Look guys no GPS!

GPS or Global Positioning System equipped mobile phones has been slowly coming up in the market. This will steadily increase over time and people will be able to use these in a lot of applications. For instance, if you find yourself in a city and want to find out where you can stay for the night. It would be a great convenience if you can look at a map on your mobile phone and search for a hotel near you. You would think that you need GPS for this, well that’s not entirely true.

Google has just introduced a new feature on Google Maps that allows you to get “location-based services” without GPS. The new service is currently only available in the US but we hope that this will change sooner. With the new location-based services, you can use your mobile phone to mark your location on the Google Map and find services near your location. For instance you can find a nearby restaurant or maybe a gasoline station. And you don’t need to have a GPS equipped phone to use it!

What Google essentially did was to use the mobile phone “cell sites” (antennas used by your mobile phones to send/receive signals) scattered around an area to triangulate on the signal of your mobile phone. Based on this triangulation it is able to estimate your location and plot it on the Google Map. When your location has been identified, the Google Map software can then identify establishments that is near your location.

This is a boon since we will now be able to conveniently find services based on our physical location. As we wait for the general availability of GPS enabled mobile phones, we don’t have to wait for location-based services. You can get a copy of the Google Map java mobile application at the Google Map mobile site.