location

Government inquiries into what companies are doing with location information from mobile devices enter yet another round next month.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission are holding a public forum on June 28 to discuss the topic, the AP reports. On the invite list are both Apple and Google, companies that have been called to testify in front of Senate subcommittees on the issue twice this month.

Representatives from Apple and Google are slated to appear in Washington, D.C., this Thursday to answer questions about mobile privacy and protection from U.S. lawmakers in a hearing … Read more

The U.S. Congress took the first major step today toward updating a 1986 law, crafted in the pre-Internet era of telephone modems and the black-and-white Macintosh Plus, to protect the privacy of Americans who use mobile phones, Web e-mail, and services like Google Docs, Flickr, and Picasa.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Judiciary committee, introduced sweeping legislation that would, in many cases, require police to obtain a search warrant to access private communications and the locations of mobile devices.

"Updating this law to reflect the realities of our time is essential to ensuring that our … Read more

A second U.S. Senate hearing over location privacy has been scheduled, a move intended to highlight how well companies notify their customers about when and how their whereabouts are stored and transmitted.

Following the U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing about mobile privacy last week, representatives from Apple and Google are expected to again appear in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to answer questions from U.S. lawmakers in a new hearing that will also include Facebook.

The topic of a hearing, put on by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance, is "… Read more

Glympse is a brilliantly conceived mobile application that lets you share your real-time location via SMS, email, Twitter, or Facebook. It's a useful, easy-to-use tool that doesn't require you to sign up, create any profiles, or invite contacts.

Imagine asking a friend to meet you at a new restaurant in your neighborhood. With Glympse, you wouldn't text her the address; you'd merely send her a Glympse of your current location, and with a tap on her screen, she'd navigate her way there. Or if you're not yet at the restaurant, you might send her … Read more

If Chatroulette made you squirm, then you'll definitely have trouble with Tinychat and its new location-sharing feature.

Chatroulette, you'll recall, is the site that lets you randomly connect to Webcams around the world. There's always a chance you'll find an interesting person and engage in a fascinating conversation. But you're more likely to connect to someone showing off body parts that would normally be covered by clothing.

Chatroulette focuses on one-to-one contact, but you can move on from one video chat to another by hitting "next." The site rolled out with local features called Localroulette that snatched users' IP addresses, but the idea didn't take off--the Web page for the local service doesn't exist anymore.

Now, for better or worse, Tinychat has revived the location-sharing idea (as an optional feature), and it goes a step farther than Chatroulette in another area as well. It displays several Webcam streams on a single page ("Brady Bunch" style), thus creating the equivalent of a chat room.

If you think the prospect of even more exposed body parts--attached to people who know where you live--would appeal only to the very brave or the very bizarre, you might want to think again: Tinychat says it's growing at a rate of 50,000 new users every day and that there are about 30,000 active chat rooms (public and private) receiving a million visits a day. The company also boasts of having some celebrity backers, including Ashton Kutcher, Diddy, Madonna manager Guy Oseary, and Ron Burkle.

The new location feature is optional and reveals only a 10-mile radius if you decide to share where you are. … Read more

Nearly one in five smartphone users are tapping into check-in services like Foursquare and Gowalla, according to a ComScore report released yesterday.

A total of 16.7 million mobile-phone subscribers used location-based services on their phones in March. That amounts to about 7.1 percent of the entire population of mobile users.

But among smartphone users specifically, 12.7 million checked in with such sites during the month, representing 17.6 percent of all smartphone owners, ComScore said.

For the purposes of its study, ComScore included such location-based check-in services as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Places.

Compared with most smartphone owners, those who used location-based sites on their phones also proved more likely to access other types of mobile content. More than 95 percent of them used their mobile browsers or mobile apps. Almost 62 percent grabbed the news on their mobile devices.

And in a stat that will make retailers happy, almost one third of the users browsed to online retail sites on their phones, while one fourth accessed online shopping guides. Users of check-in sites also got a heavier dose of advertising. Almost 40 percent of respondents said they remembered seeing an online ad during March, compared with just 27.5 percent of all smartphone users who said the same thing.… Read more

Apple, along with Pandora Media and The Weather Channel, have been named in a lawsuit alleging that the companies did not disclose the fact that personal data--specifically location--was being shared with third-party advertising networks.

The suit, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico by Lymaris Rivera Diaz and picked up by The Loop, closely resembles an existing suit from December. That one targeted the same companies as well as other app makers for being able to trace an iPhone or iPad using the unique device identifier, or UDID, which is akin to a serial number in … Read more

You're driving to Grandma's house. You've got 200 miles to go. In the car with you: a fatigued spouse, two kids at each other's throats, and a slobbering Labrador Retriever with a full bladder. You're hungry, the gas tank is nearly empty, and you want to get off the road for dinner. Where do you stop?

Traditional roadside placards and billboards might tell you what's next on your route. Some GPS units and apps will show you what's beyond that as well. But nothing I've seen yet is as dialed in to the road-tripper's dilemma as a new app launching today: RoadAhead.

RoadAhead is a smartphone app (iPhone only so far: iTunes link) that can tell you which exit to take when you're on the move and looking for a certain combination of services. Say you want a sit-down dinner, gas, and a playground. You can select just that combination, and the app will show you which of those services are at each exit ahead of you. It will rank services based on how well they fit in with your direction of travel--if possible, it won't route you across a freeway or far off the beaten path.

Most importantly, it won't ever show you attractions or services that are behind you. Because we don't double back, kids. If you wanted to go to Burger King, you should have told me 30 miles ago.

RoadAhead founder Jeffrey Beir (formerly of North Bridge Venture Partners, Xerox, Lotus, and his own start-up, eRoom) tells me the technical challenge to building this app was not trivial. A proprietary database takes available map and business data and enables the app to route based on direction of travel. "It's a tough algorithm," he says.… Read more

Apple recently released iOS update 4.3.3 (4.2.8 for the Verizon iPhone 4) to ease consumers fear that Apple was tracking their every move. Even though Apple has taken steps to encrypt and decrease the size of the location cache, third-party developers still have the potential of accessing your location information. This simple guide will explain how to manage which apps can access your location info on your iPad and iPhone.

… Read more