The rules are an update to standards adopted one year ago, and, according to the Xinhua article, require "all Internet map servers to keep servers storing map data inside the country and provide public Internet protocol addresses." We have to wonder how might this affect Google and the location-based-services market in China.

Hiding government sites from online maps is certainly nothing new, but the Xinhua article makes several points that make us wonder what new implications these regulations might have.

For example, it mentions that the new rules require "all Internet map servers to keep servers storing map data inside the country and provide public Internet protocol addresses". How will this affect Google, which just recently moved its servers to Hong Kong? How will other maps services, such as Bing Maps, be affected?

The article also mentions "a Japanese who measure 195 locations inside Longyan and located 80 of them on his map" who received "administrative punishment". Is China looking to effectively outlaw the LBS boom we've seen in the U.S. and other countries? It would seem so. The article gives another example, citing "three Germans who collected geographihc information [...] and later mapped these in computers." Heck, we do that daily with applications like Gowalla and Foursquare.

Internet censorship is nothing new, but it surely sounds like these rules are about to step it up a notch. China is the world's largest mobile market and geo-locational technologies are booming, but these new regulations could have some serious effects.

We asked Google if it had any comment on how this might affect its operations there, but have not yet received any response.

For a real-world example of how Newsmap works, you can visit DailyRecord, a news site which features an embedded "news map" at the bottom of their homepage. For another example of a similar technology, see Bing Maps's Local Lens application, a map layer that identifies news stories by city and neighborhood and maps them out using the Bing Maps service. (Bing Maps does not use MetaCarta's technology, it's just similar.)

Although news maps like those above are somewhat interesting, the most intriguing thing about this new acquisition is not the map app, but the technology behind it. Basically, the geotagging aspect to the MetaCarta service can add location data to existing information that previously had none. In doing so, a company could build up a geo-database that could function as the backend for all sorts of location-based services from social apps to local search tools and more. And the need to have an accurate, rich and complete geo-database is going to be a key component to winning a top position in the emerging location-based services market.

Nokia hasn't specified exactly how it plans to use the newly acquired company's technology, only saying that "MetaCarta's technology will be used in the area of local search in location and other services." It's not a leap, though, to assume that MetaCarta's technology could be integrated into Nokia's free Ovi Maps mobile application.

Nokia has had a clear focus on location-based services as of late. The company acquired the social travel service Dopplr in September of last year and later launched turn-by-turn navigation for Ovi Maps in January. However, the company's largest mapping-related acquisition to date is still the $8.1 billion purchase of digital map provider Navteq in 2007.

While the details of this 'hack' are not quite clear, it looks like the iPhone will keep a conduit open to AT&T or Loopt's server that will continuously update a user's location via the iPhone's built-in GPS chip. Loopt is only allowing 5,000 users into this program for now. You can sign up for the test here; just note that after an initial 14-day trial, Loopt will put a $3.99 charge on your AT&T bill each month for this service.

Once this feature is active, Loopt will always know where you are and alert you automatically when you are close to a friend who also uses the service. Until now, you had to open the app and 'check in' to update your location. By running in the background, Loopt will be able to just alert you automatically without the hassle of you having to open the app - something most users are unlikely to do after trying out the app for the first time.

A number of mobile phones, including Android phones and the Palm Pre, allow apps to run in the background (and Loopt is available on most of these). Apple's push notifications only really work for apps that can already run independently on a web server and wait for an email, breaking news event, or Twitter DM to come in. Apps that use push notifications can't actually wake up apps on the phone and download location data or access any other data on the phone. Loopt, obviously, isn't actually running in the background on the phone either, but thanks to the way Loopt has implemented this feature, a user would never actually know the difference.

Other Apps We Would Like to See Doing This

The ingenuity of the hack and the fact that AT&T is allowing Loopt to route around the iPhone's limitation is interesting in its own right. It's even more interesting to think about the other services that could benefit from this service. Obviously, Loopt's competitors like Brightkite and Whrll come to mind here, but advertisers would also be very interested in location-aware services that could alert users to deals at nearby stores (though such alerts could quickly become annoying).

The same technique - keeping a pipeline to an app's server open - could also benefit another class of apps that hasn't gotten a lot of attention yet: cross-reality apps (for the background on these apps, which are somewhat related to augmented reality apps, see our discussion of cross reality and sensors here). Services such as CenceMe, which uses the iPhone's sensors to check if you are walking, sitting, running or in a loud place, also currently need to be running exclusively on the iPhone to work.

Hopefully - Apple will soon just allow apps to run in the background. While other platforms already offer this feature, none of them come close to the popularity of the iPhone or have a similarly convenient app marketplace.

What's Next?

What applications do you hope will use this technique next on the iPhone? Cross-reality apps? A location-aware social networking app from Facebook? Google Latitude?

According to AppleInsider, which recently detailed the proposed features, the iPhone's home screen would be populated by location-aware applications that automatically update based on the current location of the mobile device. The phone's location could be determined by GPS, cell tower triangulation, or even Wi-Fi.

In the drawing accompanying the patent application, the phone's home screen displays apps for local weather, local time, local maps, local contacts, and settings. The icons themselves could even be updated to reflect the new location. For example, the patent filing describes an icon that displays the Golden Gate Bridge when the phone is in San Francisco, but that icon could change to display the skyline of New York City when the phone is located there.

Not only would the location-aware home screen automatically update the apps' icons, the technology could actually permit the phone's owner to save what are being called "transitional data sets." Like it sounds, these represent data that is displayed based on the device's physical location. For example, the proposed location-based contacts application would display just the contacts local to the city you're visiting at the time, as opposed to your entire contacts database. A local mapping application could let you bookmark your favorite restaurants for that particular city. The local time application would know that it's now on the west coast and not the east.

These transitional data sets would initially have to be configured by the end user before they became automatic. This means that the first time you visit a city, you may have to set the weather application yourself. To do so, the patent proposes a "here" button that you would tap to pull up the local forecast. However, after doing so, the location-aware device could automatically populate the weather application to display the weather for that location whenever you traveled to that city.

Apple's Own Apps Need to be Made More Location-Aware

It's interesting that with so many location-aware applications already available in the iPhone App Store, Apple's own default apps (contacts, weather, time, etc.) seem to be the ones in need of a location-aware update. We almost take it for granted that on our iPhone, our favorite movie showtime app knows what theater is nearby. Or when we launch Yelp, we have an entire section that helps us locate nearby businesses. Why shouldn't Apple's own home screen apps operate the same way? Why should we have to manually configure the weather app to know where we are? Why should we have to add new clocks as we travel the country?

Even if the technology described in this patent is never integrated into the phone itself, we think it's only a matter of time before Apple introduces some way for its own apps to become more location-aware. Now that we think about it, isn't it odd that they haven't already?

The concept behind Aloqa's app offers a unique vision for mobile search that's quite different from how most people use their phones today. Currently, if you're looking for nearby restaurants, for example, you would first launch a mobile mapping application like Google Maps, let it locate you, and then perform a search for "restaurants." Once the results loaded, you could tap on the various pushpins to see the info about restaurants nearby, including names, phone numbers, and addresses.

In Aloqa, however, that same search would be much simpler. In fact, it wouldn't be a search at all. Instead, you would just tap on the icon for restaurants and immediately see a list of those nearby. When you see the one you want (oh look, there's sushi!), a second tap will display a window where you can choose to go to the business's web site, display the location on a map, call the business, or send the info to a friend.

This same sort of functionality can be used for anything from restaurants to retail stores to gas stations and ATMs. It can also help you find events that may spark your interest, like a nearby concert for instance.

Location-Aware Facebook Friend Finder

One of the even more interesting functions in Aloqa is its ability to find your nearby Facebook friends. Instead of building an entirely separate mobile social network like mobile social networks Loopt and Brightkite have done, Aloqa lets you invite your Facebook friends to share their location with you on the "Aloqa Buzz" channel. Then, when you and your friends are in proximity to each other, you'll be able to chat with each other via the mobile application. Although this still isn't the ideal solution for making Facebook a true mobile social network (nothing short of a location-aware mobile Facebook app would really do that), it comes very close. All you have to do is convince your friends to accept the invite.

About the Platform

In addition to proactively monitoring your location, Aloqa can also send out "push notifications" based on your own preferences for the types of alerts and levels of intrusiveness you want. For example, you can choose to receive a text-based alert when you walk past a nearby store offering a mobile coupon or you could receive a phone call when an important event occurs - like when your child leaves a pre-configured safety zone.

Surprisingly, Aloqa doesn't exclusively use GPS technology to deliver its location-aware information. If your phone doesn't have a GPS chip, then Aloqa will use cell towers or Wi-Fi to determine your relative position. Not only is this data "accurate enough," explains Aloqa CEO (and ex-Googler) Sanjeev Agrawal in an interview with VentureBeat, it's less of a drain on battery life, too.

Where to Get It

Currently Aloqa is available only on the Android platform in beta form. Over the coming weeks, the app will be made available for other phones, too. Stay tuned to this company's news - this is one app you're going to want to try.

Thanks to the higher availability of GPS-enabled phones among other factors, the LBS (location-based services) market is about to boom big time. In fact, it already is. According to research firm Gartner, the market will more than double this year.

Despite a 4% decrease in mobile device sales, Gartner forecasts the LBS market to grow from 41.0 million in 2008 to 95.7 million in 2009. Revenue, too, will increase from $998.3 million in 2008 to $2.2 billion in 2009.

But it's not just GPS technology alone that has led to this sort of rapid growth. Other factors playing a role so far have included "improved price/performance of the enabling technologies and compelling location applications," says Annette Zimmermann, senior research analyst at Gartner. In other words, smartphones got cheaper and there are tons of fun apps to run on them.

As someone who totes her iPhone everywhere, this author has to agree. There are currently half-a-dozen or so LBS apps on my device including everything from mapping applications to friend finders to apps that tell me what's playing at my local cinema. I can even read local news stories courtesy of the location aware app Radar (iTunes link).

Beyond 2009

Moving further into 2009 and beyond, it won't just be iPhone addicts (like myself) who get to enjoy all that LBS technology has to offer. Other smartphone platforms will also become major players in the LBS game. For example, we're expecting 18 more Android-powered phones by year's end, Microsoft's MyPhone has just entered into beta, Blackberry's App World is only 3 months old, but has already doubled the number of apps, and Nokia's Ovi Store may have its issues, but is still a major player worldwide. Zimmermann notes that this increase in the number of application stores such as these will play an important role in growing the LBS market over the next year and beyond.

Still, as prevalent as LBS technology is today, it's still in its infancy. Over the next 12 to 18 months, Gartner predicts we'll see even more compelling applications including mobile location-based digital coupons and points-of-interest search services. And of course, we're still waiting to subscribe to our local paper via our mobile (or even pay for a downloadable app!)

However, the popularity of such applications is still dependent on region. For example, here in North America, navigation and family-safety solutions are the most popular. In Western Europe, navigation is the most used, followed by local search and friend finders, but there's no significant uptake in safety applications. These sorts of regional preferences will lead to a dynamic LBS market worldwide.

We're looking forward to watching this boom as it occurs, and are wondering what will be the next big thing in LBS apps. It's still surprising to us that Facebook hasn't integrated LBS into their mobile apps yet, leaving that to smaller players like Brightkite, Loopt, Foursquare, and others. Is that a niche that will finally take off this year? We're not sure - so far, it seems slow going - but if the market is about to double, then who knows? We may see new applications that we couldn't have even imagined emerge! It's just a matter of time.

What sorts of LBS apps are you anticipating or craving?

Currently, there are still a number of technical and privacy issues that are holding back some of the most interesting services. Due to the absence of background processing, the current generation iPhone, for example, can't regularly ping a server with a user's location and then send alerts to the phone based on this information. Alerts you have to actively pull up are, after all, not nearly as compelling as automated messages that tell you that you are heading right for a major traffic jam.

Underserved Markets: Local Alerts, Special Offers

Advertisers will also be happy to hear that a large number of consumers would like to receive special offers tailored to their current location, but only a very small number of current smartphone users are actually aware or able to use these services.

According to Compete's Andy deGaravilla, this means that companies that manage to provide users with more compelling and relevant ads based on their location will "likely see higher clickthrough rates and subsequent engagement." At the same time, though, we can't help but wonder if at least some users would also like to simply receive a text message or another kind of alert on their phones if, for example, a nearby store has an offer for them.

User Initiated vs. Background Services

The current generation of location based apps mostly relies on users to initiate the process. It would be interesting to see how consumers would react to a background service that actively monitors a person's location and sends out alerts when a user enters a certain location, for example. Of course, this could get highly annoying quickly, but there is no reason to believe that it couldn't be done right.