And this is the problem: there is no such thing as a free lunch. And this has been my experience with location-based services (they are available today on cell phones): they are just advertisements in disguise. They tell you things that are near, as long as they are expensive shops who have paid to be in the database. It is not a technical problem, it is a problem with the business model. Maintaining a database is expensive. Very expensive.



As I said, no friend of mine is willing to advertise their location to whatever service. I live in Europe and people are concerned about the privacy aspects. They also do not believe that they can really control who does not get the information, and rightly so: it is a business model problem again. If you are offered this service, somebody is going to pay for it. The financing model is to track your shopping habits and sell that information. My cell phone company is offering location based service and even, I think, this kind of "friend radar". I read the fine prints about it. They won't disclose the info about where you are to private people unless you declare them as friends, but they will disclose it to their "selected business partners". I declined the offer.


The tablet does not come with an appointment calendar. I don't see that service coming to the tablet soon. Maybe on Nokia smartphones or on the PDAs of a firm like Garmin.