Location Based Services
| September 26, 2011Data for the People, by the People: Designing Smartphone-based GISystems for Environmental Resource AssessmentLocation Based Services, SoftwareAccording to the most recent Nielsen data, smartphones comprise approximately 40% of mobile phones used by US citizens. As mobile device technologies (e.g., smartphones and tablets) are increasingly becoming an indispensable part of our lives, more and more companies are taking advantage of the GPS capabilities of these devices to provide powerful crowdsourced geospatial data ... read more September 6, 2011A Quarter of Adult Americans Use Location-Based ServicesGIS News, Location Based ServicesA new survey by the Pew Internet and American Life project has found that 28% of Americans use mobile and social location-based services (LBS). The survey looked at the usage among American adults for such services as Foursquare and accessing mobile driving directions. The survey found that the dominate preference among adults (28%) using location ... read more September 3, 2011GeofencingGIS News, Location Based ServicesWith all the location-based social media applications out there, it’s only logical that, in addition to being able to restrict access based on ones social groups (or circles), that geographic boundaries also be used as a restrictive parameter. That capability is called a geofence, a virtual way to set the geographic boundaries that a user ... read more August 6, 2011Using Location-Based Services to Build a Social NetworkLocation Based ServicesAvoiding the Google-Apple-Facebook Trap: How Enterprises Can Provide Their Own Mobile Solutions – a whitepaper by Dr. Alexander Koeppen and Michael Heinzel. Feature rich smartphones with state-of-the-art operating systems have become the dominating access device for the Internet worldwide. This development has opened up a multi billion dollar business – especially for few mobile services and internet ... read more June 15, 2011Seeing Philadelphia’s Past in Augmented RealityFeatures, Internet Mapping, Location Based ServicesGuest article by Deborah Boyer and Andrew Thompson. For over 140 years, the City of Philadelphia has been taking pictures of itself. Though local pride is never in short supply in Philly, far more practical reasons like risk management and documentation of public works projects have motivated decades of city-employed photographers to capture images of streets, ... read more June 26, 2010Accessing Directions and Mapping Via Mobile Phone Growing in PopularityLocation Based ServicesThe use of accessing directions and maps via mobile phone is rising in the United States. A market study by comScore found that 14% of mobile phone users acquired directions from their phones during the month of April. That percentage represents 33.5 million users and is a 44% increase over the previous year. “People are increasingly ... read more June 22, 2010Apple Now Collecting iPhone User LocationsLocation Based ServicesThe latest privacy policy for Apple has an added paragraph that allows Apple and its partners and licensees to collect location-based data about iPhone users. Any user attempting to download an app from Apple’s App Store must agree to the new policy before being allowed to download. The new language notifies users that “To provide ... read more November 25, 2009Waze Adds Road Goodies and PrizesGPS, Location Based ServicesWaze, which relies on crowdsourcing to build its traffic and road navigation data, has started a ‘Holiday High Points Challenge’ to encourage users to drive in areas where map problems have been identified. Like the game PacMan, drivers can “eat up” presents, hammers and cherries for points as they drive around certain areas. The top ... read more Navigation by Google for the Rest of the WorldGPS, Location Based ServicesGoogle firmly set its foot into the navigation world when it announced free Google Maps Navigation for the Android 2.0 at the end of October. The device is only available for the United States and only on select phones. Forbes takes a look at the supposed relationship Google is working on with Automotive Navigation Data, ... read more August 15, 2009Crowdsourcing traffic and roadsFree GIS, GPS, Location Based ServicesWaze has a free social mobile application that uses real-time input from local drivers to update traffic conditions for other users. Currently, those with iPhone and Android phones can download the free application. When the application is left open on their phones, real-time GPS information about the speed of the vehicle is relayed to other ... read more |


