GPS/GSM Child Phone for Talking & Tracking

It’s satisfying to see a good review of the product which I have authored in My Mobile magazine, arguably an authoritative Indian mobile magazine. In print form, I could see the product rubbing shoulders with Nokia’s & Samsung’s of the world .SatNav being a GPS products company always wanted to ride the mobile wave with carrier agnostic value added GPS location based services. We did make some forays in GPS location based mobile apps but with limited success. Carriers were not keen to give a push as they are not seeing big monies, comparable to their ring tone revenues.

The GPS child phone is a niche product targeted towards anxious parents. The child phone is tightly integrated with an effective LBS (location Based Service) platform, definitely a higher entry barrier for any one to just come in and offer these services. A very good start I should say for a small and medium company like us. We don’t know of any competitive product currently available in India, which translates to a very favorable first mover advantage scenario. We are making efforts to capitalize this situation swiftly.

Risking repetition of what the reviewer said, I would say that it’s a useful gadget for anxious parents, gives a near absolute locational control on their wards. Due to our limited resources we are currently focusing only on BTL marketing activities, which are showing some good results. I should say we are finding difficult to defend price points, and challenging margin structures prevailing in the distributor/ dealer supply chain.

My daughter goes to HPS School with this GPS child phone device, a functional demo to the primary school principal convinced her to allow this device inside of the school. I was told that no wearable gadgets, including wrist watches, are allowed inside of the school. I congratulated my self for the job done there J

GPS /GSM Wrist Watch for real-time Tracking – TK203 Product Review

Brought this oversized J watch. Details on the box cover summarize the features pretty much. The digital watch essentially is a GSM /GSP modules fitted in a wrist watch form factor. Usage is pretty simple, put a working GSM SIM into it and then configure the device through SMS commands. Geo fence (configuring alert if the device moves beyond your authorized geography), auto tracking (alerts at specific intervals), over speed alerts are some of the important features of the device. Watch also has an SOS button, when pressed sends location alerts continuously to pre configured numbers. There are 10’s of Shenzen GPS/GSM tracking devices screaming for attention on gadget portals which I assume will do exactly the similar job, innovation here is; fitting all this functionality in a wrist watch form factor. I should say that the task is partially achieved, looking at the oversized nature of the device.

Box Package

Watch with a Digital Time Display

Position ( latitude & Longitude ) Display

Location message on mobile

Good

• Functionality is fine, easy configuration through SMS
• Can be used independently by end consumer.
• Device can be integrated by system integrators very easily as communication protocols are given.
• Service providers can enhance usability of this device by providing a location map instead of latitude and longitude values

Bad

• Definitely oversized. I understand the form factor limitations.
• Battery is a big let down. Gives a 4 hour battery backup, which defeats the purpose of this device.
• Device responds by sending latitude and longitude values, you guys need to go to web and use a third party mapping application; say Google J to see the location on map. Will not attribute this as a negative point on the device; system integrators can easily push an intelligent map to end user.
• Does not send latitude/longitude in concealed environments, again will not attribute this to the device as GPS devices, by its virtue need to be open to sky to receive signals.
• It cost me 10K INR, when it reached me, along with duty and shipment from Shenzen.

Nokia’s Free GPS Navigation & Maps for Lifetime Offer!!!

Every one saw it coming, Nokia; India’s No 1 most trusted brand company across products has announced its free navigation and maps for ever, a significant announcement much to the heart burn of Samsung’s, LG’s and all others. Nokia’s quest for a differentiator in highly competitive mobile space, analysts believe, has driven this $8.1 Billion costly take over of NAVTEQ, the global mapping company, more so that the takeover happened just before the global financial crisis.

Nokia tried different things in monetizing this costly buy out of NAVTEQ, branding blitzkrieg in 2008 saw Nokia coming strongly in India on mobile GPS navigation, the catch however was subscription though, a nicely done commercial summarizes the offer.

However consumers did not take the bait. To my mind it appears that they were not happy on the map content and coverage offered at that point of time more ever the constant reminder of available FREE maps and location services of Google has deterred mass adoption of Nokia maps.

2009 though, saw huge improvement in content and coverage of NAVTEQ a.k.a Nokia maps, now this FREE thing from Nokia will definitely have takers. Map making industry feels that this final salvo from Nokia will still reduce the perceived value of a digital map. Interestingly to note that, among all the content creations, accurate and fresh digital map content making is considered to be a costly and laborious endeavor. This toiling in creation of maps explains the existence of high entry barrier for map content creating companies to enter and thrive. This is the reason that we have is only two companies, NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas who can truly claim to be the world wide mapping companies. Google will surely join this club shortly though.

I suppose Nokia will not keep quite and leave it here, its huge success in Nokia OVI application platform will drive innovative LBS apps, some with tight integration with operators thereby putting in place a fully working LBS ecosystem which every one is talking about. Nokia’s renewed aggressiveness is palpable as it lost significant market share to other mobile OEM’s during 2009. Nokia product philosophy to put GPS chip in its every phone in coming years is also seen as a grandiose plan to have stranglehold in all things related to LBS.

Google is also quite aggressive, doing its own things on maps & LBS apps etc, every one acknowledges that, by far Goggle has the best content and coverage on India, most interesting to note is that Google has unassailable lead over NAVTEQ or TeleAtlas, considered to be the global leaders in mapmaking.

To my mind it appears that Nokia & Google will be driving all this map and LBS things in near future. Both have very strong R&D teams in India working on things on what matters in India. Both have the muscle and the willingness to invest on creating fresher map content and supply it FREE to consumers. Off course FREE here is Oxymoron, both have several tricks up their sleeve to monetize in multitude of ways.

Its would be interesting to see what the other mobile OEM’s will do in India, logically they have to go run to Map providers in India like SatNav, Map My India or Tele Atlas to offer a matching value, which can put severe pressure on their already diminishing top lines, or they may just ignore this FREE Navigation option and search for another differentiator.

Finally, for a consumer it’s a very good VAS, and also for the LBS industry where the awareness will grow for sure and soon the market forces will follow.

Locating YSR

Location was never so important earlier, on September 2, helicopter carrying the Chief Minister of our federal state Andhra Pradesh:, Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy popularly known as YSR went missing in the jungles of Nallamala in inclement weather conditions. YSR was a dynamic and popular leader, adored by his followers and feared by his opponents. He has received a fresh popular mandate just 3 months ago to rule Andhra Pradesh for next 5 years. As usual, initial response to this emergency was lethargic; however State & Central Governments launched unprecedented search and rescue operations, which was never seen before, where everything at the Indian State’s disposal was pressed into service. Magnitude of this search operation can be gauged by the fact that more than 5000 armed reserve police personal along with several police and paramilitary personal were engaged on foot search, military helicopters, latest all weather combat aircraft Sukhoi with thermal imaging capabilities and even the secretive all weather night capability reconnaissance radar imaging satellite RISAT-2 was looking for the missing leader. Tragedy is that he along with his staff were found dead one of the remote hills of Nallamala at what could be seen as an avoidable accident.

Reports say that none of these technologies could be of much use, owing to the special terrain and climatic conditions prevailing at the location. Location was possible to arrive because of the SMS message delivered to one of the working mobiles carried by the deceased, it is said that mobile Cell Of Orgin (COO) technologies were used to zero down the last known position to 5 KM radius, were search efforts were concentrated and subsequently the crash site was found.

YSR official residence is in around 400 meters from my residence, I was used to traffic restrictions when his cavalcade zips through, I remember several glimpses of him reading a news paper in his travel, he made his final journey, and through the route he generally takes, i.e. passing through Rajbhawan road where our office is located. It was there to say goodbye..

Incidentally, we are working on Mobile Operating System/Mobile Device/Mobile Operator agnostic location based service, beta to be launched during this festive season. The service, we believe would find mass adoption. More of this in month or so…

Tata DoCoMo’s Pulse War

Looks like Tata DoCoMo is quietly writing a history of sorts in mobile space, comparable to what reliance has done to mobile space when they entered the space. Its pulse war branding is right on dot, a time tested text book example of keep-it-simple messaging. This pay-per-pulse concept got an overwhelming response from masses, giving way to a herd syndrome where Tata DoCoMo guys are struggling to manage the subscription seekers.

Interesting to see the response of the big guy AirTel, I assume that there is no leverage except following the wave. Coming days, we would also be seeing intense competition on value added service, all carriers sing the same song, this- is- where- the- money- is.Going by DoCoMo’s japanese lineage on VAS and its superior portfolio, we would see a frenzy of activity on VAS from all operators. Good for the customer!!

2 DIN In Car entertainment system with GPS Navigation

Got this cute looking device installed in my car (Maruti Suziki Swift). The device you see is a 2 DIN (Double DIN) in Car entertainment system which includes GPS Navigation, central to this system is Win CE platform. Connections to the system are Car acoustics, GPS Antenna, DVB-T antenna, rear view camera, head rest monitors etc.

Functions include, Navigation, DVD, AM/FM, Bluetooth, turn- to- turn GPS Navigation, DVD Player/MP3/MP4/MPEG4, F.M. Radio, Bluetooth, Windows compatible gaming, TV, Vehicle Tracking, SD card slot, USB, iPOD connecter etc. I like this device more than the 1 Din (Single DIN) device tested earlier as you can see that this device snuggly fits into the dashboard.

Geo Tagging

Was recently out for a trip to Dehradun via Delhi, took some intresting photos and geo tagged them using Satguide GPS logger device. http://www.satguide.in/satguide-photo-logger.pdf,
for the uninitiated, geo tagging is a process of adding location information (latitude and longitude) on to the digital photograph.

Photograph taken from a digital camera confirms to EXIF (Exchangeable image file format), this specification uses specific Meta tags which store information such as date, time, camera make, settings etc

· What I have done here is that I have switched ON the data logger device which started logging the GPS feed, I started clicking my pictures through my Canon D400 DSLR , note that there is no communication between the GPS logger and the Camera

· Installed, locr Desktop geo tagging application (by the way you can choose from a variety of geo tagging freeware tools)

· Imported the logged data to the desktop tool.

· Imported the photographs and supplied to the desktop tool, the tool is very intuitive, as you can see form the screenshot above.

Clicking the automatic geo tagging button will automatically geotag your images. The technology here is simple, the GPS logger device output file has a time stamp, images you take from the digital camera also has the time stamp ( we need to set this time to our real world real-time time ;), i.e just the actual time). The software matches the timestamp of the image to the timestamp of the log and automatically geotags. As exact millisecond time synchronization is not possible, it’s not needed either, you only need to keep the time matching tolerance level to say 2 minutes in the desktop too, you have a geo tagged image in a jiffy.

The positional information now will be written into the image itself and will be position enabled, you can upload these images on to any of the photo sharing community websites, and the photograph automatically goes and sits at the exact place on the map you guys have taken…

Geotagging and dissemination of this accurate location enabled image information though is fun, has important functional usage in many domains. Points of Interest’s Survey are what come to my mind immediately.