Archive for the 'LBS' Category

The 3 L’s: Location, Location, Location

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on March 11, 2008
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Where? This is such a basic and fundamental questions that many or almost any science is related to this question.  And of course it is the base to the science of geography.

Space is what GIS is all about, and business knows the critical importance of the three Ls: location, location, location. (Michael F. Goodchild, UCSB)

I think with this sentence Goodchild wants to emphasis on the importance of location.

Location based Services are about Location!

We are in the midst of an information revolution, in which an endless array of data can be combined and manipulated in ways that tells us amazing things about our surroundings relevant to time, where we are, and what we want most. Traffic, points of interests, satellite imagery, and a variety of user-generated content are being used to create compelling new location-based solutions.

In a recent consumer survey, market research firm C.J. Driscoll & Associates found that one third of U.S. cellular subscribers were strongly interested in location-based mobile applications, including friend and business finder services. On the enterprise side, researcher In-Stat predicts a doubling of workforce LBS end users to more than a million by 2010.

Some interesting questions…

  • Is there also LBS 1.0 and LBS 2.0 as we know this term in the web?
  • When is the prediced hype for LBSs comming or will it come?
  • What makes the map more than just another widget and how it can facilitate innovation in services?
  • (How) will the convergence of mobile technology and the demand for location-awareness affect consumers and the service and device choices they make?

[where 2.0, UCSB]

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.

Concept Phones and Locational Services

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on February 27, 2008
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From time to time new concept phones like this Nokia 888 are presented to give a preview into the future of mobile devices. Most of them were never realized but the interesting thing is that most of these presentations include a mapping or location based service applications.

The question is how will these services be implemented in order to fullfill the requirements of individual users? How can personalization work in order to support people in their decisions about tasks related to space? On the other site how can locational privacy be ensured? In my opinion these are very interesting questions and I will try to focus on this during my master thesis.

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.

Is there Potential for Location Based Services (LBSs)?

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on February 14, 2008
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Worldwide subscribers to location-based communications services on mobile devices will increase by nearly 168 per cent in 2008 while revenue will grow by 169 per cent, according to Gartner, Inc.

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Figure 1: Current numbers and estimation about subscibers for location based services (LBSs) and revenue in the field of LBSs.

“Location-based service technologies have been around for several years but they have not experienced the rate of success that was anticipated at the beginning,” said Annette Zimmermann, a research analyst at Gartner. However, she said: “The market for location-based services is at a turning point, with indications of mainstream adoption in the next two to five years.” Gartner said the number of subscribers worldwide will rise from 16 million in 2007 to 43.2 million in 2008 and revenue will rise from $485.1 million in 2007 to $1,307.3 million in 2008. The number of subscribers is expected to reach nearly 300 million in 2011 and revenue is forecast to top $8 billion in 2011.

People are familiar with the small, satellite-based, GPS navigation devices in vehicles. Many want the same or similar services outside their vehicles and on their mobile phones. Increasingly, mobile phones are including GPS capabilities to supplement the less precise location sensing that is an integral function of all cellular systems. As the technology has improved, other services become possible, such as navigation for tourists and pedestrians, child location, find-a-friend and local directories and advertising.

Ms Zimmermann said: “Growth now will be stimulated by the arrival of mobile phones with built-in, precise location sensing and the arrival of new service providers, like Google and Nokia with its service offerings, keen to exploit geographic and positioning technologies.” Different forces are driving technical developments and patterns of adoption in different regions. In the United States, the government ruled that mobile phones should always be able to call an emergency number – enhanced 911 or E911 – and this has stimulated accurate positioning facilities. In Europe, the drive has come from consumer demand and the efforts of handset manufacturers and service operators. In the Far East, telecommunications carriers stimulated widespread adoption, particularly in South Korea, at the beginning of the decade and they have been broadening the range of services.

“The potential of this market will drive handset vendors, carriers and other service providers to compete with each other and new entrants will appear. Increased competition will reduce subscription prices,” Ms Zimmermann said. “The value chain is complex and fragmented and vendors will need to form alliances.”

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Location- Based Services Subscriber and Revenue Forecast, 2006-2011.” The report is available on Gartner’s Web site at www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=590907&subref=advsearch

[gartner, direction magazine]

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.

2008 mobile innovations in Barcelona

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on February 11, 2008
in LBS and Mobile
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This week the The Mobile World Congress 3GSM takes place in Barcelona, and is the focus of much of the industry interest. In this year we can expect a lot of new innovations during this Congress. Main topics are User Interface, Touchscreen, Geotagging, online content and much more. Sony-Ericsson has introduced several new devices, including their first Windows Mobile Phone. The market share is moving from the desktop to mobile devices in a lot of different application fields. Of course this is ideal for new players to bring innovative products on the market.

Mobile World Congress logo

Look for Hardware vendors to try and innovate independently from the network operators, look for a mobile device OS battle between established closed platforms and new open stacks (e.g. Google’s Android) and look for the network operators to try and hang on to their position on providing value added services beyond just network provision. LBS is becoming more mainstream, although it still needs to make the jump beyond providing maps on your mobile to provide context to all mobile services delivered by your mobile.

The iPhone has had limited market impact in Europe it seems, although how to design a mobile device from the point of usability and been redefined, and hopefully other manufactures must take note, just try and get someone who has used an iPhone for a week, to go back to Windows Mobile or Symbian.

The mobile industry is more dynamic this year than is has even been, the stakes for industry are much higher and hopefully the customer will benefit as ultimately mobile services should be an incredibly useful part of our lives, and will be if the industry can match the openness of the web in general [edparsons].

So lets see what will happen this week, maybe we will see also some innovations for “geo” applications.

Written and submitted from CUAS, Villach.

GPS and GIS: A change in navigation

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on February 7, 2008
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People today want spport in navigation everywhere and everytime. Therefore mobile gadgets, supporting navigation are extreamly popular. These devices are called Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs). GPS technology and mobile Geographic Information Servies are combined to allow the development of such devices.

Time, technology and user needs are constantly changing the way we do things, often making them easier and less expensive. When technology becomes affordable, individuals and industries are motivated to use it. When two great technologies are combined, a new innovation is created. Such is the case with GPS and GIS. On their own, GPS and GIS are fabulous inventions, but when combined, they provide results that neither of the products can deliver alone. As has been the case with many inventions, the resultant technology forever changes the way we do things. What was once a simple navigational aid is now a personal, interactive mapping and directional device. Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs) used in automobiles are one of the most popular ‘gadgets” available today, with thousands of street maps and related points of interest packaged with the hardware. This rich mapping resource provides drivers with customized routes. [...]

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But are there also some negative effects on that? Some questions arise because of the different handling with PNDs compared with good old paper maps:

  • How will the young driver of today be affected by this rather novel way of getting from point A to point B? Will she have folded road maps in her glove compartment?
  • Will persons have any concept of direction - east and west - and will he make note of where streets bend, end or change names?
  • Is the PND just novel technology or is it really a replacement of the paper map?
  • Will GPS technology change traditional travel and our concept of spatial awareness?
  • If you take the PND away from a driver, will he be lost?

[Directions Magazine]

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.