Wheat-dogg's World

I guess since moms don’t really have eyes in the backs of their heads (pending genetic engineering breakthroughs), technology had to come to their rescue. There is now a wristwatch-sized cellphone with builtin Global Positioning System (GPS). Parents can now locate their children within 100 m (300 feet) of their actual location — still a pretty large territory (the local mall, for example), but better than searching an entire neighborhood. The phone includes speed dials for “Mom,” “Dad,” “911,” and 5 others, and comes in a reusuable lunchbox package.

The idea is actually not all that new; cellphones sold in the US now have to be GPS-enabled so emergency officers can locate the owner. What’s new is the packaging and the ease-of-use for the average mom or dad. It would probably allay some parents’ fears that their children may turn up missing or lost, although children have been known to misplace their cellphones, among other items.

Maybe it’s just me, but the technology also adds a little “Big Brother” paranoia to the whole parent-child relationship. Some parents may go a little overboard tracking their kids (like the dad on the latest cellphone commercials). I also wonder whether other parties might hack the system to track kids, too. Or am I getting a little paranoid?

Now is it just me, or does it seem like the Bell Telephone Company is slowly reassembling itself?

Back in the day, kids, there was only one phone company in the USA. It manufactured its own equipment, which you rented from it. It also handled long distance traffic through an associated company, AT&T. In the 1980s, the US government broke up Ma Bell into separate parts: seven Baby Bells (like BellSouth), AT&T and Western Electric. The research and development branch, Bell Labs, also got pulled away from Ma Bell.

Since then, the splintered parts of the Bell monopoly seems to be magnetically attracting themselves into larger and larger units, as Baby Bells buy up cellular companies, AT&T reconfigures itself several times over, buying up cable companies and cellular companies, and Baby Bells merge. So I wonder, will we once again see a bigger, more powerful Ma Bell, controlling land lines, cellular traffic, cable TV, broadband internet and long distance, too?

If you’re worried, like me, that Bell is getting too big again, protest with your wallet and switch to a different carrier. I am using Voice Over Internet Protocol now over my cable broadband connection and paying just $25 a month for unlimited local and long distance calls. For more details, check out this site, which just happens to be one of mine.

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