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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]
Maryland considering GPS tracking for truant students
Regardless of your personal opinion regarding the increasing use of so-called "Big Brother" tactics by the governments of the world, you've gotta hand it to the Maryland legislature for its sheer audacity here. "What, your kids won't go to school? We've got an idea, let's track 'em with GPS like the criminals they are!" Though perhaps parents will be delighted to learn that if Billy skips school too many times, an upcoming bill means they won't have to bother to do anything about it. According to Maryland Delegate Doyle Niemann, "They're not in control of their children. They take them to school, the kid walks in the front door and then out the back door. It doesn't make any sense to continue to beat on the parents." Seems like the schools might try a bit harder to spot these kids in transit from front door to back door, but if they're proving this elusive already, perhaps GPS really is the only answer.[Via The Raw Feed]
