WaveMarket + Nokia = LBS Love
Nokia and WaveMarket announced today that they’ve joined forces to offer LBS-tracking systems to carriers. Basically WaveMarket has a WaveAlert platform that offers push-LBS, as opposed to…pull-LBS. Their system alerts the user when they get near certain places or people, as opposed to them pulling up the service and asking. Nokia demoed the LBS application Nokia LBS Push at 3GSM last year.
If you recall, also, last October Nokia announced a deal with Trimble, a GPS-based technology, in addition to buying Gate5. We’ve seen the result of the Gate5 buy-out, but haven’t seen anything concrete regarding this Trimble deal. They do have this page though, laying out some of the details of the LBS solution that Nokia can provide to carriers.
Here’s what I see…
(Via: RingNokia)
Smart2Go is in beta right now, that much is obvious. I’ve been playing with it and I have to confess, it’s pretty good. The phone integration is stellar, and it’s pretty easy to use. However, personally I currently like TomTom over Smart2Go, for a few reasons. I have been assured, though, that by the end of this year, I’ll happily drop TomTom in favor of Smart2Go, and I’m beginning to connect the dots as to why.
Imagine this: I’ve got my Nokia N95 (or whatever phone they come out with later this year, as it’s been said that most of their handsets from here on out will have GPS built-in) and I’m downtown hanging out. I get an alert on my phone that my buddy John has just arrive downtown also, but he’s on the other side. Since my phone notices that John and I go to pubs together often, it suggests that we meet at the Baker St. Pub, which is halfway between the two of us. I say ok, and both John and I get instructions on our devices navigating us to the pub for a drink.
I think, as we move into the future with GPS and LBS, we could easily see a scenario not too different from the above. What do you think? There’s several LBS services available on other carriers, has anyone used them? Are they that easy, or do you think the technology has a ways to go to become mainstream?
WaveMarket does both push and pull LBS. After all, they make the Sprint Family Locator, Bell Mobility’s Seek & Find, and Vivo’s Localiza Familia…