Always losing your keys? Forgetting where you stashed you wallet? Nokia's working on a proximity-based location system that may be just what the absent-minded among us need. The Nokia Locate Sensor is a slim battery-powered tag, roughly the side of an SD card or two, that gives out a low-powered radio signal. When a compatible Nokia phone is paired with tag, it can sense how far away a tag is, up to about 100 yards, and triangulate the direction of the tag, relative to the phone.

Uses for the Locate Sensor are myriad. Besides keeping track of where you stowed the rest of your gear, the system's software can be configured to only allow the phone to function in the presence of a certain tag. Just like how some late-model cars sense RF transmitters the driver carries instead of requiring a physical key, you could use a Locate Sensor to disable your phone if the handset's taken more than a few yards away from you. Of course, we don't recommend this kind of use simultaneously with using the system to find lost gadgets, as if you're the type to lose things, and you misplace that security-enabled tag, you'd be out of luck with a functionless handset. Nokia expects about 18 months of battery life for each tag, and a minimal power drain for the phone itself. There's no word on when Nokia plans to build the tech into any of its phones.

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