WorldTrack Mobile Technologies
2222 Michelson Drive, Suite 222-499
Irvine, CA 92612
Tel: (800) 557-2842
E-mail: info@eworldtrack.com

Scripps Howard News service, January 1, 2001

The Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2000

USA  TODAY - TECH EXTRA, Wednesday, July 7, 1999

The Associated Press, Monday, April 26,1999

German article - DER SPIEGEL, 18/1999

NBC News Streaming Video  64k or 128k

Devices Track Kids, Adults (Scripps Howard News service, January 1, 2001)
Bill Brown, left and Danny Booker of eWorldTrack Inc. show off their latest product - the tracking shoe - at their Anderson office recently. The businessmen came up with the minute tracking device, which can be tucked into shoes or backpacks to track whereabouts of children, especially those involved in volatile custody fights.

Bill Brown became so worried about a 2-year-old grand-daughter caught up in a custody fight that his wife told him to go out and buy a tracking device so they'd know her whereabouts.

"They have them for cars they must have them for kids," Kathy Brown told him but a trip to Toys'R'Us proved fruitless - car tracking devices, after all, are attached to a 40-pound battery.

So Bill Brown and Danny Booker, a pair of semi-retired South Carolina businessmen who'd made their money in pre-paid long-distance cards, tapped their telephone industry background to develop tiny transponders that could be attached to at-risk kids.

The goal was to make them small enough to tuck in a fanny pack, school satchel or sneaker in case they were needed to track troubled children, including one of 350,000 minors the FBI says get taken each year by a family member, usually in custody situations.

Mr. Brown and Mr. Booker came up with a device the size of a tiny cell phone made by their firm, eWorldTrack Inc. of Anderson, and they're not alone.

Companies around the globe, include multinational giants such as Siemens AG, are banking on the brave new world of high-tech homing devices that combine satellite and mobile phone technology to track missing children or adults with medical problems.

Eventually, these transponders will get the down to the size of a computer chip that an be tucked into a watchband or attached by skin patch, And one company - applied Digital Solutions' Digital Angel of Palm Beach, Fla. - is working for the day a microchip transmitter can be implanted under the skin. A Digital Angel prototype recently was unveiled at a New York show.

These devices are made possible by the Clinton administration's 1996 decision to open Pentagons 24 satellite global Position System satellite to the general public.

Since then tracking technology has made civilian inroads with trucking companies, boaters and drivers of high-end cars in the case of highway trouble or theft. Serious hikers, also carry radio-size gadgets in case they get lost in the wilderness.
To comply with Federal Communications Commission mandate, wireless device manufacturers will begin selling handset next year that can transmit the caller's precise location, accurate to within feet. This is a part of the FCC's "Enhanced 911" plan, set up so Emergency crews can find a location even of a caller using a cell phone.

Futurist see these gizmos finally getting small enough to fit into a wallet or a compass so no one - adult or child - is ever lost, although the idea of always being on someone else's radar screen raises privacy concerns among civil libertarians.

Says David Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center: "This technology is going to happen, and we have to find ways to put people in control of how information about their location is collected and used."

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Devices Locate Children Create Privacy Issues (The Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2000)
Imagine being able to make a simple phone call, log onto into a Web Site or check into a kiosk and know within a minute or two the exact location of your child, in what direction the child is walking and perhaps even the child's heart rate.

Privacy nightmare or life-saving device? What sounds like a gadget from a high-tech cops-and-robbers movie is fast becoming reality at eWorldTrack Inc.
The idea: to apply satellite and mobile phone technology to track missing children or people with medical problems.

The founders of eWorldTrack Inc., of Anderson, S.C., have the same idea with the company's tracking device. Still in development, the device also would allow people to track the wearer at any time thought the Internet.

The company, which recently used its prototype device to locate an autistic child who had run away, decided to market the device inside a athletic shoe, in part because of security concerns. "If it is small enough to drop into a purse and be used to track your mate, that brings up some issues, " Mr. Booker said. "I don't want to be the one to develop a product that can be used that way."

Critics of the technology argue, however, that even a tracking device as obvious and easy to remove as a pair of shoes or a wristband could pose security concerns. "I think people have to realize this is not the silver bullet, " said Andrew Shen, a policy analyst with the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. "When you look at security, the biggest concern is internal, " Mr. Shen said. "Someone at the call center also know where your kid is."

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Protect your child, via satellite - Tiny device designed to lessen chance of abduction

By Elizabeth Weise (USA  TODAY - TECH EXTRA, Wednesday, July 7, 1999)

When William Brown was worried about the safety of his 3-year-old granddaughter, his wife told him to go out and buy a tracking system for her.  They've got them for cars, they must have them for kids," she told him.

The Toys R Us clerk looked at him like he was crazy.

So he and his business partner, Danny Booker, 50, both of Anderson, S.C., went on a quest.  The semi-retired friends had made their fortunes selling pre-paid phone cards.  But the need for a way to track children who have been abducted touched them as grandparents, and they set out to make it happen.

Over the last year, they've designed and built what they believe to be the first portable satellite child-tracking system.  It consists of a 1½ pound device, about the size of a cellular phone, that can be hidden in a backpack or concealed in a stuffed animal.

"We don't want anyone to have a false sense of security," says Brown, 48.  "Parents still have to do all the other things they have to do to protect their child."

But the "satcel" (satellite cellular) device can help.  Its Global Positioning System locator, when activated, takes readings from a network of satellites to pinpoint its location within a tenth of a block and sends the information back to a 24-hour-a-day tracking center.

Currently, the device holds a charge for about a day, but the technology is constantly improving.  The second generation, due late next year, will be about the size of an eraser.

San Diego County, Calif., is testing two of the devices on children at high risk for abduction, where a non-custodial parent in a divorce has made threats, says deputy district attorney Garry Haehnle, head of the county's child-abduction unit.

Even if the abductor removed the device, "we'd know where they were 15 seconds ago, and that gives us a huge heads-up,"  Haehnle says.

According to the FBI, more than 350,000 children are abducted each year, mostly by family members. David Shapiro of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says that the figure includes only about 300 abductions by strangers.

Brown & Booker have created a company, Grandparents Inc., that will manufacture and distribute the systems. So far they've used all their own funds to design and build the prototypes. Now their hoping for corporate sponsors to underwrite the costs of mass-production and distributing them.

Already, Rogers Communications of Canada has taken an interest. A large media and technology conglomerate, the company has more than 300 video stores across Canada, which Brown and Booker hope to use as distribution points.

Grandparents Inc. also has received calls from others who need to be unobtrusively tracked, including undercover police officers, Alzheimer's patients at nursing homes and hikers in national forests. 

Brandon Ward of Child Search in Houston says the child tracker isn't the answer to every situation, but it can be a significant deterrent. "I wish every pedophile in America thought every child had one."

For more information, call 800-557-2842

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Device keeps tabs on kids by satellite 

By Allen G. Breed (The Associated Press Monday, April 26,1999)

ANDERSON, S.C. - Dave Smith stares at a computer screen as a satellite map of North America telescopes down to a grid of a major city and, finally, to a single neighborhood.

He clicks a mouse.  A dial tone sounds, followed by the screech of a modem.  Suddenly an icon appears at the intersection of Linwood Drive and Warren Road.  A few seconds later the icon lurches to another spot on the map.

"He's out on the highway now," said Smith, a former computer programmer.

Smith, now a computer consultant, has just accessed a global positioning satellite unit in Canada.  He's hunting down a software engineer in Toronto posing as a kidnapped child for this test.

All from an office in South Carolina.  All because a pair of businessmen-grandfathers decided that if you can track a stolen car, you should be able to track a stolen child.

"You can replace an automobile," said Bill Brown, who along with Dan Booker founded Protect Me Toys last year.  "You can't replace a child."

The pair have spent about $250,000 to develop a system that can be hidden in the bottom of a backpack.  Now they're looking for investors to help bring their plan to fruition.

The idea developed a few years ago when Brown's son divorced and Brown said he searched for something to help him keep track of his 3-year-old granddaughter, but found nothing.

The two friends eventually found an international company, which was selling GPS units to do everything from tracking loose bulls to telling golfers how far they hit a ball.

The company took a GPS card that it developed for Boeing jetliners and it made it more sensitive.  With receiver and antenna, the unit - about the size of a box of animal crackers - weighs about 1½ pounds.

The unit basically "sleeps" until it is called by the tracking center, so the battery doesn't run down unnecessarily.  There's no ringing when it's contacted, so as not to tip off a kidnapper.

It's possibilities are numerous, said Smith, a consultant on the project.  People could use the device to track a grandparent with Alzheimer's disease, hikers, wayward teen-agers - even the school bus a child is riding. 

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UBERWACHUNG - Plüschtier als Peilgerät (German article - DER SPIEGEL, 18/1999)

Wenn das Kind mit dem Teddy unterm Arm zum Spielen geht, kann es nicht mehr abhanden kommen. Zwei ältere Herren aus Anderson (South Carolina) entwickelten aus Sorge um ihre Enkel ein tragbares Ortungssystem. Was in Kraftfahrzeugen schon erfolgreich gegen Diebstahl eingestzt wird, soll nun helfen, entlaufene oder entführte Kinder aufzuspüren. Überall dort, wo eine Handyverbindung möglich ist, kann das GPS-System „SatCel“ den genauen Standort ermitteln und ins Telefonnetz einspeisen. Damit die Batterien länger halten, wird das Gerät nur dann aktiviert, wenn das Kind überfällig ist und gesucht wird.

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 © 2001, 2002 WorldTrack Mobile Technologies.  (800) 557-2842