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By Richard Marejka, April 2007
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 On Day 2 of JavaOne - that's Wednesday, May 9 at 1:30pm Michael Zhang of SiRF Technologies and Jaana Majakangas of Nokia will present. Jaana and Michael will talk about location-based services for the Java ME platform.
JSR 179, Location API, standardizes location retrieval on Java ME. The next challenge for developers is the location consumption: how to make use of the location. This need is now being addressed with JSR 293, Location API 2.0, which aims to include support for several common location-based services in the standardized API.
I had a chance to interview Michael about his work in location-based services (LBS), the current state of the technology and market and the future of LBS.
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Q. How did you get started in the mobile and location sector?
This is a long story. Location and geographic sciences have been part of life since I entered college. During my doctoral study in spatial statistics and spatial modeling, I started to become really interested in the mobile-location field and was amazed by the breadth and depth of this very intriguing area. I began my professional experience working for leading wireless data, voice and messaging infrastructure companies like Openwave, and finally found my home at SiRF to work on the cutting-edge end-to-end mobile location solutions.
Q. How did SiRF get started in the location business?
SiRF started in 1995. At that time, the company was looking at doing a new start-up and was considering multiple areas, one of them wireless communication, of which GPS technology is a part. Founder Kanwar Chadha wasn't very familiar with the GPS market at that time, but the technology looked very interesting. The concept: with one satellite system you could pinpoint the location of anybody anywhere on the earth. He realized that at that time, most of the focus on GPS had been in defense usage or in high-end professional markets like surveying, aircraft navigation, ship navigation and things like that. But nobody had really focused on consumer mass-market usage of location and it seemed very intuitive that if the price was right and if GPS was integrated into mass-market devices, it could have big impact in the market place.
The technology looked interesting, the market was promising. To test our intuition, Kanwar went to Japan - widely regarded as the first mass market to adopt consumer electronic devices. He found that in Japan, the car navigation system was starting to emerge as a popular gadget, but the price was high - ranging from USD 3000-4000. After talking to some of the manufacturers, he found that the underlying GPS technology was very expensive: it cost USD 500 to buy a GPS module, and when you integrated mapping and processing technology, the system became even more expensive. But the interesting thing was that people were buying GPS products, even at that price level.
We thought that if we could combine typical silicon methodologies with GPS system knowledge, we could bring down the price to mass-market price points, as well as substantially improve GPS performance for consumer applications. When we considered the potential for interesting, useful applications for consumer GPS, we were on our way. That's how we started.
Q. What services does your company SiRF provide?
SiRF develops and markets semiconductor and software products that are designed to enable location-awareness utilizing GPS and other location technologies, enhanced by wireless connectivity capabilities, such as Bluetooth, for high-volume mobile consumer devices and commercial applications.
Q. What is SiRF's vision?
The company's vision from day one has been to deliver location for the mass market. In the early days we had focused heavily on how to location-enable more and more devices, and how to bring more interesting and useful content into those devices.
Longer-term, our vision is to make location part of our day-to-day life, which means not only devices but interaction with users themselves. For example, I can push a button to locate anybody in my family at any instance in time. The idea is that location becomes a part of life: You not only use it, but also contribute. For example, if I'm walking and see a restaurant, I should be able to push a button, take an image instantly, and location gets attached to it.
The same thing applies from governments' viewpoint: government should be able to locate immediately any hazardous material, fleet, or truck - in case of any emergency you can push a button and see where they are.
For an enterprise, you can push a button and you know exactly where all your mobile assets are, whether it's your mobile workforce or hard assets.
Q. Do you participate in any industry/standards bodies such as the JCP (Java Community Process)?
Yes, I am actively participating in various mobile and location related industry bodies such as JCP, Open GIS Consortium (OGC), and Open Mobile Alliance (OMA).
Q. What is a "location-based service"?
Location-based services (LBS) are applications and platforms that use geographic locations as contextual information to provide valued-added services. Location-based services use any of several technologies for knowing where a user is geographically located. The most prominent technology is the Global Positioning System (GPS), based on a collection of 24 Navstar satellites developed originally for the U.S. Department of Defense. Other technologies include Cell-ID triangulation, hybrid technologies such as WiFi + GPS, and network based positioning. Today there are a multitude of location based services that offer a range of user experiences, from tracking a fleet to playing a multiplayer game.
Q. When can we expect to see GPS in the mobile phone mass market?
The mobile GPS market continues to grow and by 2010, UBS Research projects 40 percent of all handsets sold will have GPS.
Q. Do LBS services have a role to play in the on-line mobile game sector?
Yes. Location is a going to be a killer enabler for almost all mobile applications. With the advent of IP based high-speed 3G networks, and the availability of low cost GPS handsets, mobile multiplayer locative games (MMLG) and location-based social networking is becoming increasingly popular with mobile users, and it holds the potential for a significant, large revenue stream for mobile operators.
Today, mobile game players want more real-world experience in their virtual game-play, which is possible to deliver with multiplayer games that use the actual physical location information of each player. Location provides the critical cross-over from the virtual gaming world to competitiveness and real-life interaction of the physical world, which makes the mobile game more engaging for the user.
Q. Is there an open standard for the interchange of LBS data?
There are many open industry standards already defined by various industry consortiums for positioning and GIS-related functions, which are the fundamentals of LBS. For example, 3GPP defined positioning-related protocols such as RRLP, RRC for GSM/GPRS/UMTS network, OMA defined SUPL for IP-based positioning, OpenGIS consortium-defined OpenLS for GIS services, and various markup languages such as GML, which can be potentially used for LBS data exchange purpose. There are several other options for location data exchange that are being looked into by the JSR 293 committee.
Q. Does LBS employ a client-sever model to exchange data between clients and service client requests?
Most LBS are employing a client-server model. They will require data connection channels available between the client (mobile devices or PCs) and the server. There are also standalone LBS applications, such as personal navigation applications, which are used in Personal Navigation Devices (PND) and smart phones, which have enough memory or storage to hold the geographic data such as streets and maps.
Q. What are the challenges in designing the client-side of LBS?
There are many challenges related to the development of a good LBS application on the client side. How to get an accurate location of the mobile device anytime and anywhere is always a challenge for the entire location industry. Fortunately we have seen big improvements in recent years with carriers deploying mobile location infrastructure that meets the E911 mandate in the U.S. and the growing consumer interest worldwide. Another big challenge is that there are very heterogeneous ways to access location, mapping, and other LBS functionalities on the client side. We need to have common and easy-to-use APIs that can empower the developers to create innovative LBS applications and services that can be deployed across different platforms and devices.
Q. What are the Java ME platform requirements of the LBS client?
The LBS client requires MIDP 2.0, CLDC 1.1, or CDC.
Q. There are privacy concerns with regard to location information. How do LBSs offer value and protect privacy?
In the future, location-sensing technology can provide a level of societal and individual protection and safety far beyond what we have currently. Vast numbers of people can be helped and lives saved with GPS enabled devices. Properly safeguarded through individual control, encryption, and stringent regulation, this evolving technology should not increase the risk for personal privacy violation beyond what we live with today.
Q. North America seems to lag in the adoption of LBSs. Which areas of the globe lead?
Currently Europe and Asia lead in deploying mobile LBS solutions.
Q. Why have the multitude of 'killer LBS applications' available for handset OEMs and wireless operators failed to be as successful as music downloads, SMS messaging or Blackberry-style push email?
The industry has held the misperception that it takes one 'killer app' to ignite consumers' interest in location-based services. The problem is, consumers don't even know what LBS means. What they need is a 'locative experience' where location permeates everything they do with their mobile device.
Q. Will there ever be one killer application for location-based services?
Success will come through the integration of a locative experience across multiple applications. This can be done by "platforming" location context on mobile devices through a common, standardized set of location APIs and services that all applications can use on all mobile devices.
Q. What will be the key factor to generate consumer enthusiasm for these applications?
A great and simple user experience will drive true adoption. This starts with the delivery method of the application the user's phone. Today, web browsers are slow and cumbersome, and downloadable applications are only being used by 10-20 percent of mobile device users. Native apps are used by 80 percent of the mobile users 80 percent of the time. Location-enabling the native applications built into the handset, and providing the means to integrate with other LBS applications, makes location relevant to the real-world tasks and activities of the mobile phone user.
That's TS-5345, Bring Map and Navigation Capabilities to Your Location-Based Applications with JSR 293, Location API 2.0, Wednesday at 1:30pm. Michael Zhang of SiRF Technologies and Jaana Majakangas of Nokia will make it a great presentation, especially if you're looking for technology and market opportunities based on the Java ME platform. After all, these are mobile devices.
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