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Concept
Geo-fence
Summary
A geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. A geofence can be dynamically generated (as in a radius around a point location) or match a predefined set of boundaries (such as school zones or neighborhood boundaries).
The use of a geofence is called geofencing, and one example of use involves a location-aware device of a location-based service (LBS) user entering or exiting a geofence. Geofencing approach is based on the observation that users move from one place to another and then stay at that place for a while. This method combines awareness of the user's current location with awareness of the user's proximity to locations that may be of interest. This activity could trigger an alert to the device's user as well as messaging to the geofence operator. This info, which could contain the location of the device, could be sent to a mobile telephone or an email account.
Geofencing was invented in the early 1990s and patented in 1995 by American inventor Michael Dimino, using the first-of-its-kind GPS and GSM technology for tracking and locating anywhere on the globe from a remote location.
Cellular geofencing for global tracking is cited in the United States Patent Office over 240 times by major companies such as IBM and Microsoft since 1995 and is first mentioned as:
A global tracking system (GTS) for monitoring an alarm condition associated with and locating a movable object, the GTS comprising:
a cellular telephone located with the movable object;
a GPS (global positioning system) receiver located with the movable object, the GPS receiver being effective for providing data reflecting a present spacial position of the movable object, in terms of spacial latitude/longitude coordinates;
an interface between the GPS receiver and the cellular telephone, the interface being connected between the GPS receiver and the cellular telephone and including circuitry for transmitting the spacial coordinates from the GPS receiver through the telephone, wirelessly to a remote location; and
an alarm for detecting that the object has been moved, by calculating a spatial movement of the object which exceeds a predetermined distance based on information supplied by the GPS receiver, and the alarm initiating the transmission to the remote location the spatial coordinates from the GPS receiver when said movement of predetermined distance has been detected.
Official source
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