Techlines Today

Where’s the Beef?

By Adam Myers ⋅ June 9, 2008 ⋅ Tags: big brother, cows, gps

The same Global Positioning System (GPS) technology used to track vehicles is now being used to track cows.

But Agricultural Research Service (ARS) animal scientist Dean M. Anderson has taken tracking several steps further with a Walkman-like headset that enables him to “whisper” wireless commands to cows to control their movements across a landscape—and even remotely gather them into a corral.

[...]

The commands vary from familiar “gathering songs” sung by cowboys during manual round-ups, to irritating sounds such as sirens and even mild electric stimulation if necessary to get cows to move or avoid penetrating forbidden boundaries.

How long before this technology migrates from our bovine friends and into our friendly government’s mits? It’s probably not as far-fetched as you’d think. When I was a child, my parents had my fingerprints taken and put into a database, in the name of child safety should I become lost or kidnapped. It sounded like a good idea at the time, whatever parents could do to help protect their child right? Even today, not many would blink at the thought of this but that’s really how things start. Before we know it, all our children are walking around with an embedded GPS chip. It would not even surprise me if it was the parents making overtures for this technology. All in the name of safety right?

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