Implementations of location awareness technologies and their applications

Location awareness technologies open the doors to developing exciting new applications. With the availability of commercial products built on this technology, it is possible to put this technology in everyday use. The most common implementations currently in use are navigation systems installed in most modern vehicles. These applications make use of Global Positioning System (GPS). This paper explores two location aware implementations namely Intel’s Place Lab and Microsoft’s MapPoint Location Server which became available and are built around an alternate method of location determination. These cost effective and easy to integrate implementations can be leveraged for many useful applications to provide value added services ranging from living a more productive lifestyle to efficient response during emergency situations.