tracking

Privacy--who needs it? The creators of WeFi don't seem to think much of it, although that might not be a bad thing

Today the company, which offers up a pretty svelte little replacement for Windows' clunky Wi-Fi manager, is launching two new items: a mobile application for Windows Mobile users (which could soon be SideKick users too), along with a Facebook application to help users track people using the service. Oddly enough, in all its news release bravado the company failed to offer up a link to said Facebook application, and it's not in the directory--so I can'… Read more

Someday soon, you might be able to figure out where you are in the world by staring.

Researchers from South Korea's Yonsei University will present a paper at the International Solid State Circuits Conference next week on a system that spits out two-dimensional coordinates for the object or place that a person is focusing on. The same group has worked on several eye interfaces in the past, mostly for people with disabilities. By integrating eye interfaces with GPS information, users can apparently get geographic information. The group presents its paper on Monday, February 3.

ISSCC is one of the … Read more

Google has improved its search results for flight tracking. Previously, when you searched for an airline and flight number in Google (for example, AA 28), you got links to services that would tell you if your plane was on time or not. Now, you don't need the link: you get that data on the search result page.

This is a time-saver for Google users, but Travelocity, Expedia, and FBOWeb, which offer flight tracking services, will suffer since they no longer get the links. Instead, the data is provided by Conducive Technology's FlightStats. It's a decent service, but … Read more

Whereboutz is a new service powered by TeleNav that lets you announce your location for others to see, while mapping it to a geographical location. The service has two ways in the door, both as a Java app for phones that can run J2ME, as well as a Facebook application that accomplishes a similar feat without any sort of installation. Once linked up to your Facebook account, the mobile app will show you any of your friends' status updates on a map, as long as they're posting through Whereboutz (regular old status messages need not apply). You can also … Read more

Like a really good reality show, the size of consumer devices has been dwindling to almost nothing. Notebooks morphing into UMPCs, prosumer cameras to point-and-shoot form factors, and even the PSP has undergone the slimming treatment. But portability brings along its own risks.

Enter theft recovery services. Bak2u, a Singapore-based company specializing in retrieving lost/stolen laptops, PDAs and mobile phones, can help you if the incident happened locally, but is hapless if the device is taken out of country. This is because such services depend on local law enforcement cooperation to work and this courtesy may not extend to … Read more

Most Web users are familiar with Web and RSS alerts (see our How-To on Google Alerts) that send you notes whenever a term you're interested in is mentioned on the Web. Smart marketing managers set up alerts for their company and products; many people I know also have alerts set on their own names. You can also scan for news terms you're interested in.

And now you can get alerted whenever someone Twitters about you or your company. Just send a Twitter message "Track [word]," and whenever someone uses that word in post, you'll get … Read more

Into a sea of online personal financial services wades billQ, a bill management service that promises to store your one-time and scheduled bills and alert you before they're due.

Unlike competitors like Mint, Wesabe, and others, there's no bill pay engine, no money-saving deals, and no hot financial tips. For now, billQ is strictly positioned as information management, and for a lot of folks that's the right load.

Add and manage bills The site is visually appealing in Google-esque minimalism. Adding and viewing bills is intuitive on billQ's clean, user-friendly interface. Tweaking account options and adding from a noble menu of additional tools are also easily done.… Read more

As much of personal technology rapidly converges into single handheld devices, one of the last frontiers is GPS. But here's a twist: Rather than trying to cram a satellite receiver into a mobile phone, what if a company went about it the other way around?

Cybergraphy Technology's GlobalTrack G200P is a compact receiver with an integrated microphone and speaker that can actually be used as a phone, though we have no idea what kind of reception it would get. As a GPS unit, though, its credentials seem worthy--a high-sensitivity receiver that the company says has a maximum standby … Read more