ankit1kumar
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07:35:25 pm on August 31, 2010 |
Usefulness of Location based Service and its various applications
people mostly are on the lookout for a place to eat, somewhere to obtain cash, a taxi stand, and so on. When abroad, there can be additional requirements such as finding local tourist attractions, locating a hotel, getting around the place, foreign exchange, etc. Likewise while driving there can be more specific requirements, such as help with finding a route, information on the nearest gas station or details of breakdown services.
I also find the classification scheme for service usage scenarios proposed by Reichenbacher (2004) quite meaningful. According to this classification all location based user needs can be characterized into 5 fundamental mobile actions – figuring out where the user himself is with respect to somebody or something else (locating); users may search for persons, objects or events (searching); users may ask for the way to a location (navigating); or they may ask for properties of a location (identifying); or they may try to look for events at or nearby a certain location (checking). Some of these scenarios also involve time and not just geospatial information, since they are dependent upon the state of entities or events as well.
The various applications of LBS, I think also give us a good idea of the usefulness of location based services. The GPS devices are one such application that comes to our mind first but there are a variety of scenarios & a number of applications, where LBS play/can play a major role. As defined by Wikipedia, LBS is a form of information and/or entertainment service, that can be accessed with the use of mobile devices through the mobile networks and one that utilizes the ability to determine the geographic location of the mobile device or in other words the location of the consumer. This idea of the position of the device & hence that of the consumer has opened up avenues for new kinds of applications to be built that make use of the LBS concept and that are accessed through a mobile phone. These applications, as seen in the figure below, can be broadly categorized into Navigational, Informational, Emergency, Advertising, Billing, Management, Tracking, Gaming & other Leisure/communication centric applications.
LBS application categories
Source: Foundations of LBS (Steiniger, Neun and Edwardes)
Thanks to such applications, users can now get real time weather information, get movie show times at nearby theaters, browse recommendations for nearby restaurants, get detailed turn by turn navigation directions, locate nearby stores, receive local news & traffic alerts, find friends in the vicinity, learn about special deals & discounts at nearby stores, etc., all without having to type in the address of their present location.
One of the most exciting & futuristic applications of LBS that I have come across is that of Augmented Reality. In the next 5-10 years, researchers are planning to pull graphics out of the phone or computer display and integrate it into real-world
Augmented Reality – Source: How Stuff Works, 2005
environments. This innovative & stimulating technology will further blur the line between the real world and the computer-generated virtual world by enhancing what we see, hear, feel and smell. In contrast to the virtual environments that we see today through a variety of display devices, in augmented reality we will be able to see the real world around us, with the relevant computer graphics superimposed or composed with the real world. In this technique, the real world instead of being replaced is supplemented with information from the virtual world. The devices that can be used to realize this scheme will be on the lines of “see-through” devices, the ones that might possibly be worn on the head, and the ones that will overlay graphics and text on the user’s view of his or her surroundings.
The possibilities are virtually limitless and as more & more businesses begin to appreciate the power of Location Based Services we are going to witness a variety of interesting applications taking advantage of these services in ways previously unimagined.
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