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March 16, 2006
Wozniak Shuts Down Wheels of Zeus
Almost three years ago, I posted some screenshots of what I believed were service concepts for the still-in-development Wheels of Zeus startup being lead by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
According to CNET, Woz has officially shut the doors at the foundling company without ever launching any actual service or, to my knowledge, licensing any new technologies that made it into consumer services or products.
The concept was for cheap GPS- (and possibly RFID-) enabled tags to provide customers with real-time tracking of objects (e.g., luggage, cars, pets) and people. The screenshots I found pictured some pretty compelling concepts, and I'm sorry to see it not come to fruition.
Once again, Woz was likely ahead of his time.
Comments
I would like to inform you about a recent book that covers location-aware technology similar to WoZ and location-aware / positioning applications using alternative positioning technologies to GPS and cellular/telecom.
The book, Local Positioning Systems: LBS Applications and Services, is a highly anticipated 488-page book in the industry because it is the first reference for implementing indoor/outdoor location-aware apps. It was a very good time to publish this book (after 4yrs of research that began at MIT) because the industry is realizing the limitations of GPS and cellular/telecom –based positioning. LBS/navigation applications have not been as successful on the market as expected, because they don’t work where people are: indoors and in cities. GPS is great, but not for many of the apps we will present on this website. LBS has been trying to become the “killer app” but privacy, market awareness, and indoor coverage are still pending issues affecting the success of LBS. This book address these issues.
Please see http://indoorLBS.com for the Book’s preface, etc, if you’re interested in reading it.
Regards,
Krzysztof Kolodziej
San Francisco, CA
Posted by: K Kolodziej at April 11, 2006 8:31 PM
To my readers: I realize the comment above this one is a commercial post, but I approved because it's on-topic and seems to be legitimate.
Posted by: Craig at April 11, 2006 8:41 PM