Morph Concept
David Olorundare: “It could follow use of the ‘morph’ concept, allowing my whole enviroment to be connected to it… It would be powered by several power sources simultaneously & intelligently based on the immediate circumstance: by green energy, the environment, sound energy, a slim battery, or by mechanical movement of where its placed .e.g. attached to the wrist. By all these it will enable the locator to be used in a number of cases: Anticipate and track disease outbreaks across populations… Protect endangered species and natural resources / Monitor the health of aging, disabled, and remote individuals and communities / Share real-time data about weather and environmental hazards / Plan roads, transit services, utilities, and urban systems /Domestic use; for communicating and interacting with all ‘connected’ devices&appliances: allowing the creation a truly intelligent environment / Help in data mining work, to gather information during analysis / Act as a language translator, to interprete language between any two people of different background;allowing the bridging of sociological and geographic gaps and barriers.”