Google announces My Location service

Permalink: Google announces My Location service by Jan Harris

Google has announced version 2.0 of Google Maps for mobile, featuring a beta version of ‘My Location’, a new navigation service.

Unlike most navigation systems, My Location doesn’t use GPS (global positioning satellite) technology. Instead it uses cell tower ID information to find a users approximate location.

My Location takes the information broadcast from cell towers and processes it with Google-developed algorithms to find the user’s approximate location on the map.

It is available on most smartphones including BlackBerry phones, the Symbian Series 60 3rd Edition range, most Windows Mobile devices, and some Sony Ericsson and Motorola phones.

My Location is said to work more quickly than GPS and can function indoors, which GPS is unable to do. It also takes less power from the phone’s battery.

The system should appeal to those who don’t have GPS enabled phones, and as Google estimates that GPS functionality is supported on fewer than 15 percent of the phones expected to be sold in 2007, there should be a pretty big market for it.