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By now you likely understand that Apple, Google, your cellularcarrier, and others can track your phone s location. But youprobably aren t aware of the extent to which location trackingtechnology is evolving. Take, for instance, what s going on at Alohar Mobile . The company has created a platform that lets developers buildmobile apps that understand your behavior based on patent-pendingsensing technologies. They can automatically detect the places youvisit, including the names and types of locations, know when youarrive or leave, track how many times you ve been there, and howmuch time you spent hanging out. They even understand if you restanding still, walking, or driving. According to CNET s Rafe Needleman, who spoke with Alohar co-founder Sam Liang about the technology,it doesn t just use the GPS receiver and Wi-Fi hotspottriangulation to figure out where you are, but relies on othersensors and algorithms such as the accelerometer, compass, andstatistical modeling to determine where you re likely located. Needleman makes the point that automotive navigation apps also usea form of modeling which assumes you re on a road even if GPSradios don t exactly place you on one. Alohar works similarly: If you're moving at walking speed, for example, it will place youon a sidewalk or in a building, not in the middle of the street. Ifthe camera on your phone sees fluorescent light, it will try togeolocate you to an indoor location, he writes. Having access to highly accurate location data means developers cancreate apps that can do cool things like sense if a person is in acar accident and call for help, or offer you deals, ads, and otherinformation that is highly targeted according to where you spendyour time. At the same time, this incessant location tracking canbe disturbing to people who think companies already have too big awindow into their personal data. Want to see how it works? Alohar has developed a proof-of-concept app called Placeme that you can download for Android and iOS devices. You should know Alohar is far from the only company working onthis. I recently wrote about several other companies active in thelocation tracking space, including Skyhook, Google, Wifarer, Nokia,and Broadcom, to name a few. For example, using Wi-Fi positioning, GPS, and cell-towertriangulation to determine the coordinates of more than 100,000,000mobile devices, Skyhook maintains profiles on all of them and knowswhich ones are associated with certain kinds of people. If Skyhooksees that a device shows up at Wrigley Field four times in aseason, it assumes that the person using the laptop is a sportsfan. Or if a laptop or smartphone is detected in an airport severaltimes a month, Skyhook guesses that the user is most likely abusiness traveler. Over time, Skyhook also figures out where all these devices live.Then, by mixing into device profiles publicly available data fromthe U.S. Census, for example, it adds demographic data such as ageand ethnicity. For more on the subject, check out This Smartphone Tracking Tech Will Give You the Creeps. Follow Christina on Twitter and Google+ for even more tech news and commentary and follow Today@PCWorld on Twitter, too. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Infrared Thermal Imaging Camera Manufacturer , Wireless Baby Monitor Manufacturer, and more. For more , please visit IP Camera Systems today!
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