Wireless Pulse, February 2012

In the public dialogue about mobile privacy concerns, I’ve yet to hear a plea to turn back the clock to when mobile apps were supported by subscription fees. Surprisingly, many consumers don’t understand the devil pact that free services come with a loss of privacy. With the exception of enterprise offerings, subscription fees have shrunk or disappeared for most location-based services. At the Institute for Communication Technology Management at the University of Southern California, Allison Cera of Lucent-Alcatel talked about the intersection of technology and identity. More than half of the people in her study felt they shouldn’t have to provide information about themselves just to get the most out of online services. Among the most connected technology users, the expectation of privacy was lower.

As companies rework privacy agreements, it’s interesting that Cera’s research indicates people prefer a simpler privacy policy that is easier to understand, over one that provides more comprehensive protection. In addition to simplicity, people prefer uniformity. Almost 90 percent want to see Internet and mobile service providers, social networking sites, and search engines all governed by the same laws and regulations regarding the collecting, analyzing, and sharing of online data.

Google knows all? Google has experienced heat from lawmakers and consumers over its efforts to consolidate user privacy standards and share data among its offerings. Google announced plans to connect user data across desktop and mobile services including Google+, Gmail and YouTube. “Our new privacy policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services,” blogged Alma Whitten of Google. “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

You know where I’ve been. Would consumers exchange transparency into whereabouts and driving behavior for a cheaper insurance premium? TomTom is providing the technology behind a new insurance product, which bases premiums on driving behavior. TomTom has teamed up with insurance broker Motaquote for the launch of Fair Pay Insurance, a product that rewards “good” drivers with lower premiums. Drivers who sign up for Fair Pay receive a TomTom navigation device. They will also have a LINK tracking unit fitted in their vehicles, allowing driver behavior and habits to be monitored by the insurer. This information can also be viewed by the policy-holder in their driver dashboard.

A kick without GPS. Mobile location-based advertising, dependent on geo-locating shoppers, hasn’t ramped up as fast as the industry diviners predicted, but shopkick, a location-based shopping app has gotten traction. The company asserts that it helped drive $110 million of in-store revenue to its retail partners in 2011. shopkick rewards shoppers for walking into stores and interacting with products. The solution is not GPS based, as indoor signals remain problematic. Instead, the shopkick phone app detects its presence in a particular store by “hearing” a signal that is emitted from a store-based device. The store is able to send the shopper a reward that can be redeemed for loot.

Pressure mounts for LightSquared. Sprint has given LightSquared until mid-March to obtain FCC clearance for its LTE network. Recent government tests showed that LightSquared interfered with GPS, even under a new deployment plan that the company promoted as a fix to the issue. Lightsquared’s assertion that GPS receivers are “not entitled to any interference protection whatsoever” is open for public comment at the FCC until March 13. Harbinger Capital, the hedge fund that backs LightSquared, reported a 47% decline in its biggest fund.

Love on the Road. Valentine’s Day was yesterday, and love is in bloom. TomTom undertook a mission to find love on the asphalt by seeking roads in the U.S. that are considered romantically named. Texas was a stand out with 102 miles of romantically named roads. Who would’ve thought that the lone star state was such a softie? The most common romantic road names are Rose Road, Lover’s Lane, Valentine Road, Darling Road and Love Street. TomTom counted roads throughout the U.S. containing the words: Couples, Cupid, Darling, Forget-Me-Not, Kiss, Love, Lover, Romance, Rose, Smooch, Sweetheart, Valentine. Smooch Street?

This app is filled with many Location Based features.

Some of the features are:

• Get your current Location
• Share your location with Friends on Facebook, The Office, Twitter etc
• Share your location via Email
• Use the LocMi™ functionality to communicate a Location.
• Reminder Service – Vehicle Reminders like NCT, Service Due, Tax, Insurance etc.
• Parking Reminder Service – Reminds you when your parking is up.
• Rescue me
• Breakdown Assist

It is publically available. If you would like to try the App. Please search iTunes for Ilocatedirect.

Now Available on the Apple Apps Store FREE:

Click Here to Get it Now. Or Search iLocateDirect on Apps Store.

January 24, 2012 By: Alan Cameron

GPS trackers are a form of search, and police must obtain a search warrant to use them, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled. This comes as a setback to government and police agencies who increasingly rely on GPS surveillance. Justice Scalia said the government’s installation of a GPS device to monitor a vehicle’s movements constitutes a search and violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

The most interesting part of the Supreme Court decision pops up in a somewhat open-ended what-if comment concerning future issues that at least one justice thinks the court should address. Consumer privacy issues remain very much alive and potentially troublesome for location-based services in the United States

Justice Samuel Alito said the court should examine how expectations of privacy affect whether warrants are required for remote surveillance using electronic methods that do not require the police to install equipment, such as GPS tracking of mobile telephones. “If long-term monitoring can be accomplished without committing a technical trespass — suppose for example, that the federal government required or persuaded auto manufacturers to include a GPS tracking device in every car — the court’s theory would provide no protection,” Alito wrote.

This, or its exact counterpart, has already occurred in cell phones: government-mandated location technology embedded in all devices, over a sliding timescale that comes to maturity, or full application, fairly soon.

The Register-Guard newspaper of Eugene, Oregon published an editorial containing the quote reprinted in the introduction to this column. The writer went on to say that “The result was a ruling that sidestepped tough questions, such as how to treat information held by cell phone companies and how to treat information gathered from devices that are installed at the factory.”
The Register-Guard went on to state “Advances in science and technology have produced GPS devices that have unlimited potential for abuse.”

“In the face of the very real threat of ubiquitous surveillance, Congress should complete its revamping of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Lawmakers have begun work on this task, but the legislation is not ready for passage.”

The words “no protection” in Justice Alito’s opinion imply that personal cell-phone records are open season to government investigators. Such has already been the case in a number of instances.

Murkier than government use — if such a concept is conceivable — is commercial use of a consumer’s location data. In other words, privacy. This issue has been raised since GPS-enabled phones were first theorized, and since the very whisper of the first location-based service, but it has never been fully or adequately addressed by anyone in industry or government. The notion of “granting permission” to use one’s location data, in order to benefit from services thus provided, still seems unresolved to me.

Most consumers and cell-phone users do not have a clear picture of just how far the ball goes if they check a box that says “agree to terms” or otherwise signify that they are releasing their location data in some undefined form. Sure, they think they’ll just get a coupon the next time they pass near an industrial-strength coffee shop. They have no idea just how much their location data and travel patterns could be exploited by companies seeking to sell them something based on their profile. If you think robotelemarketing – the automated sales calls, often extremely deceptive in their offer, that come as you’re sitting down to dinner – are the worst form of pest, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Eugene Register-Guard made this recommendation: ““In the face of the very real threat of ubiquitous surveillance, Congress should complete its revamping of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Lawmakers have begun work on this task, but the legislation is not ready for passage.”

I am not intimately familiar with the draft of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, but I have a feeling it does little more than scratch the surface on this issue; it probably focuses on government use of private citizens’ location data, and does not begin to consider commercial use.

So far, we are just talking about the United States.

Regarding GNSS use elsewhere around the world  for tracking criminals:

In Russia and China, one can reasonably presume that the interests of the state will crush any notion of citizen rights, so that government and police use of GNSS tracking will be placed under no restriction. Europe under the European Union has fairly strong citizen protections in some areas, less so in others. Japan, Korea, Australia . . . I just don’t know.

Regarding GNSS use elsewhere around the world for tracking ordinary citizens’ location and travel patterns for commercial — that is, sales and marketing — purposes, I must again claim ignorance regarding the established ground rules in these countries, if there are any.

Anywhere in the world, if GNSS should be perceived as a tool of Big Brother (government) or Big Broker (industry selling and buying consumer location data), then all navigation systems acquire a big PR problem, which translates into big funding and modernization problems. That outcome, that uncertainty, would affect everyone in or associated with GNSS provision. So we all have an interest in seeing, or making, or shaping, some resolution.

Presumably, we are all waiting around for a test case on privacy versus commercial interests. With the location-based services (LBS) market poised — same as it ever was — on the brink of widespread acceptance, it might benefit everyone if such a case came sooner rather than later. Or if the U.S. Congress tackled the issue before being required to do so by the courts.

January 18, 2012By: Janice Partyka

Microsoft says this is its last year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Fine. Move over because the car manufacturers are using the show to unveil stunning location and mobile offerings. It has only been a few years since automakers started coming to CES to pitch new in-vehicle mobile platforms. This year automakers have been knocking themselves out to bring smartphones, location and cloud content into the vehicle to enhance the driving experience. The CES invasion by the vehicle OEMs started in 2007 when Ford introduced Sync at CES. Kia followed in 2010 with UVO powered by Microsoft. 2012 brings a multitude of OEM mobile announcements, including one from first-time CES participant Mercedes-Benz.

Cars are getting smarter. Kia unveiled the next-generation UVO 2, which adds a crash notification assist feature that automatically dials 911 on a connected phone when an airbag deploys. It adds a number of location-based services that are controlled via a smartphone app that includes noting a car’s parked location on a map, transferring destinations from Google maps to the navigation system, and monitoring vehicle location and speed.

And the list goes on. Mercedes Benz made its initial appearance at CES to show off an app that allows drivers to plug iPhones into vehicles to enable the phone’s entertainment and navigation to appear on the in-dash display. Chevrolet introduced a new head unit that will use a smartphone’s apps, such as Pandora, to access cloud-based content and navigation. Ford added Roximity to provide contextual real-time discounts linked to the vehicle’s location and user’s preferences. TCS has its foot in this market, too. It will be supplying hybrid navigation solutions for the QNX in-vehicle car platforms.

Mercedes-Benz takes center stage at CES 2012.

After-market activity. You can tweet about your accident, make it a status update, or do both. TomTom has integrated Facebook and Twitter with its navigation app for iPhones and iPads. Information from Facebook events, places and friends will feed to create navigation routes. Destinations and arrival times can then be shared on these networks.

Heavy-weight skinny nav. Garmin has introduced the nüvi 3500 series, its new flagship personal navigation device, an ultra-thin GPS device with a five-inch screen. Capabilities include digital HD traffic and a smartphone link that can add live services, such as traffic information, traffic camera images, weather and fuel prices.

Good luck, Verizon. At a time when straight-up navigation is becoming a utility, Verizon is rolling out a new bundled application app package. It includes their navigation app, as well as NFL Mobile, ringback tones and Verizon Video for $12.99. I don’t know much about the NFL Mobile app, but it better be good. Given the poor marks received by Verizon Video and low interest in ringback tones, the package isn’t looking too appealing when navigation is often a freebie.

Need maps. TomTom will be providing Samsung with map and location content to power the Wave3 smartphone. TomTom will provide map coverage for more than 200 countries, POIs, traffic, 3D maps and landmarks and “safety-related speed cameras.” Safety-related speed cameras?

Enterprise routing trends. Enterprises using vehicle routing software for fleets of service and truck vehicles are increasing their buying of on-board computers, as well as smartphones for driver interfaces. These products are used for improved efficiencies in planning routes, and often feed analytics into a complex logistics system. Customers who used to be satisfied with just obtaining GPS positions of their fleets are now pushing for more telematics and a connected vehicle.

Lower prices and more pressure on productivity have pushed demand for on-board computers that can deliver data about the vehicle’s actual route, and sometimes connects to the engine to provide detail on how the vehicle was driven. Other fleets, particularly service fleets, are tending toward integrating routing apps with smartphones. The phones are cheaper than onboard computers, don’t need to integrated, and still can provide turn-by-turn directions to that day’s route. The trend is toward the Android operating system.

By: Don Jewell

Defense PNT Newsletter, January 2012

I have long advocated that our warfighters and first responders deserve the best equipment available so they can answer the basic question, “Where Am I?” quickly and with complete certainty. Or, “Where am I now and how do I get to someplace of relative safety quickly?” Unfortunately, government-furnished equipment (GFE), in this case the GPS handheld equipment we supply our warfighters, does not do a good or even adequate job of answering that question.

At this time of year, while everyone else is busy making New Year’s resolutions and breaking them, I tend to wax nostalgic. About 45 years ago when I was a college newspaper editor — yes my fascination for the written word has been going on for at least that long — I had the opportunity to interview a wonderful elderly professor who taught a combined psychology and philosophy course on the human condition. I am absolutely sanguine he gently pontificated marvelous, life-changing platitudes, many of which are unfortunately long forgotten, but I do remember his famous Daniel Boone quote related to being lost, and I present to you the slightly modified version. When Daniel Boone, the famous wilderness scout, became a legislator later in life, he was asked by a senator if he had ever been lost while he was roaming around in the wilderness. Daniel Boone thought for a moment and replied, “No, I have never been lost, but since my compass was government furnished equipment supplied by the lowest bidder, I was mighty bewildered once for about three weeks.” This kindly professor also encouraged his graduate students to constantly ask themselves, metaphorically of course, “Where Am I?”.

It is a philosophy that we should all adopt, one I have followed through the years. It has served me well, certainly much more so than the plaintive words from the 7th Cavalry General Custer query, where we hear the oft-cited and mournfully questioning lyric, What Am I Doing Here? Recently, the troubling aspects of the “Where am I?” and “What am I doing here?” questions have come home to roost. Of course, I am speaking of when and where I am physically, as in time and place, not metaphorically. While the answer seems straightforward and simple for most of us, emails I have received over the last ten years from our warfighters indicate this may not always be the case for everyone. Many of us, and in fact I hope, all of us, at one time or another, ask that question: Where in the heck am I anyway? When you and I ask that question and we are momentarily disoriented or just trying to find the location of our next appointment, it can be mildly frustrating, but when our warfighters ask that question in the heat of battle, it can be a life or death interrogative.

In this column from day one, I have strongly advocated that our warfighters and first responders deserve the best equipment available that enables them to answer that basic question — Where am I? — quickly and with complete certainty, no ambiguity. Where am I now and how do I get to someplace of relative safety quickly? Unfortunately the GFE or government furnished equipment, in this case the GPS handheld equipment we supply our warfighters, does not do a good or even adequate job of answering that question. Let’s face it — the government furnished equipment fails miserably at what should by now be a simple task.

Our warfighters may eventually be able to determine where they are located with the help of a paper map, but the handheld versions of GPS GFE do a lousy job providing situational awareness and indicating the route to a safe haven. If there are still doubters, one need only remember the Jessica Lynch story as you contemplate the disasters resulting from disorientation, being lost, or making a wrong turn in combat conditions. That one infamous wrong turn will affect Jessica Lynch and her comrades for the rest of their lives as well as the families of those who died because of a simple and basic navigational error.

Since that very public scenario played out almost eight years ago, our GFE GPS equipment has unfortunately not changed one iota for the better. Our warfighters are still using . . . let’s be precise, are still issued the same outdated, overweight, battery limited, lousy handheld equipment, with a monochrome screen, that they actually rarely use as a stand-alone device. The current GPS GFE functions almost adequately when it is embedded in another piece of equipment and our warfighters do not have to deal with the sorely antiquated and frustrating user interface. When bullets are flying and our warfighters are enmeshed in the fog of war is not the time to deal with an infuriating user interface.

The bottom line is thousands of our warfighters — if their cards, letters, telephone calls and public testimonials are any indication — consider the GFE GPS they are issued to be vastly inferior PNT equipment.

As a natural consequence, many warfighters have turned to commercial equipment for their PNT (Position, Navigation and Timing) needs. Familiar commercial GPS providers such as Garmin, TomTom, Trimble, and Apple have seen their devices proliferate in theater. Service providers such as Verizon have seen a ten-fold increase in commercial spectrum since the conflicts began more than eight years ago. Face it: When your life is on the line, you are going to quickly determine what you really need to survive, purchase it, and learn how to use it. This is why in my previous column I mentioned that the new Apple iPhone 4S may prove to be the most useful and versatile PNT device on the market today. This is true especially for our warfighters and first responders, who have stated categorically in more than 8,000 letters and emails to me that availability of PNT signals is the critical metric for judging the efficacy of a handheld/portable PNT device in war time and emergencies.

Consider the following iPhone attributes:

1. Receives 30+ GPS satellites.
2. Receives 24+ GLONASS satellites.
3. Receives WASS and EGNOS GEO satellite transmissions where available. Note that a GEO (geosynchronous Earth orbit) PNT satellite may be the geometric equivalent of more than three MEO (medium Earth orbit) satellites. As I have said many times, where PNT is concerned geometry matters.
4. Receives Wi-Fi signals and un-encoded GPS signals processed by Skyhook wireless software, which providing a TTFF (time to first fix) of only four seconds.
5. Receives 3G and 4G signals from cellular towers and provides a position when all other signals are obscured or otherwise unavailable. Note: While the Apple iPhone GPS chip is sensitive enough to work indoors, even when that fails due to electrical interference or dense shielding, the Wi-Fi signals and cellular signals usually penetrate. Warfighters tell me even in Afghanistan it is rare not to have an accurate position and time displayed on an Apple iPhone, iTouch or iPad.
6. The iPhone user has access to 30+ PNT programs with highly accurate color terrain maps and satellite views that the GFE GPS does not provide.
7. The Apple iPhone fully incorporates the multi-sourced PNT derived position with other applications on the iPhone and makes the most of situational awareness, which is critical to a warfighter and first responder.
8. The Apple iPhone fully incorporates the PNT position with the communications capabilities of the iPhone to include cellular, Wi-Fi and SMS or texting for the younger generation.
9. The iPhone allows users to take photos of their surroundings and encode the photos with PNT information, alerting others to their situation. It provides situational awareness for the users and those communicating with the users.
10. The embedded and integrated communication capabilities of the iPhone allow the user to talk with mission planners, taskers and superiors while simultaneously reporting findings or accepting mission changes, all on the same device.
11. If the iPhone is lost, its position can be determined with another iPhone or Apple computer. If it has fallen into enemy hands, it can be tracked and found, or if that is not feasible all the information on the Apple device can be deleted and the device rendered inert.

While this is quite a list of capabilities, it is far from a complete or exhaustive list. The really tragic part of this true story is that with just a little imagination and subject-matter expertise combined with some planning, the GFE GPS could have incorporated the same capabilities, and more; who knows, The iPhone could be the future GFE for PNT. As it is of the eleven PNT and related capabilities listed for the Apple iPhone, only one can be accomplished by the current GFE handheld GPS — a tragic state of affairs!

To make matters worse, officially our warfighters cannot use the iPhone and its abundant situational awareness capabilities, or devices like it, for official mission or mission-related activities. To the U.S Army’s credit, it is attempting to change this inane and life-threatening policy. Until that happens or new GFE PNT equipment is developed, U.S. military personnel are forced to use the worst handheld equipment available, from a size, weight and power perspective (SWAP) that provides the least amount of information possible. This makes current DoD policy concerning PNT hardware, software and frequencies about 20+ years out of date and consequently, or should I say thankfully and to their credit, our warfighters have basically totally ignored this antiquated policy.

To be perfectly clear, I cannot and would never advocate ignoring official government policy or denigrate those who do. The current GFE GPS serves a purpose, or so I am told, and even though it is marginal, the equipment should be utilized where officially mandated. However, the smart warfighter will incorporate numerous GPS/PNT backups and utilize them judiciously — or as one clearly frustrated warfighter wrote, “…I use the GFE GPS and Viper combination, which is very unwieldy and cumbersome, to call in or direct fire because I can be prosecuted by the military if I don’t, but I use my iPhone [PNT capabilities] for everything else including communicating with and getting my comrades and I back to our unit at the end of our patrol. Why can’t the military furnish me with something like the iPhone that works, is a tenth the size and weight, and costs only one fifth what the current GFE GPS costs? It already exists, just authorize my teammates and me to use it. How hard can that be?”

You can literally feel the warfighter’s confusion in that statement. Let’s hope the U.S. military is successful in mandating desperately needed changes. We will keep track of those efforts and let you know. Meanwhile, buy your favorite warfighter a backup PNT device such as a Trimble, Garmin or iPhone — anything so they can answer the age-old question of “Where am I?” and then find their way safely home.

Until next time, with full apologies to CWO5 William Dagenhart (USMC) and to the men and women of the 7th Cavalry, happy navigating.

Article Complements of GPS World

December 14, 2011By: Kevin Dennehy

LBS Insider, December 2011

2011 was a decent year for the location-based services industry. It was an even better year if your company was lucky enough to get bought out by an ebay, Google or Intel. While acquisitions stood out as the key LBS news in 2011, privacy stood out as an ugly issue that threatened consumer acceptance. In addition, automobile manufacturers are viewing social media as a new profitable technology for vehicles and were trying to convince consumers that the connected vehicle is the way of the future.

This year featured a slew of location-based company acquisitions and consolidation — far more than in 2010. The acquisitions of such established location companies as Where and Telmap by eBay and Intel, respectively, at least show that bigger companies want that capability in their online offerings.

Google made many moves into the location business in the last two years — and really went crazy in 2011 with acquisitions. Google is trying to grab a large share of the European traffic market by offering real-time services in 13 European companies. Google shook up the navigation market with free navigation service for Android phones in 2009.

To top off a big year for Google, the company is taking its mapping technology indoors with the launch of Google Maps 6.0. Indoor mapping and positioning received big headway in 2011, and it was reasonable to assume that the 800-pound LBS gorilla, Google, would be a big player to entice big retail companies to come on board for location technology to allow customers to find products.

According to published reports, some of the big-box retail stores such as IKEA, Macy’s, Home Depot and Bloomingdales have been mapped. However, a lot of the bigger malls, and Target and Wal-Mart, have not been mapped.

The cool thing about the product is that it also tells customers what floor they are on in a building. The uncool thing about the product is that Google Maps 6.0 is only available for Android.

Google’s indoor mapping partners include 18 U.S. airports, which will open up more partners and LBS relationships in the future.

A look at all of Google’s location market moves, and analysis, in 2011:

• Google’s major partners, who have more than 25,000 Google Maps application uses per day, will be charged starting next year. Some say it won’t hurt small companies much—and may even help companies who compete with Google. Either way, some say the decision was inevitable for companies making a profit–and using Google’s resources for free.
• The recent $12.5-billion Google acquisition of Motorola Mobility has some industry experts saying that the location market piece of pie is getting smaller every time the search giant makes a deal. Many industry experts have said that the main makers of Google Android smart phones should feel challenged as well as the company has seemingly gone into business against them. Google is once more trying to corner more of the social shopping market by buying The Dealmap, a 15-month-old company that offers its own location-based daily deal service.
• Google purchased Menlo Park, Calif.-based The Dealmap, a company that collects data from hundreds of sources and arranges deals by location, on its website and a smartphone application. The start-up, founded last year, has 15 employees and 2 million users, according to published reports. Google tried to buy Groupon for as much as $6 billion last year, and decided to launch its own service, Google Offers, in Portland. Google’s service has since expanded to New York and the San Francisco Bay Area.

More transition is happening in the LBS market this year — even at our deadline. As GPS Worldreported, LBS company Gowalla looks like it is shutting down by the end of January 2012, according to the company’s blog. Company president Josh Williams said he and his staff are now going to work for Facebook.

While some LBS analysts said this year that GPS technology, and its offshoot niche navigation capability, are just embedded widgets in the overall location market, others say they still are the driver to consumer awareness and acceptance.

“In my opinion, one of the biggest trends in 2011 included market acceptance — and demand — of GPS technologies. We are now seeing end-users demand GPS technologies in the workplace,” said Jonathan Hubbard, SpeedGuage CEO and co-founder. “In fact, truck drivers now say if you don’t have GPS-enabled automated logging of my work hours, or what we in the transportation sector call hours of service monitoring, then I won’t work for you. That’s a significant change in how GPS-enabled technologies were formerly viewed — more or less — for solely tracking purposes, and we see this trend only continuing and gaining momentum in the coming year.”

Other Markets and Issues Made Big Splash In 2011                                                                 

In vehicle technology also made headlines in 2011 when automakers said they would be increasing social media and other capabilities for new car models. Because of larger screens going into many vehicles, LBS seems like a natural advertising fit, but Thilo Koslowski, Gartner vice president, said that car companies will developing market strategies along traditional display-type marketing models.

Koslowsi said the biggest competition the auto industry has is the smartphone or other consumer mobile device. “We will see growth in vehicle application on the Android platform, while Apple will be leveling off. [Research in Motion] will have a lower share,” he said.

The other big “issue” confronting the LBS industry is privacy, which became big news in May when it was revealed that location data was secretly stored in all iOS 4 devices. It was learned that Apple was storing a file with location data in every iPhone or iPad with iOS 4.    These discoveries prompted Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who was concerned that as many as 15 percent of users are children, to ask now-deceased Apple boss Steve Jobs about the operating system. In a letter to Jobs, Franken, who presided over hearings on location technology and privacy, asked why Apple consumers were not informed of the collection and retention of their location data, how frequently is a user’s location recorded, why is this information not encrypted, with whom has the information been shared, and what is the purpose of collecting the location data.

Apple contended that iOS devices are not logging the location of the user, but caching a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell tower locations around a user’s position. Some of these cell towers may be many miles away from the user.

In other LBS Insider news:

• Veteran telematics vendor Cross Country Automotive Services and its subsidiary, ATX Group, which is a provider to BMW, Hyundai, Infiniti, Lexus, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and Toyota, announced their new corporate brand name, Agero. Cross Country, which purchased ATX in 2008, says Agero will create products for auto manufacturers, insurance carriers and aftermarket providers.
• GPS World Magazine is GPS-Wireless 2012’s official media partner. GPS-Wireless 2012 will be March 21-22 at the Hyatt Regency—San Francisco Airport.
• LBS Insider will be covering the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month. Please send me your news tips and releases.

December 20, 2011By: Janice Partyka

Cloud-based infotainment, more tightly integrated apps, and more personalized offerings will change the in-vehicle mobile experience. Interfaces will morph towards combinations of heads-up displays and voice. These were some of the conclusions from my December 1 webinar “Car as a Mobile LBS Device,” with panelists from Ford, OnStar, Pioneer and TomTom.  How in-vehicle apps will be monetized is an open question. When polled, almost half of the webinar audience believed a “freemium” model will prevail. Freemium models work by offering a product or service free of charge while charging a premium for advanced features.

Close to a third of the webinar participants believed that LBS apps will come as “standard equipment” on new vehicles. Many see mobile advertising as adding a significant revenue stream if the advertising is truly contextual and continues to serve up offerings that are useful to a consumer. Obtaining contextual marketing data about consumers must be done with prudence, but more about that later. The carriers and service providers such as Facebook and Google stand to make the most money from in-vehicle apps. To listen to the “Car as a Mobile LBS Device” webinar with panelists from Ford, OnStar, Pioneer and TomTom, follow this link.

Carrier Low IQ. Mobile contextual advertising needs consumer behavior data to work. The behavior data are highly sought because of their value to advertisers. If you haven’t been paying attention, Carrier IQ allegedly has been illegally and secretly recording individual cell-phone user behavior, including location data, across more than 140 million handsets. Carrier IQ maintains that its services count and measure operational information and do not record keystrokes or provide tracking tools.

Who raised their hands? AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile admitted to using Carrier IQ. Apple said it stopped using Carrier IQ in the latest version of its operating system, iOS 5. Across the board, the companies insist that they only used information to track operational and network performance issues. Security researcher Trevor Eckhart has released a report detailing how Carrier IQ’s software could be used by carriers and device makers to track user activity, actual keystrokes and location data. Now comes renewed scrutiny of the industry by Congress, federal agencies and consumers.

Checked-out? Facebook consumed Gowalla in an acquisition of the location-enabled mobile social network. Gowalla’s users check in at specific places to share their location with friends. Unable to compete with Foursquare, the Gowalla service will be shuttered by Facebook; however, employees will be kept on, presumably to work on the new Facebook Timeline chronological interface. JWire, a media company, reported results of a survey that sheds light on the category. Consumers are split on their feelings towards location-enabled mobile social networks. A little over a third of respondents indicated positive feelings toward it. Just as many had a poor opinion of it, with the rest ambivalent. Males are more likely to use the service and the most popular check-in categories are restaurants, hotels, bars and health clubs.

Let There Be Light? Resolution of the LightSquared GPS interference issue eludes. The LTE provider has moved quickly to make added concessions following new reports of GPS interference based on LightSquared’s already previously revised deployment plans. LightSquared’s newest concessions include limiting or delaying transmission power increase. This comes on the heels of reports from a key government committee that LightSquared’s network affects a “majority” of general-purpose GPS receivers and technology used to land planes, but doesn’t appear to have a significant impact on cell phones. “LightSquared signals caused harmful interference to the majority of other tested general-purpose GPS receivers,” said Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) in a statement last week. The federal advisory committee examined tests of LightSquared’s revised deployment plan, which moved transmissions into airwaves located farther away from GPS bands. LightSquared had asserted this would solve the majority of issues with GPS interference, but that isn’t supported by early tests. The final analysis of the tests by the PNT committee is still underway.