Cell Phones Will Be Able To Tell You Where You Are

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Cell phones are going to get even smarter in the next few months. In a slightly Orwellian twist, cell phones will be able to tell people exactly where there owner is, at any given instant. Despite the fact some people might not like such an intrusion on their privacy, Nextel is betting that customers will pay for the ability to hone in on family members.

Sprint Nextel Corp. has signed up hundreds of thousands of customers for a feature that shows them where their friends are with colored marks on a map viewable on their cellphone screens. Now, Verizon Wireless is gearing up to offer such a service in the next several weeks to its 65 million customers, people familiar with it say.
WSJ’s Jessica Vascellaro tests out Loopt’s new buddy-tracking device to see whether it’s helpful for hooking up with friends or just another invasion of privacy.

Making this people-tracking possible is that cellphones today come embedded with Global Positioning System technology. With it, carriers have already offered mapping features such as turn-by-turn driving instructions. But they long hesitated to offer another breakthrough made possible by GPS — tracking of cellphone users’ whereabouts in real time — because of privacy and liability concerns.

Without a doubt, this “service”, if abused, could go on to become a literal nightmare for many users. Sprint/Nextel knows this, and has been slowly rolling out the product to avoid pitfalls. We’ll be seeing more in coming months as the service premiers to a wider audience.

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