Wireless Home Networking - Index of

Chapter 19: More Than Ten Devices to Connect to Your Wireless Network
Your Pets
The internal ConcertMaster Library comes preloaded with 20 hours of performances
in five musical categories, or you can create as many as 99 custom
library categories to store your music. With as many as 99 songs in each
category, you can conceivably have nearly 50,000 songs onboard and ready
to play. Use your wireless access to your home’s Internet connection to
download the latest operating system software from Baldwin’s servers. The
system can accept any wireless MIDI interface. Encore!
You can record on this system too. A one-touch Quick-Record button lets you
instantly save piano performances, such as your child’s piano recital. You can
also use songs that you record and store on a CD or USB flash drive with your
PC to use in editing, sequencing, and score notation programs.
GPS-based tracking services can be used for pets, too! Just about everyone
can identify with having lost a pet at some point. The GPS device can be
collar-based or a subdermal implant. This device can serve as your pet’s
electronic ID tag; it also can serve as the basis for real-time feedback to the
pet or its owner, and perhaps provide automatic notification if your dog goes
out of the yard, for example.
Globalpetfinder.com is a typical example of a GPS-enabled system (www.
globalpetfinder.com, $290). With this system, you create one or more circular
virtual fences defined by a GPS location. Your home’s address, for example, is
translated by its online site into a GPS coordinate, and you can create a fence
that might be 100 feet in radius. If your pet wanders outside this fence, you’re
alerted immediately and sent the continuously updated location of your
pet to the two-way wireless device of your choice — cell phone, PDA, or
computer, for example. You can find your pet by dialing the collar’s phone
number, and it replies with the present location. If you’re using a PDA with a
graphical interface, such as a Treo or Blackberry, you can see the location on
a street map. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee for the service —
to cover the cell costs — which ranges from $18 to $20 per month. If your
dog runs away often, go for the Escape Artist Peace of Mind plan!
The 802.11 technologies are making their way into the pet-tracking arena as
well. Several companies are testing prototypes of wireless clients that would
log onto neighborhood Wi-Fi APs and send messages about their positions
back to their owners. Although the coverage certainly isn’t as broad as cellular
service, it certainly would be much less expensive. So your LAN may soon
be part of a neighborhood wireless network infrastructure that provides a
NAN — neighborhood area network — one of whose benefits is such continual
tracking capability for pets.
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