The February 2009 Wired (issue 17.02) cover story is about GPS, it is in two parts, first a list of 10 GPS applications
Inside the GPS Revolution: 10 Applications That Make the Most of Location
People using applications in order to be able to drive over the speed limit I think is not so "wired",
but I did very much like the idea of iNap, which uses GPS to detect when you are approaching your transit stop (aboveground, obviously) and wakes you up. I've fallen asleep on the bus and woke up many km west of my stop, and I always worry about falling asleep like that, so it's a cool idea.
Location-aware shopping assistance (scan in a product code, get a display of nearby stores that have the item at a better price) is also an interesting idea, although I imagine it faces considerable database challenges particularly with small retailers.
The second part of the cover story is an article by Mathew Honan where he used a bunch of GPS applications on a cellphone, mostly geopresence ("location streams" if you will).
I Am Here: One Man's Experiment With the Location-Aware Lifestyle
I wanted to know more about this new frontier, so I became a geo-guinea pig. My plan: Load every cool and interesting location-aware program I could find onto my iPhone and use them as often as possible. For a few weeks, whenever I arrived at a new place, I would announce it through multiple social geoapps. When going for a run, bike ride, or drive, I would record my trajectory and publish it online. I would let digital applications help me decide where to work, play, and eat. And I would seek out new people based on nothing but their proximity to me at any given moment. I would be totally open, exposing my location to the world just to see where it took me. I even added an Eye-Fi Wi-Fi card to my PowerShot digital camera so that all my photos could be geotagged and uploaded to the Web.
He has some interesting thoughts about the implications of an "always on" geolocated world. The second page online also has an interesting comparison of cell tower vs. Wi-Fi vs. GPS location precision (albeit very rough, as there are many different variables that will affect position accuracy).
The third page lists some GPS-capable cellphones, although it picks the Nokia N95 (which has some issues with GPS sensor position and sensitivity) rather than the N82 (which has a better-positioned GPS sensor, at the top of the phone - see e.g. comparison of N82 and Nokia P6000 GPS).
Overall it's a reasonable exploration of Internet-connected GPS-enabled cellphone apps.
As an aside, Wired really needs to add comment moderation / abuse reporting, there are some junk comments on its site.
UPDATE: I see there is only comment abuse reporting available if you're logged in. It took me a while to understand the commenting interface - there's a tiny blue triangle to the right of comments you can click to expand them - I did a bunch of edits so I'm not sure what remains of my original comment on their site (I see a different version depending whether I look at "All Comments" or just my Permalinked comment by itself) but here it is in its entirety:
I think the article is timely, we will see more and more sophisticated applications (and associated privacy and social issues) as the number of cellphones with Internet, GPS and cameras increases. After a slow start, geotagging photos is becoming a standard feature on these cameras, and the combination of GPS and camera has recently gained more visibility with the announcement of iPhoto 09 support for geotagged photos.
I've been tracking these developments in my blog, it's nice to see Wired continue to investigate the use and implications of these technologies. It would have been nice to have some mention of the other GPS options (automotive GPS, handheld GPS, GPS loggers and trackers) but I understand that from a consumer perspective the cellphone is likely to be a major GPS platform.
More of my thoughts are available at http://scilib.typepad.com/techreviews/
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