Staying in the loop!

I came across this post by Paul Graham, looking at a technology called Loopt . Of course, I'm not sure exactly how this technology will work and I presume it will only be possible to locate phones that are actually switched on. If, however, it works for a phone that is switched off, that would be even better.

I could have used technology like this recently, when my elder son disappeared off the radar one afternoon. He was due to have met a friend to go to the cinema, but there was a crossing of wires and he and the friend waited in two different places, one with no credit on his phone, the other with his phone switched off due to a flat battery (yeah, I know, but they're teenagers - what can you do?). Unable to reach each other (but actually no more than 20 metres apart as the crow flies), each gave up waiting and went his own way. Several hours later, I learned that my son had set off from home to meet a friend, but had never arrived. No-one had seen or heard from him since. He had been off the radar for more than 7 hours. How I would love to have been able to make use of some locator technology instead of having to make increasingly worried calls to umpteen parents, his guitar teacher and very nearly the police. I had decided to give it another 10 minutes before calling them when the prodigal finally called, all wide-eyed innocence and totally unaware that he had been missing - after all he knew where he was!

I can see this technology being very useful for anxious parents of switched off (and I'm not referring to the phone) teenagers.

Now to think of a way to use it to build a learning experience...

Tags:

• Loopt
• Paul
• Graham
• Teenagers