This gets pretty long but worth it...

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(Dec. 21) - Let’s face it: we’re in love with the idea of secret
location trackers. In “The Da Vinci Code,” the bad guys slap a
location-tracking button onto Tom Hanks’s clothing. In “The Matrix,” a
location-tracking scorpion robot crawls into Keanu Reeves’s abdomen. In
“Total Recall,” a tracking device is implanted into Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s nose.

Many parents may have fleetingly harbored the fantasy of equipping their
children with such tracking devices (though perhaps not through their
noses or navels). You could find out instantly where your teenager was,
or find out that your middle-schooler didn’t come home after school
because of a rendezvous you forgot about.

But this is one sci-fi gadget that’s no longer fi, thanks to advanced
sci — satellite-based tracking based on Global Positioning System
(G.P.S.) technology. At least five companies — Wherify Wireless,
Guardian Angel Technology, Disney Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Sprint —
have built G.P.S. tracking into something children carry voluntarily:
cellphones.

The super-simplified Wherifone ($100), for example, is intended for very
young or old customers. Because it has no number pad, it’s probably the
smallest cellphone you’ve ever seen — about the size of a Fig Newton. On
the company’s Web site, wherifywireless.com, you can program three of
its four speed-dial buttons to dial Mom, Dad and Gramps, for example;
the fourth summons an address book containing 20 more numbers. The phone
can receive calls from any number, although you, the wise parent, can
restrict incoming calls using the Web site.

The phone comes in five colors. The plans range from $20 a month (60
minutes of talking) to $47 (200 minutes); checking a phone’s location
counts as one minute of calling.

To pinpoint the phone’s location, you call up the Web site, enter your
password, click “locate,” and presto: an icon appears on a map — either
a street map or actual satellite photo. In the photo view, you can zoom
in enough to see individual buildings. These are existing satellite
photos —you won’t actually see your child standing there — but this
feature is still creepy and awesome.

You can even watch “bread crumbs” appear on the map as the phone moves
around (cost: one talk-time minute apiece). That could be helpful if
you’re trying to assist someone lost on the road, or in the kinds of
emergencies encountered primarily in your nightmares.

The Wherifone is not, however, a full-blown cellphone. It looks and acts
more like a “Star Trek” communicator. Its screen is crude, tiny and
black-and-white. There’s no Internet, ring tone downloads, games, camera
or text messaging, though some parents might consider that a bonus. The
phone has a hissy quality that makes all calls sound as if they’re
coming from the seashore.

The phone from Guardian Angel Technology (guardianangeltech.com) is
quite a collaboration; the company makes neither the phone ( Motorola),
the cellular network (Nextel), nor even the billing plan (Boost Mobile).

Instead, what this company brings to the table is the G.P.S. software.
The company offers three phone models, none of them cutting edge, and
one of them (the $75 base model) looks as if it’s from 1994. You can
also buy any phone from the greater selection at boostmobile.com, and
send it to Guardian Angel for G.P.S. enhancement. Many of these phones
offer Nextel’s walkie-talkie feature.

On the upside, the G.P.S. tracking on the Guardian Angel phones is more
sophisticated than its rivals’. For example, you can see a full 30 days’
worth of “bread crumbs,” which could settle the occasional argument
about your teenager’s whereabouts the last few weekends. And you can opt
to have street names superimposed on the satellite-photo view (just as
in Google Maps, which powers this feature).

The downside is the pricing: $30 a month just for the tracking. You can
start and stop this service as needed, but it’s still much more
expensive than its rivals.

Then again, the Guardian Angel phone is prepaid, so there’s no annual
contract, monthly bill or credit check. You buy minutes in advance. Such
a plan makes sense for many young consumers, although the minutes are
pricey (20 cents each, 10 cents at night and weekends).

If you’re worried that classmates will make fun of the weird-looking
Wherifone and Guardian Angel phones, consider Disney Mobile. Its
flagship phone ($50 each after rebates and with a two-year commitment),
looks like a cutting-edge sleek flip-phone — because it is one. This
phone, made by LG and dressed in red and silver, has a camera, video
capture, text messaging, Bluetooth, speakerphone and voice dialing, plus
Disney-themed ring tones, wallpaper options and phone themes.

You get five free location checks a month; additional checks cost 50
cents each. No bread crumb feature is available, and you see only street
maps — not aerial photos.

You can make a location check from a Web site (disneymobile.com) or,
better yet, from your other Disney cellphone. (Most people get two
Disney phones, since the monthly plans include two phone numbers.)

Your own phone’s screen might say, for example, “Casey’s Phone. Near 18
Whippoorwill Ln, Chicago, IL 60609; accurate within 20 yards” — and you
can summon a map right on your phone’s screen.

Performing location checks from your phone is a huge benefit not
available to the Wherifone; you can do it with Guardian Angel phones
only if your own phone has a full-blown built-in Web browser.

Disney also offers the best parental controls. You can establish
allowances for calls, text messages and downloads, for example, and you
can limit calling by time period. You can set up whitelists (lists of
approved phone numbers) or blacklists (not permitted). You can also
blast “family alerts” to the screens of all of your family’s phones at
once; a menu offers ready-made phrases like “Running late. Be there
soon!”

Unfortunately, these premium services command a premium price. Plans
range from $60 a month (450 minutes) to $250 (4,500 minutes). That’s
much more expensive than, say, Sprint, which provides Disney’s service.
With Sprint, you get twice as many minutes for the same $60. No text
messages are included in Disney plans, and calls to Disney phones
outside your family aren’t free, either.

Each specialty-phone candidate offers something unique: Wherifone’s
four-button simplicity; the pay-as-you-go feature of Guardian Angel;
Disney’s parental controls.

Each entails some compromise, though — like inflated rates, a
microscopic selection of phones and, perhaps, the need to switch
carriers.

For many people, two newcomers to the track-your-kid market may offer
less severe trade-offs: Verizon Wireless and Sprint.

For $10 a month, you can add either company’s tracking feature to any
regular calling plan. Sprint’s Family Locator feature offers 58
trackable phone models for your children; Verizon’s Chaperone plan
offers four phones, including the Wherifone-like four-button Migo for
younger children. You, the parent, can perform unlimited location checks
either from a Web site or your own Sprint or Verizon phone (30 models
from Sprint, 12 from Verizon). Sprint’s map Web page is far more
sophisticated than Verizon’s — it offers aerial views, reports of past
locations and the ability to add landmarks to the map (like “Robin’s
house”), but it’s incompatible with Safari, the Macintosh browser.

Verizon offers, for yet another $10 monthly, another equation-changing
feature called Child Zone, in which a text message notifies you every
time your child strays beyond geographical boundaries that you’ve set
up. It’s like a more humane version of the electric doggie fence.

With all of these phones, your main frustration is likely to be
coverage. Guardian Angel’s phone, for example, uses the Nextel network,
which is smaller than those of the major carriers. In every case,
consult the companies’ coverage maps before you buy.

It’s also worth pondering the moral implications of this technical
advance. What these companies are selling you is, in effect, a spying
tool. How comfortable are you playing Big Brother — or, rather, Big
Momma or Big Daddy?

Only Sprint informs your youngster, by text message, each time you
perform a location check, so you can’t snoop around undetected. The
other companies permit spying with total stealth.

Maybe that’s a good thing. After all, remember what always happens in
the movies once the hero discovers the tracking device. Arnold
Schwarzenegger extracts the circuit from his nose, Carrie-Anne Moss
sucks the scorpion from Keanu Reeves’s belly button, and Tom Hanks
confuses his pursuers by tossing his G.P.S. button into a passing truck.

i love the idea personally

if you need to track your child,I don't think a phone is going to solve
your problem. maybe you should think about getting yourself fixed

excuse me...........my son is 8 and he's with his father part of the
time and no her doesn't always watch him as he should. and what if your
child is kidnapped think before you open you A**.

yes I have seen these before on discvery channel or something like that
very cool thing indeed

i think its a great idea.

whoa cleavage

i think it can be a good thing if its not abused.

cleavage or the phone? cleavage is awesome esp that cleavage lol

I think it is a great idea. With all the peer pressure, etc. out there,
I would much rather invade my child's privacy than bury him.

tokr2006,

I agree, A child does not need privacy when they are out and about.
Parents get the blame for everything their child does and as long as the
law allows it to be that way, I think we should keep them ALL on a short
leash.

Maybe gang activity would be nil...

Verb