Wheels of Zeus

Wheels of Zeus (or WoZ) was a company founded in 2002 by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][excessive citations]} WoZ made wireless hardware for keeping track of the physical location of enabled objects.

Smart tag

Type	GPS locator tag
Release date	Announced but never released
Discontinued	March 2006 (2006-03)
Operating system	n/a
CPU	n/a
Memory	n/a

In 2004, Motorola announced that it has licensed Wheel of Zeus' WOZ Platform "to develop new networked consumer-electronics devices".^[8]

The licensable technology consisted of three components:^[9][10][11]

1. Smart Tag A tag containing GPS that could be attached to various objects, such as a briefcase or pet. "Acceptable areas" could be preprogrammed, such that the tag would signal the Tag Detector when it was moved outside them. The tag communicated over a wireless network named "wOzNet" and used GPS techniques to transmit the tag's position over extreme distances with very little power.
2. Tag Detector This was a handheld device that could monitor a collection of Smart Tags, and provide a distance and direction to help locate them when they were lost. It also communicated with the wOz Service when a Smart Tag was lost.
3. WoZ Service An internet-based service that could provide the locations of the various Smart Tags, as well as send an email or SMS notification when a Smart Tag moved outside of its "acceptable area".

In March 2006, Wheels of Zeus shut down operations.^[12] Some assets and patents were acquired by ZonTrak.^[13]

References

1. Ziff Davis, Inc. (26 March 2002). PC Mag. Ziff Davis, Inc. pp. 26–. ISSN 0888-8507.
2. IDG Network World Inc (28 January 2002). Network World. IDG Network World Inc. pp. 5–. ISSN 0887-7661.
3. Stephen Graham (15 April 2008). Cities, War, and Terrorism: Towards an Urban Geopolitics. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 256–. ISBN 978-0-470-75302-6.
4. Evan I. Schwartz (2004). Juice: The Creative Fuel that Drives Today's World-class Inventors. Harvard Business School Press. pp. 147–. ISBN 978-1-59139-288-0.
5. Robert A. Baron; Scott Andrew Shane (January 2007). Entrepreneurship: A Process Perspective: A Process Perspective. Cengage Learning. pp. 202–. ISBN 978-0-324-36558-0.
6. Harry Henderson (1 January 2009). A to Z of Computer Scientists. Infobase Publishing. pp. 278–. ISBN 978-1-4381-0918-3.
7. Jack W. Plunkett (1 June 2006). Plunkett's Wireless, Wi-Fi, RFID and Cellular Industry Almanac 2007 (E-Book): Wireless, Wi-Fi, RFID and Cellular Industry Market Research, Statistics, Trends and Leading Companies. Plunkett Research, Ltd. pp. 50–. ISBN 978-1-59392-416-4.
8. Hines, Matt. "Motorola licenses Wheels of Zeus for electronics". CNET. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
9. Katherine J. Strandburg; Daniela Stan Raicu (2006). Privacy and Technologies of Identity: A Cross-Disciplinary Conversation. Springer. pp. 94–. ISBN 978-0-387-26050-1.
10. Michael Sorkin (12 February 2013). All Over the Map: Writing on Buildings and Cities. Verso Books. pp. 118–. ISBN 978-1-84467-220-2.
11. IDG Network World Inc (28 July 2003). Network World. IDG Network World Inc. pp. 18–. ISSN 0887-7661.
12. Michael Kanellos (March 16, 2006). "Wozniak shuts down Wheels of Zeus: Not everything turns out to be Apple". CNet News. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
13. Hammond, John (2020-06-16). "Alex Fielding: A journey of innovation, unique problem solving, working with the giants of tech…". Medium. Retrieved 2020-09-24.

External links

• of Wheels of Zeus official site.