GOOGLE’S “MY LOCATION” By Rebecca Crooks

My Location  What is it?  How does it work?  Who can use it?  Advantages of My Location  Disadvantages of My Location

What Is My Location?  A cell phone feature that helps you find your general location  No need for a GPS receiver on your phone  It can be used by most “smart phones” such as the BlackBerry 

How Does It Work?  Simply press “0” on your phone and your general location will appear on your screen  Uses information broadcast from cell phone towers to estimate location  Puts you between ,000 feet of your location, depending of cell phone tower density

Who Can Use My Location?  Anyone who has a smart phone such as BlackBerry devices, some recent Motorola and Sony Ericsson devices, and many Windows Mobile phone and Nokia Series 60 Works with: BlackBerry Windows Nokia Series 60 Won’t work with: iPhone Blackjack Old phones

 No phone GPS is need but if your phone does have it you can use My Location instead.  All you need is smart phone as well as internet on your phone

Where Can My Location Be Used?  The application can be used in:  United States  Europe  Some parts of Asia

Advantages  My Location can put you in your general location without needing GPS on your phone  It can be very helpful if you are lost  It can help you to know your general surroundings  It can help you find a specific place  It is reported to be 97% accurate

Disadvantages  The application is still not fully developed so allow for some error  Does not work with all phones  If too many towers are around it is less accurate  Not good for finding specific locations

What About Privacy?  Your privacy is protected  The towers don’t store your information, it’s just like a cell phone call  You can turn the My Location application off when you are not using it

Google  Google is coming out with its own phone, so why is it available to all phones?  Google wants My Location users to search for places on the application.  For example, a user can type in “Starbucks” into the search box and will be shown the nearest Starbucks on the map.

Sources  know-where-you-are-but-it-has-a-good- guess/index.html?ref=technology know-where-you-are-but-it-has-a-good- guess/index.html?ref=technology   ion/ ion/  googlemap29nov29,1, story?ctrack=1&cset=true googlemap29nov29,1, story?ctrack=1&cset=true