Japanese university tracking students via free iPhones
If you happen to be enrolling in Aoyama Gakuin University's School of Social Informatics in Tokyo this year, make sure to stop by the admissions office to pick up your free iPhone -- the school made a deal with Softbank Corporation, the iPhone's vendor in Japan, to give the phones to 550 students for school usage. But oh, there is one catch: they're also going to use the phones' GPS to track students, and make sure they're attending class on time.
It looks like skipping class is an issue -- the students at the school, despite having to answer an attendance check and/or hand in an attendance card, are still skipping out on class and having their classmates cover them. But apparently university officials think the iPhone plan will work better, because students will be less inclined, they believe, to pass off their iPhone to a buddy.
Need to keep track of truant students? There is, apparently, an app for that.
[via Ars]
