Tuesday, February 28, 2006

The Structure of the European LBS Market

I really like LBSZone with its reports and news and stuff - I've linked to it before, and no doubt will again! They are highlighting a report at the moment on THE STRUCTURE OF THE EUROPEAN LBS MARKET 2005.

What are the latest developments on the European LBS market? This forecast shows that LBS could contribute with over EUR 2 billion by 2009. This 300+ page strategic report gives a complete overview of 27 European markets and in-depth case studies of the LBS strategies of 10 leading mobile operators.

Let me quote from a different section, this point again:
The European LBS Market is Estimated to Account for Eur 2,183 Million in the Next Five Years.

The report itself is purchaseable from Research and Markets and was released in July 2005.

Highlights include:
- Overview of LBS offerings, market strategies and equipment in 27 European markets.
- Case studies of the LBS strategies of 10 leading mobile operators.
- Complete update on location-based regulatory and standards in Europe.
- Comprehensive profiles of 67 LBS vendors on the European market.
- More than 70 executive interviews performed.
- 78 charts, graphs and tables.

You can purchase it here.

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Monday, February 27, 2006

Directions Magazine LBS article

Directions Magazine has an article by Scott Hotes outline LBS positives for Enterprise:
Location-based services (LBS) have resurged remarkably over this last year throughout the North American market. For over three years, location pioneers Bell Mobility and Nextel were alone in offering high precision (read GPS-based) services to their data customers. Then, last May, the silence was broken when Sprint PCS launched the Business Mobility Framework, offering location to its enterprise customers. This was quickly followed up with consumer A-GPS in September. Now with less than three weeks left in 2005 it looks as if Verizon Wireless may launch this year as well. As for GSM, SUPL (secure user plane) is finally an Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) standard, and infrastructure vendors are scrambling to line up handset manufacturers to put A-GPS onto Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and Wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) networks

He then goes on to outline 3 emergent trends and summarize the remaining challenges. And his last line:
There's no doubt that location will some day pervade mobile data services.Are we approaching critical mass? I'm betting on it.
Me too.

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Where For Art Thou, Wherify?

Hong Kong actually. Wherify press release earlier in the month announced:

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. (February 21, 2006) – Wherify Wireless, Inc. (OTCBB:WFYW), a leading developer of wireless location products and services, today announced the Company has completed its Global Location Service Center in Hong Kong to support Wherify-enabled service offerings in the Asian region.

From the ABOUT section:

Following the release of the World’s first GPS Locator for Kids, a miniaturized, wrist-worn GPS locator that pushed the envelope of personal location technology, Wherify developed the World’s first Enhanced–GPS GSM Locator Phone -- the Wherifone GPS locator phone.

But I'm not familiar with WherIfone ... where has it been released? Can someone post here or email me the details please? What do you think of it? How does it compare with the Migo or iKids product? The fact that it is Triband is nice for expat families. I'd say with another 35 million in funding this month and the Hong Kong base, they will be in Asia Pac soon!

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Sunday, February 26, 2006

Buying up LBS chip companies

In this week's Computerworld (written by John Ribeiro),
SiRF Technology Holdings Inc. plans to release a software platform for phone operators later this year that it hopes will accelerate the use of location-based services in mobile phones, the company's president and CEO said.
SiRF sells chips and software for use in consumer Global Positioning System (GPS) products. It thinks 60% of mobile phones will include GPS capabilities in the next three years or so, but a key challenge is getting operators to offer location-based services to their subscribers, SiRF CEO Michael Canning said in an interview this week. Fewer than 10% of phones have GPS capabilities today, he estimated.
and
The client applications available today are mainly for mobile phones with a lot of memory, said Ashu Pande, vice president of marketing for the wireless segment at SiRF. They include a child-locator, for helping parents keep track of their children. The application is being offered by SK Telecom Co. in Seoul, Korea, in a child's phone made by Bellwave Co., also in Seoul.
SiRF's strategy is to integrate other functions into its GPS chips that are often available in mobile devices but typically require separate chips. Last month, it introduced its SiRFLinkI chip, for example, which combines GPS and Bluetooth capabilities.
This combining of chips has long been critical to the success of mobile phone LBS technology
About a dozen radio technologies could potentially go into mobile phones, including FM broadcast, GPS, Wi-Fi and WiMax. The opportunity for SiRF is to incorporate these into its GPS chips, which would reduce power consumption and the cost of making phones, Canning said.
If the company wants to add capabilities like Wi-Fi and digital video to its chips, it would have to acquire companies with the technology, Canning said. "If it is a key thrust for you, you need to acquire, otherwise you find yourself in a cost model where licensing fees can be a nuisance," he said


Wish I had the money to go on a buy up rampage - wait til the Yahoo!s and Microsofts dig into their pockets!
In December, SiRF acquired Impulsesoft Pvt., a Bluetooth embedded software company in Bangalore, India. It also bought Kisel Microelectronics AB last year, a Stockholm-based company that specialized in radio frequency circuit design.

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Mobiles2Go iKids phone



The Sydney Morning Herald (on their Saturday morning edition front page) had this article regarding one of the most successful LBS implementations in Australia to date:
People tracking is no longer just the stuff of covert military operations or spy movies. Putting mobile phones and GPS together is an ideal technological marriage, says an expert in the technology, Associate Professor Andrew Dempster of the University of NSW.
Globally, we're on the verge of a boom in over-the-counter locator devices, he says of the first child-tracker to hit the Australian market.

Read the rest of Louise William's article here.
I agree with him!

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LBS Conferences


The Location Intelligence Conference, April 3-5 '06 in San Francisco:
Since we first launched this conference two years ago, we are seeing an explosion in the interest for location technology. From mapping portals, to web services, to the integration of geospatial software solutions with business intelligence and enterprise databases, the demand for better tools to help analyze the inherent location-based relationships in business data is intensifying.
Driven at the enterprise level by companies such as Oracle, Microsoft and IBM, and at the consumer level by Google, Yahoo, and MapQuest, the rate of adoption of location technology for strategic business process management is rapidly expanding. More so than at the beginning of the 1990's when desktop mapping first allowed businesses to visualize their customer information, the incorporation of location technology with other enterprise software to create true “location intelligence” is giving executives a clearer view of their operations.
The 2006 conference will look to accelerate the understanding about how to “profit” from location technology to turn the plethora of business data into “location intelligence.”

More here.

The Map Middle East Conference in Dubai (26-29 March) has some interesting sponsors - BAE Systems, Bentley, MapInfo and others.

I'm also interested in the 2006 Wireless & Mobile Expo and Conference on June 7 & 8 in Toronto Canada.

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Tampa in April

The GITA Annual conference is coming up in April 23-26.
About GITA: The Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) is a nonprofit educational association serving the global geospatial community.
In the past, GITA has sponsored LBS Conferences - this one is followed by SmallWorld TenSails Symposium on April 27.

Also following the GITA shindig (on April 27) is the Oracle Spatial conference. One session from the Oracle show includes the use of Google Earth. As one of the speakes is from the US Army Corps of Engineers, that could be interesting given the security fears surrounding Google Earth project!

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GIS GeoSpatial Data Resources

Keep an eye on GISUser.com site for Australia &NZ Data Resources. When I last checked they had:

Global Map Australia 1M 2001 & VMAP0
Queensland Geological Data
Australian Spatial Data Directory
W. Australia Dept of LAnd Information
GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 2
NATMAP Raster
Admin and postal maps of Australia and New Zealand
NZ Route Map Data for GPS
The Australia National Geodetic Data Base (NGDB)
Webmap Australia; Aerial photography

Interesting site.

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Seeker Wireless in Australia

Seeker Wireless in Sydney (and UK) offer a number of products in the LBS field.
Mapping
Why would I want to use LBS mapping services ?If you are a courier or delivery company, or someone who has a large fleet of mobile workers then you can improve your business efficiency with the ability to plot their location on a map.

Aggregation
What is LBS aggregation ?Each carrier has the ability to locate their own subscribers (with permission) utilising a range of technologies. Network equipment vendors such as Ericsson, Nokia and Lucent have developed gateways to convert location information into usable data. Unfortunately, each carrier will have their own information, presented in a sightly different format depending on the type of network deployment.
In addition, companies wishing to locate mobiles across a range of networks may have to develop LBS connection feeds with all carriers, and maintain separate interfaces.As customers 'port' from one network to another, a database needs to be maintained to that a location request is directed at the right network.


Unfortunately not much of an update since April 2005 - a press release here and documentation here including mobile positioning whitepaper.

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Saturday, February 25, 2006

TechDigest - mTrack and iKids



TechDigest (date unknown) have an article on iKids LBS/GPS phones in the UK.
Back in the day, most kids played out on the street. But if recent research is to be believed, nearly a third of children now miss out on playing outside because of parental fears for safety. If you worry everytime your child leaves the house, mTrack has launched the i-Kids phone, which can pinpoint a child's location to within 20 metres via phone or net.
The link takes you back to www.i-kids.net/uk. Also more info at KidsOK.

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Hewlett Packard and LBS

Telephony Online - Intelligence for the Broadband Economy - have a piece written by two HP insiders on LBS. It's cool cos it outlines the business case challenges and solutions - something not always made clear by LBS evangelists and futurists.

Anyway, have a read and let me know what you think.

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Verizon (and Autodesk) to Help Track Kids

Red Herring reports that Verizon is using Autodesk software to bring a kids tracking mobile phone to consumers:

Verizon Wireless plans to launch a child-tracking service called Verizon Chaperone for parents in May as one of several location-based services the carrier will roll out before summer, Autodesk, the company that created the software, said Thursday.

Verizon Wireless even kept its plans for the child tracking service quiet when it started selling the “Migo,” a kid-friendly cell phone made by LG, which will be used with the Verizon Chaperone service.

I wonder how this US product compares to the Australian Mobiles2Go one called iKids ?

LBS Market
The South Korean LBS market is the most advanced in the world, and SK Telecom is already estimated to have 12 million to 15 million GPS phones with 150 location-based services. The carrier already has a service like Verizon’s called I-Kids.


This is interesting:
In Europe, LBS was so over-hyped over the past few years that analysts predicted that the European market for such services would be worth anywhere between $13 billion and $33 billion by 2005. The estimate missed the mark, and Europe’s LBS market size is closer to the size of the U.S. market, which represented $981 million in 2005, according to the research firm ABI.
However, ABI says that number will grow to $8 billion in the U.S. by 2010. The Asia-Pacific region currently accounts for 55 percent of the world’s subscribers, compared to North America’s 5 percent. Yet, analysts expect the U.S. to represent a greater percentage of LBS subscribers over the next few years.

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The Universal Address System Gets Adopted in China

GISUser reports:
Tuesday, 17 January 2006Beijing, China, PDAger Mobility Inc. (www.PDAger.com) and NAC Geographic Products Inc. (www.nacgeo.com) announced that the two companies have reached an agreement that NAC Geographic Products Inc. license the Natural Area Coding System (http://www.nacgeo.com/nacsite/) to PDAger Mobility Inc. for its wireless location service application – Map4U.

They have an interesting summary of challenges and solutions:
Specifying locations on location based services, especially mobile location based services is a big problem because (i) addresses are always very long and time consuming to input, (ii) addresses are language/character dependent and difficult to input, (iii) addresses are full of variations and difficult for software to parse successfully and (iv) addresses do not exist in more than 99% locations in the world that can’t be specified by street addresses and make street address based location services completely fail. All these problems are solved by the introduction of Universal Addresses which are short (only 8 or 10 characters), language independent (only internationally recognized alphanumeric characters), written in one standard without variations, and exist at all locations in the world without any missing spots. Universal Addresses can be easily included on business cards, yellow page listings, business directories and advertisements. They can be neatly put on photographs under the date to indicate exactly when and where a picture is taken. They can make people answer the question “Where are you?” accurately and easily. They can significantly improve all emergency services no matter in communicating accurate emergency locations or in specifying locations of fire hydrants and other water sources. They can even be used as Global Postal Codes for automatic mail sorting.

A long in-depth article - Happy Reading!

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Already? iKids on eBay


Gosh it doesn't take long does it? o.O eBay had an iKids phone for auction as soon as they were released.

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Where 2.0 Conference



O'Reilly's Where 2.0 conference will be in San Jose, California from June 13-14, 2006.
Everything Happens Somewhere. The Where 2.0 Conference brings together the people, projects, and issues leading the charge into the location based technological frontier. Join us to debate and discuss what's viable now, and what's lurking just below the radar. There's no better place to meet the people behind the mash-ups and platforms, and the folks looking ahead to the future of geospace.
Who and what will be featured at Where 2.0? Amazing location systems, untapped geodata, unsung projects and hardware, people who are poised to make real money--and why. High profile keynote conversations with big players, “high order bits” demoing cool startups and neat applications. We're angling for shorter talks with longer breaks so you'll have more time for one-on-one interactions.

Sponsors include (Diamond) Microsoft (Gold) MapQuest, Telcontar, (Media Sponsors) IPTV Industry, LBSZone, Red Herring, VOIP News, WiMax Industry and so on and so forth.

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LBS Zone

LBS Zone are run by Spatial Media:
Welcome to the LBSzone... "Delivering information on Location" - We're pleased to provide a resource for those interested in Location-Based services and related technologies including mobile geo-positioning, GPS, RFID, WiFi, Open source hacks, and related applications, technologies and services.

Spatial Media operates GISUser
About GISuser
Spatial Media LLC, Frederick, MD, owns and operates several leading online
technology resources including GISuser.com (GIS/Geospatial), MAPuser.com (Surveyors), and LBSzone.com (mobile & location-based services). Additionally, the company partners are owners and publisher of SymbianOne.com and The American Surveyor Magazine (print).

GISuser.com was officially launched by Spatial Media LLC in February, 2004. Our goal is to provide the geospatial technology user & industry professional with the latest developments, analysis, and reports affecting the GIS user and related geospatial technologies.

GISuser.com editorial and day-to-day content management is in the capable hands of veteran geospatial industry analyst and editor, Glenn Letham. Glenn brings to GISuser more than 7 years experience as a respected online editor and writer having founded the first popular daily electronic newsletter. He was instrumental in the development and management of a leading GIS industry web portal and data repository until his sudden departure in 2003 to devote his time to the development of GISuser.com. Letham is also the owner/Managing Editor of industry leading mobile technology resource SymbianOne.com.

The web property GISuser.com is owned and operated by Spatial Media LLC., Frederick, MD. Spatial Media LLC also owns and operates MAPuser.com (for land surveyors) and LBSzone.com (location-based services).

Quite a nice site, with collaborative files, events, partner sites. One to bookmark if LBS is your thang!

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