Google WTF Search Delivers

Mountain View, CA April 23, 2008 -- Nearly everyone has misplaced their keys, wallet or cell phone. Everyone has had at least one sock come up missing after the laundry has been completed. At least once a week one of the many remote controls is not where it is supposed to be. The people at Google Labs have now come to the rescue of us all with Google's latest application: Where To Find (WTF).

Fresh off the success of its popular Soul Searching release, Google, the Mountain View, California-based technology behemoth, has plans to move from our essence and into our homes. In February of this year Google released the beta version of the WTF home search package to approximately 1,000 U.S. test households.

The WTF system comes in a bundled software package and requires minimal computer knowledge to operate. In the beta test demos the homeowners had to install the software and attach the radio frequency identification (RFID) receiver to their computer. Then they entered information relating to the dimensions of their particular house along with the furniture arrangement of the rooms within it. Once the diagrams were set, a master RFID coordination device needed to be walked around the house to synchronize the coordinates within the house to the diagrams within the application. The only matter left was for the test candidates to apply the included 100 fingernail-sized adhesive blotters containing a rice grain-sized RFID transmitter to those 100 items that have demonstrated a tendency toward disappearing. Once this has been accomplished the WTF system is operational and the tagged items are being tracked.

"With two young children, a dog and a forgetful husband, we really needed help tracking things down," said stay-at-home mom Collen Frumplehuff, one of the WTF testers for Google. "Before I was just running around the house looking for things while saying, 'WTF! Where is it!' Now I just go to the computer, open WTF and find it," Ms. Frumplehuff exclaimed.

The secret to the technology is its simplicity. Google's director of WTF development Bernard Fagnano explained, "Once the virtual grid schema has been adapted to the actual coordinates of the given physical locality and the RFID blotters have been placed it is only a matter of a communicative integration between transmitter and receiver for relay, reception and identification at the low frequencies of 125 - 134 kHz and 13.56 MHz for a cognitive carbon-based life form to ascertain the precise location of that which had been presumed to be non-locatable. Or, in layman's terms," Mr. Fagnano continued, "when the map on the computer corresponds to the house and the stickers have been put on things a little radio signal from the lost thing to the computer shows the person where their lost item is."

While Google has been pleased with the beta test results, others have not been pleased at all. Privacy rights advocacy groups have suggested that Google may use the information to tip off law enforcement officials about what items a person has or that hackers may be able to enter the system to identify places for possible robbery. Google has responded by pointing out that the information is stored on one's local hard drive and not accessible from the outside. Although, they have admitted that there is communication between the software and Google, but that it is only one-way and for the sake of updating the software.

This explanation has not satisfied all the critics, however. Herman Bumfiddle, a Montana ostrich farmer, is scared of this new WTF system, suggesting, "Google could turn around and sell the information about where I keep my guns to the United Nations." He added, "I bet the UN would love to know that."

This criticism aside, Google seems poised to move forward with plans to make WTF available nationwide some time early next year. No information has been made available with regard to pricing, but Google co-founder Larry Page has been quoted as saying, "WTF, it's not going to be free!"

By Raoul Thibodeaux, Avant News Staff Writer