>> I'm asking about handsets that have GPS not because the manufacturers
want to sell such a feature to consumers, but because they're legally
required to put it in there.
By 2007 all Japanese handsets will need to have GPS in by law. But as
handsets have been in the market with GPS for a while now, all handsets will
have a commercial reason to put the GPS in as well as the legislative
reason.
KDDI handsets are the only handsets to date that have both a digital compass
and GPS in the one handset, so can therefore rotate the map to the users
orientation.
>> I hope no-one (that thoughtful governor chap up in Tokyo, for
example) gets the bright idea of linking the "gaijin-toerag" numbers (that
gaijin have to give when we rent the keitai in the first place) to the gps,
and doing real time tracking....
With KDDI the user has to be notified if an application is going to position
their handset. In the case of elderly or young children, parents/guardians
can 'ping' the phone and get its location without the approval of the user.
This is one of the most popular LBS applications available in Japan at the
moment.
We are about to launch our first application in Japan that uses both the
compass and the GPS to do directional LBS searching, and believe me, the
applications go through a very rigorous checking by KDDI before they can get
anywhere near their customers, so don't expect some kind of cloak and dagger
tracking application to make it to market without the user knowing they are
being tracked.
Scott Judson
Concept Development
GeoVector Corporation
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Received on Sat Oct 29 04:40:29 2005