You call the person you are meeting, press the ‘LINK’ button on your phone, if they press ‘OK’ to the “Link with So-an-So?” message on their phone then your phone will start scanning for their network user signature, giving you a graphical heading based on cell triangulation & using signal strength for ‘getting warmer’ bleepy noises as you get close.

*revised for clarity*
-- darndog, Sep 30 2001

802.11 client location detector http://www.halfbake...location_20detector
Related halfbaked idea. If there's two of you searching for someone, use 802.11 triangulation. [hippo, Sep 30 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Or could Mobile Proximity Links float around a web page toward your cursor sporting advertising and activate themselves when they get under it?

Sorry, as I have no mobile, I do not qualified to comment on this idea.
-- jabbers, Sep 30 2001


Since location-based services are one of the things that next-generation cellular people are always pushing, this seems like it ought to be bakeable. The precision might not be high enough to make this work though. Maybe for the last hundred yards it could home in directly on the other phone's signal instead of using the network's idea of where the phones are. I envision couples getting to within five feet of each other and discovering there's a brick wall there, though...

I want a phone with a similar but different function: I want it to bleep when one of my friends is in the general area. (Obviously, it would have to be disablable, etc.) Kind of like a lovegety for people I already know. Then if I'm in a random part of town or a different city, and someone I know is by chance also there, we can meet up.
-- wiml, Sep 30 2001


Good idea. I've had this problem. You should be able to set it up to accept "links" by default from certain people you know, so that when you get separated at the supermarket you can find your partner again without all the hassle of an actual cell phone call.

Unfortunately, I suspect the resolution of cell triangulation is very low, and GPS doesn't work indoors...
-- egnor, Sep 30 2001


Provide the person with whom you wish to rendevous a penguin chick. You carry the penguin parent. The wily birds recognize their chick's call and guide you directly to your target. Plus you get these super-cute birds to keep in your flat. Wait--got krill?
-- Dog Ed, Oct 01 2001


Methinks this would make stalking people a breeze.
-- sdm, Oct 01 2001



random, halfbakery