comprehensive notes.
for me of course, the mobile stuff is where my head is at. why can’t the operators just get out of the way? they own some of the juiciest location info, apps can really easy integrate automatic location info from the handset, and mix it with some good web apps and the pc and you can have a bazillion services bloom!
i remember talking to nathan eagle, who tracks the cellids in the metro boston area and he saw them moving every so often – on purpose? just by accident? oh, the need for a database like cddb.
hello, operators, wake up! get out of the way and you will prevail! provide location info for free and everyone will swamp your networks with mind-blowing services! the mobile is perfect for this and the only thing holding it back is your 20th century thinking!
sheesh.
Link: confectious: At Where 2.0.
Some very sketchy notes follow in the extended entry.
by way of the ever amazing matt jones.
Take a look at cellspotting.com and the associated app for S60 phones. It’s a sort of cddb for cells, but the data needs to used more and in better ways.
Excellent question. I’ve often wondered myself. The only reasonable explanation I’ve heard came from a friend who explained that a few years back carriers got legislation that allowed them to tack fees onto every subscriber’s bill to cover the cost of implementing E911 when the government required they build location infrastructure. If they started building location features into handsets and using that same infrastructure as a source of new revenue, they may no longer be able to charge those fees.
Even if that is the correct explanation, I think you’re right that they’d make more money in the long run.