Tracking your every move

　　Some families in America and elsewhere have started buying child�瞗riendly mobile phones outfitted with GPS (Global Positioning System) technology.

　　These phones and their related tracking services allow parents to pinpoint the location of their children with ease. Parents agree to pick up the phone bill in return for the reassurance of knowing where their children are; children are prepared to put up with the snooping if they are allowed to have a phone.

　　Mobile operators in America are now launching tracking services. Under a federal mandate known as E911, they had to upgrade their networks to ensure that anyone dialling the 911 emergency number could be located to within 100 metres. Some operators opted for triangulation technology, which determines the location of the handset by comparing the signals received by different base�瞫tations. But Verizon and Sprint chose to adopt the more expensive but more accurate GPS technology instead, and are now looking for ways to make money from it.

　　Verizon calls its service “Chaperone”. For $10 a month, parents can call up the location of their child’s LG Migo handset from their own mobile phones, or from a PC. The child receives a message saying that the handset’s position has been requested, and the parents receive an address, or a marker on a web�瞓ased ap, giving the child’s location. For an extra $10 per month, they can sign up for Child Zone, a service that, among other things, fires off an alert when a youngster (or, at least, the youngster’s handset) trays outside a specified area.

　　For its part, Sprint has launched a similar service that can also let parents know when a child arrives at a particular location.

　　Another location service is available from Nextel, a mobile operator that was taken over by Sprint in 2005. Nextel opened up some of its systems to enable other firms to build their own software and services on top of its GPS technology. One example is AccuTracking, a small company which offers a tracking service for $6 a month and boasts that it is “ideal for vehicle tracking” or to keep “virtual eyes on kids”. Some customers are also using the service to track their spouses, by hiding phones in their cars.“Mine is hidden under the hood, hot-wired to the battery—it works very well and it is easy to hook up continuous power,” writes one customer on AccuTracking’s message board, who is tracking her husband.

　　Start-ups are working on everything from city-wide games of hide-and-seek to monitoring the locations of Alzheimer’s patients. Services that monitor jogging routes, and work out distance travelled and calories consumed, might also prove popular.

　　As a result, mobile operators, handset-makers and start-ups could transform and expand a small, specialist market hitherto dominated by expensive, dedicated tracking systems.

　　考研詞匯：

　　outfit[ˈautˌfit]n.裝備，供給

　　pinpoint [ˈpinpɔint]

　　n. 精確a.極微小的v.查明

　　reassurance[ˌri:ə'ʃʊərəns]

　　n. 放心

　　snoop[snu:p]

　　vi. 探聽, 調查, 偷竊 n.到處窺視, 愛管閑事的人, 私家偵探

　　federal[ˈfedərəl]

　　a.聯邦的

　　[真題例句]A few premiers are suspicious of any federal�瞤rovincial deal�瞞aking.[2005年新題型]

　　[例句精譯] 有幾個省的政府官員對這種全國性代理機構持懷疑態度。

　　spouse[spauz]

　　n.配偶(指夫或妻)，保證人，主辦人;vt.發起，主辦;v.贊助

　　背景常識介紹：

　　GPS全稱為“全球定位系統”，它是一種基于衛星的導航系統，其精確度已經達到10米以內。而用戶無需為接收的衛星信號本身支付任何費用。而在手機上或者其他掌上移動設備中，當GPS的定位功能與數字地圖相結合時，就可以為人們提供更加具體的更加直觀的導航幫助，而不是僅僅告訴你目前的“經度、緯度”。特別是GPS系統與手機的結合，更是方便了大家的出行，既可以方便聯系，也可以實現車載GPS系統的導航功能。

　　參考譯文：

　　追蹤你的一舉一動

　　美國與其他地方的一些家庭已開始購買適合兒童使用，配有GPS(全球衛星定位系統)的移動電話。

　　這種電話與相關的追蹤服務讓父母可以輕而易舉地查明孩子在什么地方。父母很情愿支付這筆電話費以知曉孩子身在何處，以換來自己的放心。孩子們想要父母給他們買個電話，則必須愿意忍受被秘密監視。

　　美國的移動電話運營商們正在推出追蹤服務。遵照一條叫做E911的聯邦法令，他們要升級服務網絡，確保能找到任何撥打911呼救電話的人所處的位置，誤差不超過100米。一些運營商采用了三角定位技術，此技術通過比較不同基站接收的手機信號來確定手機所處的位置。Verizon 與 Sprint 兩個運營商則選用了更昂貴、但更精確的GPS技術，現在正在此基礎上推出新服務，希望能以此賺錢。

　　Verizon 把它的服務叫做“陪護者”。每月花上10美元，父母用手機或個人電腦發出一個要求，就可以知道他們孩子的LG Migo手機的位置。孩子會收到一條“該手機的位置被要求發送”的信息，父母則收到一個地址，或是網絡地圖上的一個標記，指示出孩子的位置。如果每月多付10美元，父母就可以成為一個叫“孩子地帶”的用戶，如果一個年輕人(或至少是這年輕人的手機)在一個特定的區域外游蕩時，該服務就會立刻發出警告給父母，類似的服務還有一些。

　　Sprint在這方面是怎么做的呢?它推出了類似的服務，也能讓父母知道孩子什么時候到達某個地點。

　　2005年被Sprint兼并的Nextel 則有另一項定位服務。Nextel開放了它的部分系統，可以讓其他公司在其GPS技術平臺上建立自己的軟件與服務。Accu尋蹤公司就是一個范例，這家小公司提供的追蹤服務每月收費6美元，號稱是“理想的車輛追蹤工具”，還可以“時刻盯著孩子”。有些客戶把電話藏在配偶的車里，用Accu尋蹤公司的服務追蹤他們。該公司的一個顧客在公司網站的留言版寫道：“我把電話藏在引擎蓋下邊，并插在汽車電池上——真的很管用，而且掛接不間斷電源也很容易。”這位女士是在追蹤她的丈夫。

　　新生的公司正推出各種各樣的新服務，從全城范圍的捉迷藏游戲到追蹤老年癡呆患者。一邊監控慢跑路線，同時算出跑的路程與消耗的熱量，這樣的服務可能也會受歡迎。

　　尋蹤服務的市場現在還只是個小規模的專業化市場，由收費昂貴、用途單一的各種尋蹤服務把持，但移動運營商、手機制造商與許多新興公司的介入可能使市場發生改變，并進一步擴大市場。