10cc's I'm Not In Love and the story behind it.
posted by klangklangston on May 12, 2009 - 56 comments

Hacking the Sky: Robert Simpson writes astronomy tools for use with Google Earth, Google Sky, and Twitter.
posted by Upton O'Good on Mar 4, 2009 - 5 comments

Twones is a music tracker that monitors Last.FM, YouTube, MySpace, iTunes, Muxtape, and a few other services. [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Jul 30, 2008 - 10 comments

Make your own attack ad. The Democratic party is uploading all its "tracker" videos of the top Republican candidates out on the campaign trail, for use by anyone for anything. "The party hopes that thousands of eyes might find something the mainstream media has missed, or that a new way of juxtaposing the video with something else will be revealing about the candidates," says the NYT. Gimmick or political sea change?
posted by CunningLinguist on Nov 28, 2007 - 60 comments

Trackulous - Track Anything. There have to be ten dozen ways to track your weight online. MeFi users track thteir social athletic accomplishments at WeEndure and Runner+. But what if we wanted to track (and graph) Javelinas Sighted, Cookies Tossed, Fights with Boyfriend, or any other user-defined numerical quantity over time? And what if we wanted to share our statistics with our friends? For that, Trackulous - a simple, elegant, mobile-friendly web tool.
posted by ikkyu2 on Nov 19, 2007 - 19 comments

Wiki City Rome - "anyone with an Internet connection will be able to see a unique map of the Italian capital that shows the movements of crowds, event locations, the whereabouts of well-known Roman personalities, and the real-time position of city buses and trains."
posted by Gyan on Sep 7, 2007 - 3 comments

Real time satellite tracking - another interesting use of Google Maps, Ajax, and orbital telemetry.
posted by Burhanistan on Jul 5, 2007 - 10 comments

The Long Take aka "The Greatest Long Tracking Shots in Cinema".
posted by Armitage Shanks on May 9, 2007 - 93 comments

Track your comments. Remember back before Matt gave up his day job? How we didn't have an easy way to keep up with conversations we participated in? Hate that you can't do that with other sites you frequent? Now you can.
posted by FlamingBore on Feb 13, 2006 - 16 comments

Surreptitious cell phone stalking tracking. Stalkers are no longer limited to just your call history. For a small fee and with a few minutes access to her cell phone the author was able to track his girlfriend's cell phone location within a hundred yards or so and the cell phone provides no trace that it was happening. Traceamobile.com appears to be one site offering such a service. Mologogo was discussed here previously but does not appear to be surreptitious. (Appears to be limited to UK for right now.)
posted by caddis on Feb 4, 2006 - 21 comments

Merry Christmas! Santa knows if you've been bad or good. The U.S. Department of Transportation wants to know where you're driving. Where you're driving, right this very minute, tracking you in real-time using GPS. If the GPS signal is obstructed, your car's engine will turn off, Citizen!
posted by orthogonality on Dec 24, 2005 - 97 comments

Mologogo Track any Java/GPS enabled phone through a convienent Google Maps based interface with mologogo.
posted by phrontist on Oct 30, 2005 - 10 comments

Noted in the live stream from this TV station This is the "Local2 News" live tv stream (which has been pointed to in three previous MeFi threads about other news stories. Currently they've from time to time been showing storm track predictive models (which they say are their own development). I'd rather have pointers to more models than the TV station's occasional glimpses, but, this is the most varied set of storm track predictions I've seen. Anyone know where they're getting them?
posted by hank on Sep 22, 2005 - 24 comments

Sputnik rides again: Follow the amazing adventures of Sputnik the crocadilly. What was he up to August 7th? In metioning anything crocky, we should give a shout out to old Rol.
posted by ewkpates on Aug 23, 2005 - 1 comment

Unexpected Features in Acrobat 7: A company called Remote Approach offers a feature to PDF authors to allow them to track the dissemination of their documents. Linux Weekly News reports, "After doing a little research, we found that Adobe's Reader was connecting to http://www.remoteapproach.com/remoteapproach/logging.asp each time we opened the document."
posted by knave on Apr 13, 2005 - 36 comments

Beaterator - From the folks at Rockstar Games comes an easy to use flash implementation of MOD Tracking. You can upload sound files to add your own samples, and save your songs (after registering). See also the Rhymerator.
posted by addyct on Mar 15, 2005 - 4 comments

RFID to track students in Spring, Texas... the information is fed automatically by wireless phone to the police and school administrators. That's right: constant and continual monitoring of all the schoolkids in the district by the local police department.
posted by Irontom on Nov 17, 2004 - 74 comments

The Army are tagging honey bees to find UXBs. Now technology lets you silently locate mobile phones in the UK. Now you don't need to be 007 or Austin Powers to track someone. Is tagging offenders the soft option? How could someone already be watching you?
posted by DrDoberman on Sep 30, 2004 - 3 comments

(linked page needs Java, sorry) Victor Wooten's Bass and Nature Camp sounds interesting. Bass guitar and music master class in the woods, with animal tracking, meditation, health, and basic wilderness survival lessons.
posted by crunchburger on Jun 5, 2004 - 6 comments

Tracking the Threat.
posted by hama7 on May 26, 2004 - 15 comments

GPS Drawing. The world is your canvas.
Spirograph. Cat. The Magic Roundabout. Airplane ride.
posted by ssmith on Apr 28, 2004 - 5 comments

Asteroid orbits Enter the designation or name of any asteroid or comet, and a 3D orbit visualization tool will appear for that object. If Chicken Little had this link he might have calmed down a little. Or not...Find out if your favorite asteroid is about to rock your world.
posted by konolia on Sep 2, 2003 - 5 comments

Postal ID Plan A government report urges the U.S. Postal Service to create "smart stamps" to track the identity of people who send mail. [more inside]
posted by Irontom on Aug 13, 2003 - 20 comments

Riddle me this: why are so many people in such a hurry to monitor, record and analyze every aspect of modern life? A UCLA professor wants to outfit an entire first grade classroom with minuscule sensors. The National Science Foundation awarded $1.8 million to fund the study, which will see students wearing special caps tracking their location and what they're looking at while cameras and microphones will record their activities. All the data gathered will be processed by a data-mining software package. [more inside]
posted by Irontom on Aug 4, 2003 - 24 comments

RFID tagging and tracking plans (mirror 1, mirror 2) With the tag line "Identify Any Object Anywhere Automatically", this group (the MIT Auto-ID Center) is leading the way into our bold new future of total tracking. {Originally uncovered by CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering)}
posted by Irontom on Jul 8, 2003 - 18 comments

Michelin plans to embed trackable microchips in tires. The US tire manufacturer has begun testing electronic transponders that are "strictly for identification and tracking. " Congress passed the TREAD Act (Transportation, Recall, Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation) in response to the massive recall of Firestone tires on Ford Explorers and requires tire makers to more closely track their tires. Is this a legitimate use of technology, or does it present another opportunity to erode privacy? [Via /.]
posted by maniactown on Jan 22, 2003 - 24 comments

Santa Claus, elusive jolly old elf, has finally been located by someone curious enough (in both senses of the word) to use FedEx to track him down. (The page I linked to here only tells half the story; click that link down on the left to get FedEx's tracking page.)
posted by wanderingmind on Dec 6, 2002 - 20 comments

BlogTree.com is a blog genealogy site: "You can register your blogs and record which blogs inspired their creation." It's an interesting new way to catalog and find blogs in tandem with Blogdex's social network explorer. Which blogs inspired you to start your own blog and have you in turn inspired anyone else to blog? The favorite blogs thread was a long time ago so those of you who've had blogs for years, which new(ish) blogs inspire you to continue blogging now? [ via Blogroots ]
posted by lia on Aug 4, 2002 - 23 comments

FDA has ruled that implantable microchips dont need to be regulated. It looks like, the Jacobs family can now have their VeriChips. Does anyone else think that some kind of regulations of these devices is called needed? (via GMSV).
posted by justlooking on Apr 6, 2002 - 19 comments

The Global Positioning System is now commonly used for navigation in hundreds of ways worldwide. Some very innovative things are now being done with the system beyond simply finding out where you are. However, according to this BBC story, "emerging applications are being hampered by concerns that information from the global satellite network, which is run by the United States, could be switched off or restricted in the event of a security threat." Am I the only one worried about what will happen to all the hikers, rescue services, ships, small planes and geeks that would suffer if the network is switched off?
posted by Gamecat on Mar 16, 2002 - 12 comments

Netmind.com service no longer operational - Mind-it, the free personalized tracking service from NetMind, was a very handy tool to let people know when a web site's content changed. This was great for infrequently updated sites.
posted by elvissinatra on Jan 8, 2002 - 15 comments

For Paranoid Parents everywhere. A global satellite positioning wristwatch, in happy-happy day-glo colours, that you can security-clamp onto your kid's wrist. Then, at your office terminal, you can find out exactlywhere they are. Love the 911 button. How about actually playing with your kids, rather than launching them out into the urban wilderness, on a wireless tether? "Latch-key" takes on a whole new dimension.
posted by theplayethic on Jan 8, 2002 - 28 comments

Virgin Mobile Phone Records Which Map Users Whereabouts Kept Indefinitely. Admittedly, this data is only accurate to within a few hundred metres at the moment, but 'When the new breed of 3G - third generation - phones comes on stream, probably next year, they will enable the users' location to be pinpointed to within a couple of metres'. I know the current climate is increasingly pro-identity cards, pro-police state, but this can't be right, surely? Why do they want to keep this information indefinitely?
posted by boneybaloney on Oct 30, 2001 - 15 comments

Weblog tracker weblogs.com is going to change. In the new version, weblogs have to send an XML-RPC or SOAP 1.1 message to weblogs.com to indicate an alteration.
posted by tsja on Oct 3, 2001 - 13 comments

This is a list of airports currently meeting FAA security standards. Possibly of some benefit to those needing to use air travel for business, to reunite with loved ones, etc. I discovered this link while visiting Flightview, which has been down most of the day, presumably due to traffic. Flightview is a flight tracking system which runs on standard PCs.
posted by bargle on Sep 13, 2001 - 1 comment

A web buck! We got a web buck the other day! No, it's not some kind of ecommerce thing. It's a good ole' dollar bill doing something of a Johnny Appleseed -- traveling around the country like an adventurer. And we get to vicariously watch its progress. Today, we're throwing our where'sgeorge dollar into a lottery fund at work. Where will it go next? Toll booths, bars, and Florida amusement parks seem like popular destinations, but at least one bill's been passed via a stripper! Have you seen a where'sgeorge bill yet?
posted by debrahyde on Aug 1, 2001 - 11 comments

Another blog-tracking tool... Although I am braced for mefi attack for posting this one ("non-story - there are other web log trackers" etc, etc), I'm interested to hear what me-fier's think about the ultimate viability of such a product. Is a comprehensive weblog crawler a viable product? Would google-like algorithms work? What would this mean for said "memes" and their proliferation on the net? Further, is there a potential for a "commodification of the meme?" Would the corporates, in the style of viral marketing gimmicks ("I Kiss you!"), use such a "meme tracker" to identify and exploit net culture "hot spots?"
posted by preguicoso on Jul 30, 2001 - 23 comments

The Day My Car Ratted Me Out.
Dear Winston Smith,
Your 1984 Corvette has informed us that over the past month, you have failed to obey the speed limit 36 times, at times reaching speeds exceeding 130 MPH. As A result, we feel that we can no longer provide you with coverage. We have also supplied this information to the proper authorities, their jackbooted thugs should be in your driveway momentarily. Thank you.
INGSOC Insurance

First it was the rental car companies, now it is GM and the Insurance companies. This is the top of a very slippery slope of privacy issues and technology, specifically GPS.

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
posted by hotdoughnutsnow on Jul 27, 2001 - 45 comments

Google Zeitgeist charts the popularity of certain search queries on Google (via Slashdot). Of course, it'd be more interesting to track your own keywords, and you can. I stumbled across this partially hidden Google feature last night. (More inside...)
posted by waxpancake on Jul 6, 2001 - 23 comments

Big Brother is sorry, but all we have for you is a hatchback. On the one hand, he knew full well that they were monitoring him. On the other, they took the money out of his account without his knowledge, which could have led to all sorts of problems. Inevitable progress, or invasive technology?
posted by Ezrael on Jun 22, 2001 - 38 comments

If you are downloading from Napster or some other service, the RIAA is tracking you. Here's a screenshot of the Recording Industry's secret weapon.
posted by andre_111 on Mar 23, 2001 - 17 comments

For those who like to watch carcrashes but don't want to patronize that site with the vulgar name, The Standard maintains Dot Com Flop Tracker, Dot Com Layoff Tracker, and Dot Com Ex-Exec Tracker.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Oct 7, 2000 - 6 comments

Feds offer cookies to drug seekers.
posted by highindustrial on Jun 21, 2000 - 1 comment

"Real" has done it again. For the third time they've embedded surreptitious monitoring capability into one of their programs.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." What do we do for the third time? (A tactical nuke seems indicated.)
posted by Steven Den Beste on May 22, 2000 - 16 comments

Satellite Tracking - NASA keeps adding great resources online. The JTrack 3d applet lets you track every satellite in orbit (as a 3d model). ...and we've all seen the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Just goes to show that faster, cheaper, better isn't the only thing they are working on.
posted by jamescblack on May 4, 2000 - 1 comment

This whole click tracking thing... There's a spinoff discussion going on concerning the fact that I post links with embedded click-counting munging, so that I can see how many people are interested in the various topics I post, both here and on my own 'log.

On the basis of 2 replies, Matt's decided "he's glad he doesn't do that", and I think that might be a slight overreaction...
posted by baylink on Apr 18, 2000 - 18 comments

wonder where your money goes? Now you can find out.
posted by plinth on Mar 12, 2000 - 0 comments

The Shuttle Endeavour launched earlier today and thanks to those rocket scientists at NASA, you can see the exact part of the world they are flying over, right now.
posted by mathowie on Feb 11, 2000 - 0 comments

Mobiltrak is a company that can monitor what radio stations people are listening to in their cars. Privacy advocates say they're against this because the monitoring takes place without anyone's consent or knowledge, but I think they just don't want people knowing they really love Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys.
posted by mathowie on Jan 31, 2000 - 0 comments