Vol.3, No.13 - April 2004
Exciting things are happening for LBS and in this issue we bring you a plethora of LBS information from events, news, research, and unique articles.
If you didn't make it to the GPS Wireless 2004 Conference last month you'll want to read Kevin Halpern's article (below). Kevin was there and we have an exclusive article with his insights and show highlights. You'll also find our Online Demo section and sampling of industry research conveniently at your fingertips. Stay alert for a special issue featuring the OASIS Common Alerting Protocol Standard (CAP). That issue will provide a collection of information resources for those who wish to achieve a good working knowledge of the proposed standard.
Harry Niedzwiadek
Featured Article
Exclusive The GPS Wireless 2004 Conference in Review- The Global LBS Revolution Has Begun (PDF), by Kevin Halpern. The 8th annual GPS Wireless 2004 conference held in San Francisco on March 4 & 5 provided detailed historical LBS usage statistics from world leading companies across the LBS value chain. North American wireless carriers discussed current and future product offerings, location accuracy, subscriber usage feedback and LBS revenue models. Industry executives from location determination technology vendors, map content providers, application developers and location middleware platform vendors discussed case studies from 2003 and global trends for 2004 and 2005. Read this article!
Featured Demo
MapShop by ESRI - This Flash tour of MapShop explains how users find their location of interest, choose the right layers to turn on or off, change colors on the map, and export the map into common desktop illustration software such as Adobe Illustrator. Or, go straight to the MapShop Demo. Visit the Java Location Services Online Demo page.
Featured LBS Related Research
Telematics Research Group Inc. (TRG) provides updates on many events they have attended including the 2004 Consumer Electronics Telematics conference, the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) and the Consumer Electronics Show. Link for details
Driscoll-Wolfe Releases 2003-2004 Study on Consumer Interest in Location-Based Services, Navigation and Telematics. This multi-client study assesses U.S. consumer interest and willingness to pay for a wide range of location-based applications. It compares interest in location-based services to other cellular applications such as personal messaging, transmitting and receiving photos and email. The study assesses the devices consumers prefer to use for accessing location-based services, such as cell phones, vehicle-installed devices or PDA's. It also profiles the segments of the population most likely to be early adopters of location-based applications. Link for a press release on the study.
2004 LBS Report from The Kerton Group, Location-Based Services in the US: Technologies and Applications. Spurred on by the FCC’s E-911 mandate that forces wireless carriers to know the locations of their customers in an emergency, US mobile carriers will soon have the ability to offer their customers an entire suite of location-enhanced services and products. While privacy concerns must be duly addressed, we expect the market for customer LBS applications to begin taking shape in early 2004 and suffer a long incubation of some 2 years while national and regional carriers finish up their Phase II E911 compliance. With few LBS services on the market today, including carrier and 3rd party applications, we expect prices and standard business models to settle out by early 2005.
Visit the Java Location Services Web site to stay abreast of the latest in LBS including; LBS Industry Events, LBS Online Demos, Developer's Corner, and much more.