Do You Know Where Your Kids Are ?
      Uses for GPS devices branching out
            By Barbara Grady, Business Writer
            Monday, March 20, 2006 
     
     
           
             
           Gilsson Technologies president Ming Ho (left) shows off his Hayward-based
company's miniaturized GPS tracker that is being marketed as a child
safety device. (Aric Crabb/staff)   
           
      Global Positioning System products have become all the rage among car drivers,
boaters, hikers and tourists to help them find their way. 
      These satellite-based navigational devices, once used only by the government,
have morphed into tools for industry and then lately into consumer gadgets. 

      Now, an Alameda businessman with two children in a town recently frightened by
child abduction attempts sees a new urgent use: GPS devices as child tracker. 



      Ming Ho of Alameda is chief executive officer of Gilsson Technologies in
Hayward, which has made GPS trackers for vehicles, GPS antennas and other GPS
gear for years. Two months ago, Gilsson unveiled a very tiny GPS tracker for
pedestrians, the AlwaysFind Mini GPS Tracker, which it positioned as a
lightweight portable device for hikers and skiers, as well as for police
departments tracking parolees or individuals concerned about personal security
such as government workers or elderly people prone to falling. 

      A month later, his hometown — indeed the neighborhood where his children go to
school — became victim to a string of attempts at child abduction. 

      Ho quickly outfitted his two children with GPS trackers, which they now carry
in their backpacks. And he donated one to their school PTA for use on field
trips. 

      "We just want to know where they are," Ho said. "The attempted abductions were
just blocks away from their elementary school." The GPS tracker is both a receiver
and a transmitter, so the user can transmit a signal by pressing an SOS button
when in distress. It alerts preprogrammed recipient phone numbers, like those
of a parent or the police department. 

      Wherify Wireless Inc. of Redwood Shores also designs and sells GPS tracking
devices for family safety. 



      Its Wherifone GPS Locator Phone is both a cell phone and a GPS tracker, using
GPS technology to provide exact location information and wireless voice
technology for the phone. 



      Wherify's former GPS Locator Watch for Kids, still on the market but no longer
manufactured, allows parents to keep track of the location of their kids on an
Internet site. 


      Both Wherify's phone and Gilsson's AlwaysFind GPS trackers allow for both
receiving and transmitting of information. 

      Using GPS navigation used to be a privilege of government. 

      The U.S. Defense Department initiated what is called the Global Positioning
System in 1978 by launching the first GPS satellite. Now the complete
satellite-based navigational system is made of a network of 24 satellites
constantly orbiting the earth, and it's available for commercial use. The last
was launched in 1994. Each of the 24 satellites circles the earth twice a day
in very precise orbits and transmits signal information to earth. The system
works to locate the exact geographic coordinates of GPS