Shopping Centers Monitor Customers Via Cell Phones

Information on consumers' habits, actions and preferences has always been marketing gold. But in a recession, these trends are even more important.

Enter technology. Not only are retailers beginning to use facial recognition to market to specific customers, they're also zeroing in on people's cell phones to track their shopping habits.

Privacy advocates are crying foul in Australia after a shopping center revealed that it will be the first in the country to install receivers that detect cell phone radio frequency codes. Imported from a UK-based company, the receivers can pinpoint a unique cell phone within 2 meters--and can track that particular phone around the shopping mall.

The Footpath system does not access user names or numbers, however.

"All we do is log the movement of a phone around an area and aggregate this to provide trend data for businesses," a spokeswoman said. "It's much less intrusive or invasive than existing people-counting methods, for instance CCTV cameras and number plate monitoring."

At this point, there is no plan to notify customers or seek their consent.

A New Way to Communicate During Disasters Without Cell Service, Internet or Landlines

With Hurricane Irene bearing down on the East Coast, millions of Americans face the possibility of losing cell, Internet and landline service. This loss of connectivity also impacts first responders, who often have difficulty organizing and communicating during their attempts to save lives and property. It's time for a better means of disaster communications.

LifeNet might be the answer. The innovative software lets people communicate wirelessly, even after a natural disaster has disabled cell service, the Internet and landline communications. Fast Company writes that LifeNet, developed by researchers at Georgia Tech University, is basically a piece of code that users can place on their laptop or phone.

"Once you have the software, the computers can communicate with each other, and you don't need infrastructure," Santosh Vempala, the Georgia Tech computer science professor in charge of the project, told Fast Company.

LifeNet enables any device to become a host and a router for the network. That lets users create a chain of communication, with the software routing information to and from each LifeNet device.  

For now, though, the software only works if users are fairly close to each other: up to 1 kilometer outdoors and only a couple hundred feet indoors. But as Vempala told Fast Company, "you could have a line of people on this network that are spaced 100 yards apart, and the line could go as long as you want."

The software is still in the testing phases, but the developers plan to bring it to market soon. And while it's not a perfect answer to the disaster communications question, it's an affordable step in the right direction. Too bad it won't be ready to help out the East Coast this weekend.

Let Your Favorite Tunes Charge Your Cell Phone

The Orange Sound Charge harnesses sound and converts it to energy to charge mobile phones.

Harnessing Noise to Charge Your Cell Phone

Imagine no more cell phone batteries dying or being leashed to your charging cable.

Engineers at the Institute of Nanotechnology at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul are attempting to convert background noise, music and voice calls into electricity to power a cell phone.

As engineer Sang-Woo Kim explains, he will use "tiny strands of zinc oxide sandwiched between two electrodes. A sound-absorbing pad on top vibrates when sound waves hit it, causing the tiny zinc oxide wires to compress and release. This movement generates an electrical current that can then be used to charge a battery."



New App Shares Your Photos with People by Proximity ... Automatically

Imagine being able to view every photo taken by the people around you -- even if they're complete strangers.

A new app called Color can do just that. The free download enables users to share and collect photos, videos and text based on proximity, not on friend lists.

Any Color users in your vicinity will automatically see the images and video that you create. The creators want users to "share together in a new, moving social network." Talk about social networking. But how will users feel about their privacy when, for example, they're caught on camera doing something they wouldn't want shared?