The Current Location Of Location-Based Technologies

from the it's-coming... dept

Mon, Aug 25th 2003 10:54am — Mike Masnick

MIT's Tech Review has a long article discussing the current state of location-based technologies, looking mostly at the various technologies behind current and (most likely) future offerings. It even gets down to looking at the different issues between doing location-based applications indoors and outdoors. It takes a few guesses at "killer app" type ideas for location-based technologies, but admits that no one is really sure - and a lot may depend on the various privacy issues involved with location. Of course, the value of location-based offerings are going to make people want to use them, meaning many people may ignore the privacy implications. However, having a simple "off" switch might make sense. Though, there will be the inevitable person who gets injured or killed and could have been saved if their location technology was on, that will cause a huge debate over whether or not the technology needs to be kept on all the time. Anyone want to bet that there will eventually be a law named after someone who was killed because of turned off location technology that will require it be on all the time?

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