Consumer Central - Times Online - WBLG

Big Mother is Watching You

In the wake of Madeleine McCann's disappearance, interest in hi-tech monitoring equipment for children is booming. Some of it is down right spooky: There are cell phone spies that allow parents to read their children's texts; Jame Bond style trackers for cars that email you if your teen' starts speeding; alcohol and drugs testers that can be secretly fitted on the loo at home...

My colleague Richard Woods put an excellent piece together for last Sunday's paper on the subject, running through some of the products available and concluding that a lot of them are likely to do more harm than good. After all, kids won't learn to mitigate risks unless they take some in the first place. There is also the broader issue of trust to consider.

But one product that might be worth a look at is the Loc8tor (above), a British made device that can pick up a signal from a tag about the size of your thumbnail from as far as 600 feet away and then guide you straight to it. It can track up to 24 tags at once (great for large families!) and if you don't have quite that many kids you might want to attach the spare tags to your handbag, key ring or pets.

The device (which costs £99 for a top of the range set) can also be set so it sounds an alarm if one of your tags wanders outside a pre-defined distance. We've not tested one yet but plan to in the next few weeks. Let us know your thoughts on the practicalities and ethics of the subject...

Now you set the price of car hire

This sounds like it's worth a try: a new service from CarDelMar that allows you (rather than the hire company) to specify the price you are willing to pay for car hire.  You say where and when you would like to hire a car and how much you are willing to pay for it. Your bid is made available to local car hire firms who must then decide whether or not to accept your offer. No doubt silly bids will be rejected, but if you pitch it right one of them should go for it for fear of loosing the business to a rival. At least that's the idea. CarDelMar says it acts as "as a one-stop shop for car hire to over 2,000 destinations in 35 countries". Let us know if it works...

Five Ways to Crack the Great Train Robbery

Overcrowded, overpriced and underserviced. Life for passengers on Britain's railways has never been particularly pleasant, and above inflation hikes in ticket prices earlier this year made it even less so. Canny commuters, however, can get cheaper tickets by taking advantage of Britain's labyrinthine fare structure. By booking early, buying singles instead of returns and splitting journeys into smaller segments the commuter can emerge the winner. Here, courtesy of ticketing expert Barry Doe are a few top tips...

KrazyDad Spins Wheel of Lunch

Wow! A near perfect invention. Called the Wheel of Lunch, it saves you the terrible trouble and stress of having to decide for yourself which restaurant to eat in. Just click on the wheel, type in your post code and it decides for you, randomly selecting from the best scofferies in your area. Alas, the Wheel only works for the US at the moment. But if you lobby it's inventor, a chap called KrazyDad, I'm sure he'll come up with a UK version....