If your son or daughter put a new cell phone on his or her wish list this holiday season, consider making it a third-generation (3G) phone with GPS. That is if you want to future-proof your purchase for at least a couple more holidays (before 4G phones get their official launch in 2010)!

While many high schools are just starting to consider doing what Empire High School did way back in 2005 (laptops instead of textbooks for every student on an all-wireless campus), colleges are now using cell phones as well as laptops.

Not just for the obvious testing via text message or in-class responses, but for security too. Boston University recently announced requiring students to sign up for their cell phone alert system. While many campuses utilize such technology, BU would be the first to require it. Some tech-savvy parents parents have already tapped into this emerging technology compliments of their mobile carriers family-plan service options.

Verizon's Chaperone service now includes "Child Zone" locations defined around specific areas, such as school and home. Parents can get text messages whenever a family member enters or leaves the "Child Zone" with his or her handset. Sprint Nextel also has a location-based service Family Locator which will let parents use a phone or PC to pinpoint the location of a child on a map. The service can also notify parents when a child arrives at a specified location. Sprint even teamed up with Family Watchdog a company that has mapped the home and work addresses of registered sex offenders in all 50 states. One feature kids like enables the service to notify the child by text message whenever a parent is snooping on them.