iPhone to replace register at Japan university

Source: Reuters

A Japanese university is giving away Apple Inc's trendy iPhone to students for free, but with a catch: the device will be used to check their attendance.

The project, which is being tested ahead of its formal launch in June, involves 550 first and second year students and some staff of a department at Aoyama Gakuin University, which is located just outside Tokyo in Sagamihara city.

The school's iPhones are meant to create a mobile information network between students and professors, but they are also a convenient way for the teachers to take attendance in class.

As students enter the room, instead of writing their name on a sheet, they simply type in their ID number and a specific class number into an iPhone application.

To prevent students from logging in from home or outside class, the application uses GPS location data and checks which router the students have logged in to.

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They take attendance in university? I thought at that point you are old enough to determine if you want to show up to class or not. You're paying for it. I figured the University would be cheering for students to fail so they could get more years and money out of them. That's what spring and summer semesters are for!

This is terrible. It's like having a dog tag on you. GPS tracking? I can see a professor checking up on a student cause he's absent and see him humping some chick in his dorm room.