TRENDS
Wireless technology useful but comes with privacy worries

By Edward C. Baig
USA Today

As you bop about town in search of Mr. or Ms. Right, a picture of an attractive stranger appears on your phone.

Gannett News Service

That's the promise behind Match Mobile, an online dating service courtesy of Match.com and AT&T Wireless. Until recently, Match members entered a ZIP code to try to connect with potential mates cruising nearby. But Cupid no longer makes you enter your location manually; the matching is now arranged in high-tech heaven.

By exploiting the satellites that compose the Global Positioning System (GPS), or by "triangulating" your position by measuring the time it takes signals to bounce off two or more cell towers (or the angle of those signals), it is possible to find you simply by tracking the phone in your pocket.

For all the Big Brother implications, what will likely emerge are a slew of potentially useful location-based services, or LBS.

In some respects, your location becomes a filter for information. "I don't want to know where every ATM is," says Marc Prioleau of Sirf Technology, a provider of location-awareness chips. "I want to know the ATM closest to me."

Better emergency service

The initial force behind the technology in the United States is the government-mandated Enhanced 911 (E911) program, being phased in by the end of 2005. It is intended to help emergency personnel locate people in distress via the location of their cell phones.

But relatively few people ever dial 911, which suggests a different long-term direction for LBS. "I don't look at location-based services as 'you are here,' " says Ken Hyers, an analyst at In-Stat/MDR in Boston. "I look at them as 'You are here, and your friend is there. You are here, and you want to get there.' "

While most consumers have no great awareness of LBS, 61 percent of people in households surveyed by the Driscoll-Wolfe market research firm indicated they'd be willing to pay a monthly fee for a package of LBS-type services.

Top of the wish list: roadside assistance, emergency notification and stolen-vehicle tracking.

Finding gas, loot

Indeed, you may already have benefited from location-based assistance, perhaps when riding in an automobile outfitted with a GPS navigator. Such gizmos are becoming more portable and less expensive. Among other applications, LBS can help by:

• Bailing you out. E911 is part of that. But the GM OnStar system can already rescue drivers whose cars break down in the middle of nowhere. By determining your location, OnStar representatives can even remotely open the doors if you lock the keys inside.
  
  Wherify Wireless in Redwood Shores, Calif., sells a GPS locator for kids that is a lockable watch/ pager. If your child gets in trouble while wearing it, he can push a panic button to contact a 911 operator. Meanwhile, parents can track children over the Internet.
  
  
• Getting information. Concierge services for finding places to eat and play already are emerging. TeleCommunication Systems of Annapolis, Md., has a location-based directory assistance service called Xypages that it hopes to make available through wireless phone carriers. Users will punch codes in their phones — say, "411GAS" to find the cheapest and closest gas station, or "411ATM" when they need loot.
  
  
• Managing business. You have a fleet of sales people or mechanics. Through location systems, companies can steer the troops based on geography to customers needing assistance.
  
  Roto-Rooter has begun assigning plumbers this way. Using location awareness, businesses can also track physical valuables such as laptops and packages.
  
  
• Finding people. There's more to it than mobile dating. You might receive text messages when folks who share common interests (or who happen to reside on your buddy list) are in your proximity. Or perhaps a ring tone will go off at a trade show when a potential client comes within 20 feet.

Privacy concerns high

Of course, "1984" author George Orwell would have had a field day with location-based technologies. Privacy is critical, and LBS is as much a policy issue as a technology issue, says Shawn Conahan of wireless content provider Moviso, a partner in the Match Mobile launch. Nothing would kill location-based services more quickly than spam.