Soft Surveillance: Track Your Friends With A Real Time Compass

By now everyone knows about Foursquare and Gowalla. They are location based networking sites which tell your followers exactly what you are up to and where. Millions of people use them daily, and they have become another huge success built upon already existing social networking services like Twitter, Facebook and more. However, when you think about it, it’s not really love tracking or true location following. There is one better than these.

It comes from the brilliant mind of Hayeon Yoo who’s managed to track a person in a digital and analog way through a unique and truly beautiful device. It’s called the “Compass Phone,” but its call function is disabled. So why is it called a phone if you can’t call anyone you might ask? That’s the one question I am asking myself as well. Maybe it’s called a phone because it connects with the twin device to send information back and forth.

It will display the distance between the two devices and in real time tell you exactly where your friend is located. If you open the little device, you will find an analog compass pointing to the direction where the other device is located. It’s a fun little gadget that I am sure could be included in any phone, digitally. However, whether or not we want it is another question. Do you think it would be a scary thought to let the world know exactly where you are and follow your every step?