mobloc8

Five European organisations have set up a consortium named GREAT (Galileo Receivers for mass market) to develop enabling technologies for mass market receivers for Galileo services.

The GREAT project is developing the advanced technologies required for the next generation of positioning receivers - to be used with the new Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System.

The project is operated by a Consortium of leading developers around Europe and is funded by the Galileo Joint Undertaking within the European FP6 Framework.

The Consortium includes:

• ACORDE SA
• Deutsches zentrum fur Luft und Raumfahrt
• PA Consulting Group
• Tampere University of Technology
• u-blox AG

The GREAT project is managed by the Galileo Joint Undertaking, through EU FP6 funds.

Source: Electronics Weekly.

Pivotel, the company behind Globalstar Australia, has announced a strategic investment in Location-Based Services developer Tenzeng. Globalstar, which offers a unique dual-mode cellular/satellite phone service in Australia, plans to offer asset and personnel tracking services based on the Tenzeng technology.

Tenzeng needs the Pivotel funding to launch suite of `finder solutions’ based on its Location-Based Services (LBS) technology.

Source: LBSZone.com

C.J. Driscoll & Associates has released a nationally projectable marketing research study on consumer interest in a wide range of GPS-based applications and wireless services. The study assesses interest and willingness to pay for vehicle-installed and portable navigation systems, traffic information and other telematic services, and location-based services delivered to cell phones. It also quantifies consumer use and satisfaction with navigation systems and telematic services, and provides feedback from early adopters of LBS. In addition, the study assesses consumer opinions regarding location-based advertising and the potential impact of location-based services on privacy.

Source: WebWire.

This article from the Australian IT section of The Australian newspaper, We Know Where You Live, looks at the business side of location-based services in the Australian marketplace.

In a back-to-school article looking at gadgets for students, the Miami Herald is recommending the Sprint Family Locator service for tracking childrens’ phones.

Garmin moves to open path for new uses for software - Imagine a real estate agent being able to download listings into a car’s navigation device, which would plot a route to see all the properties complete with arrival times.

Such applications are possible if Olathe-based Garmin Ltd. follows the thinking behind a patent it received June 13. The patent calls for a process “to rapidly permit any desired customization of software applications” on navigation devices.

Personal Navigation and Tracking Lead Profitable LBS Applications in Europe, Says Berg Insight - Berg surveyed more than 200 LBS professionals, asking which applications they have already deployed and which positioning technology they think will be the most important in coming years. The most common applications today are information services like yellow pages and weather services, followed by navigation and tracking applications.

Google has had a lot of press lately for their local search for mobile phone users, but they’re certainly not the only game in town.

Check out SearchEngineWatch’s roundup of local mobile search tools. Lots of cool stuff.

Google has developed a new service that enables cell phone users in the US to search Google Local directly from their mobile handset.

Although it doesn’t use any sort of mobile location technology (users enter their location in manually), this is a fascinating local search service. It’s quite likely that they will eventually support location lookup as location services become more widespread, which will make the mobile search even more valuable to users.

Google has a reputation for innovation, so it’ll be interesting to see where they take this concept.

Source.

From PalmInfoCenter

The Treo 650 looks like a great phone/PDA combo. Various reviewers seem quite impressed with the bundled software and its ease of use. Nice to see another A-GPS enabled phone on the market, too:

The GSM Treo has a quad band wireless radio that uses the 850/900/1800/1900 MHz frequencies. The CDMA model uses a digital dual-band CDMA/1xRTT radio operating on the 800/1900 MHz bands. The GSM model also support high speed EDGE networks with data speeds averaging up to 135 kilobits per second (kbps). It also features E911 compliance with a built in GPS chip that is solely used for the enhanced E911 emergency location service.

One issue seems to be the availability of WiFi drivers, which is a disappointment. According to the article, prices start at USD$449, and range up to USD$699 for the unlocked GSM model.

If you have a Treo 650, please do post your comments below. Feel free to also post links to other reviews and/or good places to buy them.

Join us at the first O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference to explore the emerging consumer and enterprise ecosystems around location-aware technologies–ecosystems that increasingly impact the way we work and play. Location-determining technologies like GPS, RFID, WLAN, cellular networks and networked sensors enable an ever-growing array of capabilities from local search, mapping, and business analytics to enterprise integration, commercial applications, and software infrastructure.

Read more at the Where 2.0 site.

This sounds like a fantastic opportunity to see what other companies are doing in the location marketplace, what’s happening in various countries, what’s coming down the pipe in the next few years, and what the issues are going to be, including security and privacy concerns.

Let’s hope that IT Conversations makes the audio available, like they have for several other recent conferences, for those of us who can’t make it there in person.

From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

This article looks at a few applications to track children (and cars) using GPS-enabled mobile phones. As the reporter points out, these types of applications always hit up against the “Big Brother” issue - people simply don’t like the idea that they’re being tracked everywhere they go.

Child experts and parents agree that while such devices may temporarily solve reckless driving and help keep children safe, they do not address the underlying parent-child trust issue. Parents must stay involved in their children’s lives and maintain an open channel of communication to keep children safe, said Dr. Joanne Kaufman, professor of sociology at the University of Miami.

“Such devices facilitate, but don’t replace, actual parenting,” Kaufman said. “If the parent is always intervening, the kid is never going to learn how to be independent.”

What do you think? Under what circumstances do you think it’s OK to track your teenager’s location? Would your kids agree with you?

From MSMobiles.com.

In this article we present “quick map” - a location based service at 3G operator “3″ in UK - that allows you to find out where you are at the moment (sometimes in the night and in the middle of nowhere it can be problematic). It is kind of “GPS location finding” but without GPS - usually network calculates your location based on triangulation.

As the articles points out, non-GPS location determination methods have benefits and drawbacks. They can be faster than GPS to provide a location, you don’t need to carry a separate GPS unit around with you, and location can be determined anywhere that you have network coverage (including indoors, where GPS falls down). The downside is that you’ll be charged for each location query, and depending upon the technology used the accuracy is often worse than GPS.

From SpatialNews.

Redlands, California- ESRI, the global leader and provider of geographic information system (GIS) software and commercial Web services, congratulates LOC-AID Technologies LLC for receiving the Peer-to-Peer/Find Me application category award in the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge. The LBS Challenge was a location-based services (LBS) application development contest held in conjunction with the CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association). Within the Peer-to-Peer/Find Me application category, LOC-AID was selected among three semifinalists by a panel of 11 judges representing wireless carriers, mobile device manufacturers, wireless infrastructure providers, and information technology leaders.

SymbianOne has a nice roundup piece from the CTIA Wireless 2005 event. Location-related items include:

• Route 66 turns your Symbian UIQ mobile phone into a wireless navigation system
• TomTom USA announced TomTom Rider, a mobile navigation system for motorbikes and scooters
• Syniverse has a GPS-based pet tracking service
• Telcontar demonstrated navigation, tracking and asset management applications
• Telmap (makers of phone-based navigation services) announced the opening of their US office
• Televigation announced a new version of their phone-based navigation, tracking and dispatching solution
• Wherify demonstrated the Wherifone G550, the world’s smallest GSM/Enhanced GPS phone
• MapInfo announced a new version of MapX Mobile (v5.0)