LBS has been talked about for years

Location Based Services

New York Time has an interesting article called Cellphone as Tracker: X Marks Your Doubts about Location Based Services.LBS has been talked about for years, and there have even been a few "IT Bubble" companies that were involved in LBS, just to vanish a few years later when the VC boat sprung a huge leak.The mantra for future LBS seems to be GPS (Global Positioning System) that enables precise location of the user. The drawback, so far, is that not many phones have GPS support yet, and based on the deployed mass of phones, hardly any at all.I honestly think that many such services could be achieved without that level of precision, e.g. a listing of the closest cinemas and bars with addresses and possibly pointed out on graphical maps, where you could pinpoint those bars you've already visited during the evening/night (so you don't go there again). Also closest hospitals, shops, post offices etc could be handled the same way, and with the features phones already have.The article talks about social mapping, which could be in the shape of friend-finders etc. It would be interesting if you for instance could allow some other MySpace user to track your position. It could also be dangerous due to the anonymity, so maybe it's best used for people you really know, and especially from parent to child. At least a younger child. I don't think teenagers would appreciate being followed by their parents.Quote: "The technology has been ready for a while, but not the customers."I'd say useful and easy to use services haven't existed. Technology in itself is no guarantee for customer adoption, if they can't do anything sensible with it.The article points out privacy concerns: If your employer, parole officer etc would know exactly where you were all the time, that would most likely dampen your interest in using such services if you were the employee etc. That's of course provided they would get access to your location, because believe it or not, your operator already knows where you are all the time, yet not with any high accuracy. That information is not openly available, but I guess e.g. the police could locate people this way.