Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Lost Cellphones

I lost my cellphone last week, so if you can't get in touch with me that's why.

After spending a bunch of time calling various lost-and-found departments, looking under couch cushions and searching pockets I finally went down to the Verizon store to suspend the phone. Just so somebody doesn't call a bunch of gay chat lines and bill me for it (those calls weren't mine, I swear!). As I was walking into the store, a thought hit me: why can't Verizon just ask my phone where it is?

All phones sold recently are required to know where they are, so that it can tell the 911 operators if you ever have to call them. Of course the information is also available for the purpose of marketing to you more effectively, and you can even get services that will tell you where all your friends are. So why can't my phone tell me where it is when it's lost?

Regrettably, that apparently is not possible. How stupid is that?

1 comment:

paulincork said...

Brian - sorry to hear about your cellphone. It is a pain in the neck that there isnt an easy way to find them. We have a simple tagging service yougetitback.com and are launching a very nice software service soon. Drop me a mail and I will send you some tags for your new phone. info@yougetitback.com

paul prendergast