by johnt
5. May 2011 09:50
A report from Halifax Home Insurance predicts that the population of garden gnomes will increase by 1.4 million this summer. Not in Zurich but in the UK, Oxford is said to be the gnome capital of Britain, with a quarter of residents owning the ornaments.
Thefts are most likely in Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham and Southampton. One in four people have been the victim of a "gnomenapper", leading to a thriving online market, with some ornaments selling on auction sites for more than £600.
We are thinking of developing some applications to help, the first one is ‘gnomeaways’ based around our goneway suppressions, where we will track the disappearance of gnomes. We would of course use the Gnome Away Suppression File (GAS).
In the war against international gnome trafficking, we are considering an enhancement to mobile validation service, if the gnomes are taken abroad and they use a mobile phone we can help trace which country they are in using our gnobile validation service.
Data8 will soon be moving gnome soon, we will keep you informed.