FindMe tracks you, even without GPS

March 19th, 2008, 2:03 am · Post a Comment · posted by Sonya Smith

Finding friends and family is now available on your mobile phone, thanks to a new application unveiled Tuesday by United Kingdom’s Electric Pocket.

The FindMe app lets people tag their favorite locations on a map and tell other people where they are on Windows Mobile and BlackBerry phones. The difference between this service and others out there is that FindMe locates the user by triangulating position between nearby cell towers, meaning a user does not need GPS on the device.

“Social networking sites such as Facebook are removing geographic barriers to keeping friends connected, and FindMe adds a great new dimension by sharing locations among friends when and how they want to be seen,” said Steve Bennett, Electric Pocket’s Chief Executive Officer.

Also Tuesday, iPhone Atlas found that a forthcoming iPhone operating system release, already in the hands of a few people, includes a new feature that logs a user’s location based on cell tower triangulation. Will at IntoMobile says the “location logging opens the door to some interesting features in the future. On the other hand, the fact that your iPhone could track your current position as well as your whereabouts throughout the day is a potential security and privacy issue.”

{democracy:9}

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