Re: Another Franeknseries machine missing! Arrgh!

Hi:

We build a lot of this kind of thing (International Trucks is one of our 
larger customers). The industry term is "Telematics" and it goes way 
beyond GPS to things like, "Your engine's third cylinder will probably 
fail in the next four hours, find a mechanic soon." But there is still the 
capability for the driver's cell phone to ring with the message, "You 
started in Detroit, you are supposed to go to New York, you are in Topeka. 
We know your girlfriend is in Albuquerque. Turn east now, and we'll go 
easy on you."

RFID is not the right technology. That stuff is either passive, or emits 
at low enough power that it can only be picked up by a nearby scanner. 
It's great for knowing what is on a truck once you can get it to hold 
still; not capable of telling you where the truck itself is, until it 
"checks in" at a scanning point. There may be exceptions of which I'm not 
aware, but online ads show that some vendors tout 10 meters as "long 
distance" RFID and the longest I have seen mentioned is 100 meters.

Darrell

Darrell A. Martin  -  630-754-2141
Manager, Computer Operations
dmartin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 02/01/2007 10:35:32 AM:

There are some new GPS navigation systems now available for trucks. They 

have to be aware of restrictions car navigation systems don't need to 
consider such as weight restrictions, low bridges, etc. 

But is the problem here a missing truck, or a missing (large) package. 
Seems like RFID is a closer solution.


Steven Morrison
Fidelity Express 
903-885-1283  ext. 479



rob@xxxxxxxxx 
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Re: Another Franeknseries machine missing! Arrgh!






Seriously, though, you would think one of the listers who works for a 
trucking company would know of a device they use to track their trucks.

Remember the IBM commercial where the desk is in the middle of the 

highway 

and stops the semi from going the wrong way because it was being 

tracked?

Rob Berendt
-- 
Group Dekko Services, LLC
Dept 01.073
PO Box 2000
Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





Larry Bolhuis <lbolhuis@xxxxxxxxxx> 
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02/01/2007 11:15 AM
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Re: Another Franeknseries machine missing! Arrgh!






<he he> I used to participate big time in www.distributed.net . To 
participate you load a small program that uses your computers spare 
cycles to work on shared computing problems like SETI at home does.  As 
each work unit is completed they get reported and your ID gets credited. 

Over the years they have had several stolen computers retrieved by 
watching where these work units were reported from, tracking back to the 

ISP and then the connection. The joke was that the program was much like 

"Lojak for your computer." Unfortunately they never had a client for 
OS/400 or i5/OS though you could run the AIX binary in PASE.

rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Time to buy one of those Lojack devices that they put in cars to track 

stolen vehicles.
Do they make a commercial version so that businesses can track their 

own 

equipment and not have to call the police to find out where it is?
http://www.lojack.com/

Rob Berendt

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