Have you ever lost your cell phone and then tried to call it only to discover that the batteries have died. Thus leaving you mistified as to when or where you lost it.
The Last Gasp phone location feature causes your phone to send out its approximate location immediately before a Low Battery shutdown(either GPS or Triangulation location). This data is stowed away in a central data bank. When you cannot find your phone you can call or login to the Phone provider and do a search to determine its location currently or at the time it lost power. Then you will know if your kid hid it on you at home, you left it at the office or at a friends house.
This would use all existing technology and would require nothing but some programming.-- jhomrighaus, Dec 18 2006 E911 Law info http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/E911.html [jhomrighaus, Dec 18 2006] E911 capable Phones http://www.wireless...types.asp?typeid=19 [jhomrighaus, Dec 18 2006] Cant use Verizon Phone Network unless GPS equipped http://www.verizonw...ues/enhanced911.jsp [jhomrighaus, Dec 18 2006] GPS phone http://www.itag.comiTag.com automatically keeps track of the last location of your phone right when the phone dies. [lparker3470, Aug 31 2009] //This would use all existing technology and would require nothing but some programming// - er, and a GPS device inside every single cellphone which might increase it's cost by about £50, and a bit of cleverness to measure battery strength at low charge levels very accurately and take into account the age of the battery and the available signal level...Just hide some dog biscuit crumbs in your phone's battery compartment and train your dog to sniff it out.-- hippo, Dec 18 2006 //and a GPS device inside every single cellphone which might increase it's cost by about £50, and a bit of cleverness to measure battery strength at low charge levels very accurately and take into account the age of the battery and the available signal level...//
Most phones sold today have these features built in. Not all manufacturers choose to activate them. All Cell phones I have seen have a low battery indicator(the signal could be sent any time after a low battery condition is noted) Most phones conduct regular polling with the local cell tower and so this is just a blip of extra data to send. As to available signal this will not be a be all solution but I suspect it would help most people track down their lost cell phone.-- jhomrighaus, Dec 18 2006 GPS is a standard, but locked feature? News to me. I'd have agreed with [hippo] on that point.
If you're just after home/office/friend's house rather than location to within a couple of metres, then you only need which tower it's nearest to; that would be more feasible as you could omit the GPS.
(sp: polling)-- david_scothern, Dec 18 2006 At least in the US all phones sold since 2001 must be able to be located to within 100 meters, using either GPS or Cell Tower triangulation when calling 911. This is just an extension of this capability. Many of the newest phones have GPS built right into the chip(i.e. most Motorola phones are built with it)
See link for info.
I think you guys are taking the GPS reference way to literally but I have edited the idea to account for that.-- jhomrighaus, Dec 18 2006 I'd buy a phone with this. If when I set up the account I could provide an email address where such reports would be delivered, I wouldn't need to remember a login for retrieving them, either. I'd just log into my regular email and find the last-gasp data, then go find my phone.-- Myself, Jul 26 2009 anybody else immediately think of exploding dye ?-- FlyingToaster, Jul 27 2009 SOOOOOO COOOL! Another of my ideas sees the light of reality! Thanks SO much for the link [lparker3470] I love it when one of my ideas makes it out into the real world.-- jhomrighaus, Sep 15 2009 random, halfbakery