mobloc8

From CNET News.com.

Last Mile Communications has ideas about a range of services it could provide from wireless access points mounted on lampposts throughout the UK. Such services include wireless broadband access, location services, emergency services, and information services utilising data stored locally in each lamppost. It costs around £500 to hook up each lamppost.

Last Mile’s plan doesn’t involve any sort of interaction with the telephone network. That could be a good thing, as they aren’t reliant on cooperation from telcos, but it also means that their business will have trouble selling its services once mobile phone location technologies and 3G data services become more widespread.

From Silicon.com.

Orange has unveiled a new cell triangulation service for their GSM network to locate devices with what they claim is greater accuracy than GPS. While Cell ID wouldn’t be more accurate than GPS in an open field, I think what they’re driving at is that GPS doesn’t work well in built-up areas or indoors, where the handset can’t see the GPS satellites. Their Cell ID system can get a location as long as the device has GSM service. Cell ID is also cheaper and easier to deploy.

Orange is claiming a 550m accuracy for their Cell ID service, which is good enough for many applications.

The SMARTLocator.TAXI application from E-Taxis.com has been released in Beta form for testing. It uses GPS (free, if available) or ‘mobile triangulation’ (20 pence per request) to find the telephone number of the nearest taxi service to your current location. You can then call them and request a pick-up. It works anywhere in the UK, and runs on any Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 SmartPhone.

If you live in the UK, have an MS SmartPhone, and have tried out this application, please post your thoughts below in the comments. Did it work properly? How long does it take to give you the phone number? Would you pay for such an app?

From Netimperative.

Mapminder.co.uk has revamped the web site for its paid-for service in order to better compete with free rivals such as Multimap and Streetmap. Their services include weekly entertainment information, eating and drinking guides, a route finder, venue bookmarking, and (opt-in) mobile tracking of friends and family.

Are you a Mapminder user? How does it compare to Multimap and/or Streetmap? What do you think of the new and improved services? Please post your comments below!

Queen Elizabeth II handed the Commonwealth Games baton to Aussie supermodel Elle MacPherson in a ceremony held at Buckingham Palace on March 15. The baton contains a GPS unit and two cameras, allowing anybody who’s interested to track its progress on the official Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games Baton Relay web site.

Not particularly riveting viewing, but I guess it’ll get more traffic as the Games get closer and grow in the media spotlight.

From America’s Network.

This is the first offering from a new partnership between Nextel and MapQuest. Services available include a “find me” service to allow a user to pinpoint their location on a map on their phone, services to locate nearby restaurants, hotels, airports, hospitals, etc, as well as maps and navigation directions.

There is also a web-based component to the service, which allows users to share their location anywhere on Nextel’s nationwide network with friends and family. The web site can also be used to track their location history, for example to document a road trip.

From Newsweek.

This article outlines some of the location applications that might turn out to be double-edged swords. It predicts that these types of applications will initially creep into everyday use as handy tools - friend-finders, personal safety services, navigation services, etc - and then slowly increase their reach until they have real impacts on our lives and our privacy - employee monitoring, police surveillance, location-based advertising, etc. If our location history is being recorded, even if we’re not being watched at the time, how do we know that past data won’t be abused at some point in the future?

It also introduces a great new word - ‘geoslavery’:

a practice in which one entity, the master, coercively or surreptitiously monitors and exerts control over the physical location of another individual to routinely control time, location, speed and direction for each and every movement of the slave.

What do you think? Where do we draw the line between acceptable monitoring and invasion of privacy?