REAL LIFE NEWS: TRACK YOUR LOST LUGGAGE
by Hazed
Anyone walking through Earth’s busy spaceport will have seen the map with its “You are here” label, underneath someone has scrawled “And your luggage is in Antares”.
In real life, luggage going off on the wrong plane is a perennial problem for travellers. Finding out just what has happened to your suitcase full of essential items can be a difficult task. But help is at hand with a device called a Trakdot which will allow your lost luggage to phone home.
The gadget, which you can just tuck inside your case, has a SIM card with a global roaming agreement, and it contains all the electronics it needs to connect up to GSM mobile networks. It also contains an accelerometer so it can tell when the luggage is on the move. When it detects it’s travelling fast it goes to sleep, then after a preset period, it wakes up and checks whether it’s still moving. If not, and it detects transmissions from a mobile phone network, it’ll wake up properly and figure out which cell tower it has detected, and send that info home.
Trakdot uses its database of cell IDs around airports to figure out where the luggage has got to, and texts the owner identifying which bag is at which airport.
Neat! Then all you have to do is persuade the airline to deliver it back to the right placeā¦
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/15/trakdot_luggage_locator/