In a world where digital maps and Global Positioning Systems chips are all the rage, Arto Tiitinen may sound like a throwback. But he reckons he, and his product, are cutting edge. Maps are old hat, he says. What we need are landmarks.
His thinking is this: While maps are useful, they're designed to be spread out over picnic tables or car hoods, not squashed digitally onto cellphones. Inside a small screen they are cumbersome and out of their element. And, he adds, most people don't navigate by maps anyway: Even if they are able to read maps (and not everyone can), they tend to navigate by landmarks. People think in terms of 'past the 7-Eleven, turn left at the gas station and right at the Woolly Mammoth Hotel.'
'Digital maps,' he says, 'are like the Stone Age.'
His product: a tracking system that doesn't use digital maps to keep tabs on things or people. It uses landmarks. It's called Tramigo, and it's a GPS tracking device the size of a small cellphone that you can attach to a car, a boat, a piece of luggage or a person. Send it a command via SMS and it will reply with a message like 'Parked, 0.25 km north of Mobil Pasir Panjang, Queenstown, Singapore.' No maps are involved, although you still need to know your compass points. But as long as you know the location it describes, you'll know where your car/boat/spouse/golf bag is.
Who might use this? It's already a popular tool, Mr. Tiitinen maintains, for owners of trucks or motorbike fleets. Others use it to track their kids (the palm-size device has an optional waterproof case) or spouses. 'In Thailand,' says the Finnish Mr. Tiitinen, who is based in the country's southern island, Phuket, 'it's about peace of mind: My wife is not yet home, (but the reason is) a traffic jam.'
The device also contains a motion detector, which is good for prolonging battery life because it puts the unit to sleep if it isn't moving. But it also, Mr. Tiitinen says, warns boat owners, for example, if their vessels are slipping loose from their moorings. A soon-to-be-launched plug-in microphone called The Nanny can be activated by SMS so users can listen to what's going on nearby.
Of course, something like the Tramigo could be abused. If you didn't know the device was in your pocket, car or backpack and then found out about it, you might reasonably feel a little creeped out. Mr. Tiitinen stresses that this isn't the market the company, also called Tramigo, is interested in, and has tried to build in safeguards to make it more difficult to track people without their knowing about it.
The company is finding customers in parts of South America, Africa and Southeast Asia that have been ignored by the digital mappers, and has collected data and landmarks over the past seven years to make the device work in 80 countries; the landmarks are updated every six months or more frequently. In Latin America, Mr. Tiitinen says, the market is more about security, in particular protection from car theft and kidnapping, while in places like Indonesia it's as much about locating your car.
There's no service fee for this. Buy the unit (about $400) and you only pay for the SMS messages, charged at your cellphone operator's usual rate (plus, if you move country, you'll need to buy a new database of landmarks). You can add your own personalized landmarks -- home, office, school, gym or whatever -- so your tracking messages make more sense ('0.5 km southwest of home' rather than '0.25 km northwest of Post Office').
My verdict? Privacy is an issue, but if someone really wants to track someone else, there are better tools. Such concerns aside, I think Tramigo is onto something. We tend to think of where we, or things, are in relation to landmarks we know. So an SMS is more useful than a map.
What needs to happen is for us all to think a little differently about our assets: We may be able to track them, but do we want to? Would people being tracked feel safer, or more vulnerable? Perhaps in the future we will expect technology to keep better tabs on the things we hold dear to us; if that happens, Mr. Tiitinen can rightly claim to be a visionary.
Jeremy Wagstaff
数字地图和全球定位系统大行其道的今天，阿尔托•蒂蒂宁(Arto Tiitinen)看上去像是落伍了。不过他却标榜自己以及自己的产品是最前卫的。他是这样说的：数字地图是老掉牙的玩艺，我们需要的是地标。
按照他的思路，地图虽然有用，但只适合在野餐桌或是车的引擎盖上展开来查阅，而不适合转化成数据存入手机中。用手机小小的屏幕查找地图不但麻烦而且不自在。对大部分人而言，即使他们能看懂（并非所有人都能看懂）地图，在驾驶时也不会这样做，这些人更愿意靠地标来寻路。大家喜欢用“开过7-Eleven便利店，在加油站时左转，到Woolly Mammoth酒店后右转”之类的习惯来思考。
在蒂蒂宁的眼中，数字地图就像是石器时代的古董。
蒂蒂宁的产品是一种跟踪系统，但并非用数字地图对人或物进行密切跟踪，而用的是地标。它名为“Tramigo”，其GPS跟踪设备只有手机大小，可以贴在车、船内或是行李箱上，也可以由人携带。在用户向该设备发送指令短信息后就会受到一条回复信息，内容类似于“车辆停于新加坡女皇镇以北0.25公里处”。这个过程用不着看地图，但用户仍需要弄清楚方向，不过只要知道这条信息所描述的地点，就能知道自己的车、船、配偶乃至高尔夫球袋的具体位置了。
那什么人会用这种设备呢？蒂蒂宁介绍说，这种设备已经在卡车和摩托车车队中流行开来。其他人还可以用此设备来寻找自己的子女（这种手掌大的设备有防水功能）或配偶。蒂蒂宁称，在泰国，这种设备意味着安心。如果用户是一位丈夫，那他可以知道自己的妻子之所以还没到家是因为堵车。蒂蒂宁是位芬兰人，目前居住在泰国南部的普吉岛。
这款设备还带有一个激活感应器，设备在平时不工作时会进入睡眠状态，这样有助于延长电池的寿命。蒂蒂宁谈到，如果安装此设备的船舶漂离了停泊处，还能向船主发出警报。此外，一种名为“The Nanny”的内置式麦克风很快将面市，当用户用短信激活麦克风时，就能听到周围发生的事情。
当然，像Tramigo这样的设备的确有可能被滥用。如果你在衣服口袋、汽车或背包内突然发现这种设备，一定会感到毛骨悚然。蒂蒂宁强调，公司对这样的市场并不感兴趣，而且已尽力采取措施避免用户在不知情的情况下被设备跟踪。蒂蒂宁的公司名字也是Tramigo。
该公司目前正在南美、非洲和东南亚等数字地图供应商忽视的市场扩展业务，并且已经花了七年时间来搜集数据和地标，以使Tramigo可以在80个国家使用。不仅如此，地标每隔六个月甚至更短的时间就会进行一次更新。在南美洲，这种设备更多被用于保安目的，特别是防止汽车被盗或绑架方面。而在印度尼西亚等地，也有很多是用来知道汽车的位置。
Tramigo的服务是免费的，只在购买设备（每套约400美元）和发送短信时要花钱。而短信费则与手机运营商的正常收费一样（如果携带此设备到另外一个国家，则需购买新的地标数据）。用户还可以给家、办公室、学校、体育场或其他设施设定个性化的地标，这样接收到的定位短信会更加 贴（例如“离家西南0.5公里处”，而不是“离邮局西北0.25公里处”）。
至于我的看法，隐私是个问题，但如果真有人想跟踪别人，应该能找到更好的工具。撇开这些不谈，我觉得Tramigo是有前途的。因为我们平时在判断自己或物品所处位置时，总喜欢参照自己知道的某个地标。因此定位短信要比地图更实用。
我们所要做的是对自己的财产从一个稍微不同的角度来思考：我们或许可以对这些财产进行跟踪，但我们希望如此吗？被跟踪的人是感到更安全、还是比以前更没安全感？也许我们能期待未来的新技术可以更好的跟踪我们所珍爱的物品。若果真如此，那蒂蒂宁真可以说是位有远见的人。
Jeremy Wagstaff
（编者按：本文作者Jeremy Wagstaff是《华尔街日报》科技专栏“Loose Wire”的专栏作家，栏目内容涉及科技产品、电脑、软件等相关领域。）