Cheap Cell-Phone Detector

An anonymous reader contributes a link to a BBC News article on a cheap cell-phone detector created by six New Zealand high-school students for a business competition, excerpting "The detector, which they have called CellTrac-r, works by picking up the bursts of radio frequency activity that emit from a mobile each time it sends or receives a call or a text message. The device can detect these bursts of electro-magnetic energy up to a radius of 30 metres. It can also measure the amount of the energy to determine the distance of the mobile.", and noting "Seems like a perfect /.er hack project, and as initiator I get 5% of gross profits."

Cheap Cell Phone detector?

[Flerg]

Why would you want to detect cheap cell phones?

Re:Neat, Now if only

[sr180]

Great, so they look at their phone to work out why it dropped out right as they swerve their vehicle into you..

Finally!

[WegianWarrior]

...a great way to find my cellphone those times when I put it on silent ringing and then forgets where I put it down :) (don't laught - it happens more often than I like to admidt). Now, if they could also find a way to indicate not just how far away the mobile phone is, but also in what direction... shouldn't be hard - either a directionloop, or two antennas 90 degress apart.

Got it already

[darnok]

So this thing can detect a mobile phone only when it sends or receives a call or text message? I'm not that smart, but I figure that would tend to coincide with either the phone making a ringing or beeping noise, or someone talking into it.

Hmm, how could I possibly detect this using attachments I've had on my head since birth ...?

Its easy

[FraggedSquid]

Just listen for somebody shouting "I'M ON THE TRAIN!". As if we didn't know already.

Coming soon to a movie theater near you

[Lord Kano]

so that the MPAA goon squads can kick your out and confiscate your phone before you can text all of your friends and warn them not to waste their money of whatever shitty movie you had the misfortune of seeing first.

LK

Re:30 metres?

[nkh]

If you want an exact conversion, 30 metres is equal to 3000 centimetres ;)

Re:Already have one

[Anonymous Coward]

How many dicks is that?

a lot.

Ears

[tiredwired]

Ears are so cheap I got two of them. I can detect cell phones quite well.

Re:Detect this

[Alranor]

Last I checked this was still the "land of the free".

Just out of curiousity, how many years has it been since you checked that?

Isn't that why the phone rings?

[TheOtherAgentM]

That way you know where the phone is when you get messages or calls. It's always funny to me when the phone rings and someone yells, "Phone!" That's why it rings in the first place.

Re:Cheap Cell Phone detector?

[Gordonjcp]

To save time when you're mugging people for their phone [theregister.co.uk].

Re:Similar one in my car

[OneSeven]

...........yes.

The first thing that ppl worry about after a building collapse is finding their mobile phones :P

(come on, i know MY mobile is more important to me that human life!!)

Re:Neat, Now if only

[Cpt_Kirks]

What about children, I know mine can be quite distracting.

That's why cars have trunks.