My Location is not a replacement for GPS, but gives mobile phone users a way to approximate their locations…
San Francisco — Google on Wednesday has introduced mapping software that figures out the general vicinity using the company’s search algorithms to sift through information broadcast from cell towers and approximate a user’s location on a map through a mobile phone.
“The beta, or test, version of new Google Maps for mobile software lets mobile phone users choose from options including seeing satellite views of their locales, getting directions, and finding nearby businesses.”
The biggest improvement of the application comes with its My Location feature, which uses cell tower information–and not on-board GPS–to determine user location.
For users who do have GPS cell phones, My Location can actually complement it, Google said. “My Location kicks in faster than GPS in most cases, so you can access your location even faster on the map,” wrote Mike Chu, software engineer on the Google mobile team, on the team blog. “It also works reliably indoors (unlike GPS) and does not drain your phone battery at the rate that GPS does.”
Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin said the technology is good for helping people find what is in their vicinity, but does not provide the routing and navigation capabilities for pinpointing location that GPS does, which is what some people require.
“Of course, for Google’s advertising purposes — the My Location level of precision is plenty good,” Golvin said.
Rather than relying on global positioning satellites for identifying a mobile user’s location, My Location uses cell tower ID information to provide users with their approximate location, helping them determine where they are, what is around them and how to get there Google said.
My Location is intended for users who do not have GPS-enabled mobile phones, which provides more precise location fixes, can still take advantage of the added speed and convenience afforded by location information or as a complement to GPS.
Most location-based applications require users to type out addresses to find what they are looking for, which requires more keystrokes and time. Google’s My Location technology, which lets a user type the number “0” on a phone to find his or her approximate location.
The revamped mapping software enables mobile telephones linked to the Internet to simulate GPS tracking, which uses orbiting satellites.
The free Google Maps version 2.0 comes with a “My Location” feature that determines which cell tower a mobile telephone is using and displays a map of the area with a blue circle pinpointing the spot.
A test of the service by AFP showed the mobile telephone location pinpointed a spot less than a kilometer away on a map and provided an aerial view.
Until now, if you wanted to search for a nearby “coffee shop,” you had to type in an address to set your location before Google Maps for Mobile could provide local listings.
The beta feature triangulates your approximate location based on nearby cell towers so you do not have to type in your address. The denser the concentration of cell towers, the more accurate user results will be. This means it should work fairly well in cities, but not so well out in more rural areas.
A search for “cafes” in the area resulted in a list of coffee houses along with directions on request.
“We have all been there,” Chu wrote. “You are out and about, and you need to figure out where you are, what is around you, and how to get there.”
“One of the pain points in mobile is having to key in so many characters,” said Greg Sterling, principal at Sterling Market Intelligence. “This saves you from having to type “sushi San Francisco,” but now you can just type ‘sushi.’”
The new My Location feature is launching in beta to get it into the hands of consumers faster, said Steve Lee, product manager for Google Maps for Mobile. The performance of the technology, which was developed in-house, will improve the more people use it, he said.
“We are creating a database of cell tower locations and that database is built from people using Google Maps for Mobile,” Lee said.
Sterling said the new feature has been “pretty consistently available” in his testing of the service.
Google has not specified how it plans to provide ads with the location-based services, but has made no secret of its plans to target mobile users with ads as fervently as it has targeted users of stationary PCs.
Google, which is often taken to task by privacy advocates for the way it mines users’ data from the Internet, also made a point to note in a statement that this location approximation is anonymous.
The company said My Location does not gather any personally identifiable information or associate any location data with personally identifiable information. Moreover, the feature can be disabled by anyone who prefers not to use it.
However, GPS is more accurate; GPS can be off by a few meters while My Location will be within 10 city blocks, on average, Lee said.
The Google Maps for Mobile software is a downloadable program and it is preinstalled on some phones. The new feature will be available on most smartphones, Google said, including all color BlackBerry devices, all Symbian Series 60 3rd Edition devices, most Windows Mobile devices, newer Sony Ericsson devices, and some Motorola devices. Notably, it would not work on the iPhone.
Google Maps for Mobile does not have ads, but the new My Location feature will make geographically targeted advertising easy when Google is ready to push ads to mobile users.
“Clearly we think location technology will make advertising more relevant to users and advertisers in the future,” said Lee. “So, it is something we are looking at.”
“Google’s My Location feature will compete with the likes of Navizon and SkyHook Wireless, which offer mobile positioning systems based on Wi-Fi technology, rather than GPS or cell tower location.”
The technology could prove attractive for people who may not see much value in investing in a GPS device, Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus Research, said in a statement. “The big questions will be how close you can get and how reliable it will be.”
Overall, Google’s offering of the new service is “another sign that the company is taking a completely different look at technology and how people get value out of it,” Wettemann said.
Given that less than 15 percent of mobile phones are GPS-enabled; this feature will be helpful to many people.
“This certainly will drive the GPS folks to look at their pricing,” she added. “If I can get 90 percent of the way with Google and an existing phone, I may well just do that.”
Google Maps for Mobile, launched in the United States in November 2005, was one of the seminal Google mobile applications, allowing users to use interactive maps and satellite imagery to find local businesses and driving directions from their mobile devices and is used by millions of people in more than 20 countries.
Continuing the mobile push, in the midst of lobbying for open access for mobile devices and 700MHz spectrum and shrugging off rumors that it will produce a Google phone and a wireless network, Google has managed to deliver its Android mobile operating software, one of the biggest innovations of the year.
Users may download Google Maps for Mobile Version 2.0 with My Location here: http://www.google.com/gmm