Google Latitude
 

Has anyone seen this?
is a new location service from google.
http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html

There are other location services around, but i've not seen any support in n8x0.
Is there any support? any ideas?

I hope so!!!, this is a great thing.
Bye!!

Re: Google Latitude
 

Text, phone or IM your friends. Ask them where they are. If they don't tell you, they probably don't want you to know. ;)

Re: Google Latitude
 

And that's about 98%... ;)

Re: Google Latitude
 

It seems to be exactly the same as Nokia Friend View:
http://betalabs.nokia.com/betas/view/nokia-friend-view

There was a thread about Friend View here and why it (or something like it) wasn't released for the tablets.

I've always liked the idea of such services.

Re: Google Latitude
 

I don't have any friends with tablets but I guess I can see where you guys are lol

Re: Google Latitude
 

I don't have any friends

Re: Google Latitude
 

i dont want any friends

Re: Google Latitude
 

Interesting service, I just tried it out with a few friends. It's certainly a signal towards something we will be seeing a lot more in the future. I'm personally very much amused that about 50% of all phone calls tend to start with "Hey, where are you?" There's something there indeed.

...

But the real question is:

What does this mean for Microsoft or Nokia Or Linux? :confused: :eek: :(

Re: Google Latitude
 

Well Jabber (e.g. the default IM client on the devices) supports location reporting, and something like GeoClue (or the upcoming Nokia replacement) could provide the location information. I hope this feature is included out-of-the-box in Fremantle.

Re: Google Latitude
 

Could we use this as an enemy finder?

Re: Google Latitude
 

They haven't posted the Gadgets' code ...

... if they had, we could have run it on the tablet in a local web page to see what it calls. :)

Re: Google Latitude
 

Well, if nothing else, such a service might help those who attend the next summit more successfully meet up with Gnuite on museum night.

Re: Google Latitude
 

"They've just appeared on our long-range sensors, Captain!"

"Engage cloak! Raise Sheilds! Arm Weapons!"

...or maybe something like what Batman uses to find the Joker in Dark Knight...?

Re: Google Latitude
 

for gnu/linux on nokia devices it means:
they could have had this long ago but failed to put all the (existing and working) pieces together.

Re: Google Latitude
 

i did hope so, too. until nokia came up with "contacts on ovi" (formerly nokia chat). while this is a XMPP based service and could use the technology you describe to share locations, they chose to make this part proprietary (again). so chances are we'll see a feature like this in fremantle only as part of some ovi-service nobody'll use, but not the way we would want to.

remember, as somebody who does have friends who would like to share their locations, you need to choose now between:
nokia friend view
google latitude
contacts on ovi
any location-sharing XMPP-server
...and a few other services that exist as mainly web-based solutions

so when i'm on nokia friend view, my google latitude friends won't see me, neither will somebody with contacts on ovi.

in order to make location sharing happen, we need to have one standard that ensures interoperability. using a tablet and knowing about the power of openness, i'd say jabber-based location sharing is this standard. but of course nokia is much wiser...

Re: Google Latitude
 

The beauty of the built-in IM service, from my point of view anyway, is that it collates all my contacts, no matter what service they are using. It would be nice to have similar location information provision so that whichever service my friends are using, they can see where I am.

Anyway, we live in hope that the new location framework will provide some cool features, otherwise I'll have to pull my finger out and try to hook some of these bits together myself (or poke Nokians to open enough up to let us do so). :)

Re: Google Latitude
 

Now to be interfacink Google Latitude to orbital LART, one moment please, comrade.

Re: Google Latitude
 

what's interesting:

the media are still full of google latitude. there's a new story about it almost every day.

the two similar nokia services never had any media coverage at all. the only thing nokia gets mentioned for these days is extoring the finnish parliament.

maybe nokia should invite a few journalists to the sauna one day...

Re: Google Latitude
 

I wonder why it took so long till stuff like that came up again - my last network operator (3) offered a similar service in its portal in 2005...

And still I struggle to find a use case where Latitude or any other similar service would be worth it for me. Privacy concerns overrule the small convenience gain - I just don't want anybody to be able to track me constantly. If you want to know where I am, call me, and if I choose to ignore you, take the hint.

Haven't you heard? Google and Apple get media attention with every little tiny itsy-bitsy thing they do. Just check TechMeme - 97% of all the time, something concerning either Google or Apple gets the top spot, 2.9% of the time it's some Microsoft story, and the rest is split between the gazillion of other companies out there. There's little you can do to overcome the blogosphere's love for these two companies.

And both FriendView and Contacts on Ovi aren't meant to be advertised much anyway I'd think - they're beta services, and in FriendView's case, a Research Center product to study the impact/usage of such a service. For the enthusiasts only for now, so to speak...

Re: Google Latitude
 

thats the point:
these two companies understood how to get the PR they want.
the PR nokia gets meanwhile makes me want to hide away every nokia product i own when i'm on the train. (lex nokia, bochum, ...)

PR is a skill you can learn. nokia should try to learn.

Re: Google Latitude
 

The problem is: Nokia is non-existant in the US, while pretty much all tech-blogs are mostly concerned with US stuff. Just like TechCrunch's Arrington called Nokia "irrelevant" a while ago, mostly because his website's focus ends pretty much at the borders of Silicon Valley.

And how do you want to spin Bochum and "Lex Nokia" into positive PR? Not gonna happen, especially when you're an industry leader - for some reason, the media loves to bash those for everything, while they hype the (perceived) underdog.

Re: Google Latitude
 

There a more intrinsic reason why Google / Apple get the attention while many others do not.

Maybe some of it is captured here in the blog post by Scoble (the egoist).

One major reason is that Apple and Goole have a penchant for releasing a complete working product when they announce it instead of some half-baked product with a announcement long before the completed product is expected in market.

When Latitude news came out - it was ready for use in all the devices they mentioned (which was quite a lot) with only the iPhone announcement as coming soon.

Another thing I really liked was that in Google maps on my N95 - Google allows you to select friend contact from your contact list - and filter it out by various cariteri - its so helopful - that I didnt have to enter any contact by hand - they were all found from within Gmail's addresses. THAT's the kind of complete interaction with google's own products which amazes. Its the level of completeness which is lacking in many other apps from other manfacturers.

Re: Google Latitude
 

whats happening in the US is non-existant here. english-language tech-blogs are playing a minor role.

i'm talking about the mainstream papers, news portals, TV news here. Nokia is strong here, very strong. As a brand probably stronger than Google.

so while i do understand that Nokians don't pay much attention to a territory they're not successful in, anyway, you'd expect them to do some sort of PR in countries where they're omnipresent.

Lex Nokia is something that just must not leak if you're daffy enough to do it in the first place.

Bochum, in fact, was something that could have been a bright success story for Nokia: after all, while others have long left both the US and the EU and have their devices manufactured in the far east, Nokia opened a new plant right within the EU. That's the basic message: "We stay in Europe!" - Open this thing in Romania, let the public celebrate that you invest in Europe instead of in some developing country... and then, 3 months later, tell that because of the success of your new European flagship you concentrate your forces to this most modern site, closing down Bochum while you're at it.
That would have been a completely different story than "they move it from Bochum to Romania".

Re: Google Latitude
 

I guess that is why google never releases a 'beta' product...

Some would call the iphone somewhat unfinished considering the shortcomings(cut/paste, video, no access to calendar through api etc), not to mention when it came out you could not even install apps on it!

Re: Google Latitude
 

wait a minute! ...that's MY line!! ;-)

Re: Google Latitude
 

Check the privacy tips before ruling it out. Maybe it can work for you.

Re: Google Latitude
 

It's more a general thing. I don't want to have a friend suddenly asking why I stopped sharing my location with him/her, or why I never shared it with them in the first place, etc.

And on top of that, I really don't think stuff like that is all that useful. I seriously can't think of a single use case where it might come in handy.

Re: Google Latitude
 

Walking around in a city you don't know (e.g. Berlin) trying to meet up with people for beer. Sounds quite useful to me :)

Re: Google Latitude
 

how about "fun"?

Re: Google Latitude
 

Agreed.

Well, anything where you might want to meet up with someone, but something prevents effective communication of locations otherwise (such as one (or both) of you isn't familiar with the town you're in), or for keeping a loose convoy together on a road trip. But not as a general thing, and it's probably not real good at the latter use, as it's not what they seem to be envisioning; I'd sooner have separate software (tricked out maemo-mapper or such) just for those few situations.

Re: Google Latitude
 

+2

It is clear that we have a generational shift going on here. This next generation has very little expectation of privacy. Maybe it's too much star trek (Computer where is so and so). But I'll be damned if I'm going to go broadcasting my presence. And I'll be double damned if some "friend" asks me why I'm not sharing my location.

I can see now how people are going to be framed in the very near future.

You honor I present evidence that proves that so and so was in fact at location a. Kind of like that Judge Dread scene where the gun was "proven" to be Dread's.

I want to know where you are I'll ask and ask for the nearest intersection if I'm interested in meeting you.

Re: Google Latitude
 

I suppose it depends on the granularity of course, if one could set it to nearest-city, etc., then I can't see why people would complain about sharing that with their friends.

Re: Google Latitude
 

I think the google sense of the "beta" is totally different from beta software where it means unfinished and I am not liable for any defects in product.

Just because google products say beta doest mean they are unusable in any way. They are still far more complete in features than an pre-release announcement only.

I am essentially talking anout making an announcement with something ready for usres to use - while you are soplitting hairs about the true meaning of beta or how complete a device is in its usage. Thats a different debate.

Re: Google Latitude
 

I added gpsgate support to minigpsd which does something similar.

You can navigate to the page and enter your location (lat/lon), and if they would publish the magic method I could add support for that too.

Re: Google Latitude
 

i don't quite understand those who say here they've got concerns about privacy.

don't you use instant messaging?
my presence settings already tell my friends that i'm home, that i watch tv, that i'm having dinner... and, sometimes, what songs i'm listening to.

don't you have a blog or something similar?
reading my friends' blogs i know where they are, what they do, who they're doing it with. - with many of them even in real time, as mobile blogging directly from the cell phone (via sms, mms, mail) became increasingly popular in recent years.
my blog hoster allows me to include latitude/longitude information for entries that are about a location... lat/long are part of the rss-feed, google maps displays location markers for each of these entries in the feed.

so that's what we have... already. people tell me where they are. what they do. some of it is based on privacy-protecting invitation-systems (such as instant messaging, nokia friend view,...), other content (blogs) is totally open for everyone to read.

these new geolocation systems are nothing fundamentally different. you can start and stop sharing your location whenever you want. like with any IM or social network, you'll have that situation when you are invited to be someone's "buddy" but decline. it's a common situation, we know how to handle it.

if it's a " generation shift": i'm 42, my friends are 35-45. so maybe you need to be in you early 20s to have any problems here, while those 35+ joyfully play with the technology. ;)

Re: Google Latitude
 

Yes I do. I do not broadcast where I am in my status. I do broadcast what I'm listening to, but never my actual location. Nobody's business.

Yes I have a blog. Two actually. I rarely mention my geographic location. In fact unless it is necessary for the commentary I'm posting (say the Sean Bell case in NYC), I don't divulge. There's no need.

I also use my tablet to post to my blog from wherever I may be. So for example I had a picture of Flavor Flav from a Flavor of Love DVD cover. I mentioned I saw the cover. I did not mention where. Why should I? Nobody's business.

Yes and those people who searched on AOL search thought they had "privacy protection". Most people with Gmail accounts have no clue that their web travels are being recorded unless they explicitly log out of the service rather than just close the window.

No well actually a lot of the "geolocation" services are not start/stop. Onstar, EZ Pass, The GPS in your cell phone.etc. Always on. Always Identifying who you are and where you are (and how fast you got there). Freely available to any government agency or private government tracker, to record, file.

The generational shift (and perhaps I'm being too narrow in that definition for various reasons), is one that has the idea that one ought not be "afraid" to give up "private" information if one doesn't have something to hide. Rather than the idea that my business, legal or otherwise is no one elses business. That my coming and goings are also nobody elses business including friends and family, unless I explicitly want to let them know. AND so called "friends and family" have no business getting up my behind when they can't know where I am and what I'm doing. a situation surely to arise.

People already are saying "something must be wrong with your relationship or friendship if you don't want to tell your location or what you're doing.'

My how all these human friendships blossomed over thousands of years with people not being able to call people anytime or know where they were. Shocking!

Re: Google Latitude
 

that's the whole point of these services: that people explicitly want to let their friends and family know where they are. sometimes.

really, i don't understand all the fuzz. and i am concerned about my privacy in general (which is one of the reasons why i avoid using google services whenever possible and why i'm still surprised how easily people hand over their mails, contacts, documents, calendars to this company)

Re: Google Latitude
 

This service could be useful, but being part of the "new" generation that sondjata is talking about, I still fear privacy concerns. Lets say, every day at 3, I have a job working at a sewage facility. I don't want my friends to know that, so I switch off my location. Now, if they are good friends, they will understand, but otherwise they will question why I always turn it off.

Other than that, Google does not give a sh*t about your location. The government can already track your phone (911 calls anyone?), and if you are really scared of the government, you would not carry a phone.

I think it is a great idea for the most part.

Re: Google Latitude
 

now that's interesting. you know, talking about these services you find out how people could/would use them. i myself would think of turning it off in your sewage example: i probably wouldn't have it switched on before i go there. my use case isn't "leave it on most of the time and only switch it off when you need to hide". my use case is "leave it off most of the time and only switch it on when you want to be located". so i'd probably have it switched off when at home or at the office because my friends know where and when i work, anyway, and i wouldn't want to signal "come and join me at my office".

i'd turn it on when i take a walk along the river danube, thinking: "hey, lovely day, wouldn't it be great to meet just anybody who's nearby right now and have a coffee?"
if nobody sees me and my walk is over, i'd go offline again.

very much the same as with IM: "online" means "ready for chat", anything else - incl. offline - means i might be online, but i'm sociophobic again.

right. reminds me of a friend of mine who had - well, mental problems, kind of a breakdown, left her family, bad story... anyway: after they'd started searching for her, in no time the police could tell exactly where she'd been, using mostly data from her cell phone, but also from cash machines etc.
in this particular case it was great because it helped finding her and giving her medical treatment as soon as possible (she's fine again now), but still... it was a little bit scaring to experience this, see the level of detail "they" have access to if they want. they certainly wouldn't need nokia friend view or google latitude for this.

Re: Google Latitude
 

Again I return to the idea that family and friends will be in a position to query as to why you have not shared your location. That is the expected norm will not be "I don't know and that's OK." Rather it will be "I don't know, therefore something is wrong." That is a huge fundamental change. I'm particularly concerned about this from a legal point of view as I'm currently reading a book concerning reasonable doubt and a jury's concept of privacy and guilt.

Anyway, if you read a recent report on ArsTechnica, you have a web company that had an advertiser put a box inline with their network that captured all customers net traffic for various reasons. The "Opt out" was buried in some fine text in the long "user agreement." and it was found that even those who opted out STILL had their traffic being logged by this third party.

So enough of the "explicit" junk.

The fuzz is about in the end the expectation of individual privacy. The US's NSA is on record as being very happy about people giving up this kind of information voluntarily because it lowers the legal expectation of privacy for them. This bothers me. The current trend is that once a large enough portion of the population volunteers to give up a certain level of privacy, then the government finds a means to then claim that the rest of us have given it up as well. This is specifically why the NSA got in it's head to use ATT, Verizon, etc.

The Fed is constrained by the 4th Amendment against warrantless searches of your private stuff. However no private company is under such a constraint. You then waive your privacy rights to internet company A, Internet company A then allows the government to access It's data, which was previously your private data, and you get a warrantless search. Now couple that with legislation "requiring" retention of logs and you have a whole lot of latitude for abuse.

But all you wanted to do is see an icon of your friend floating on a Google map.:rolleyes: