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Xinhua, the Chinese news outlet, is reporting this morning that the Chinese government will be implementing new standards that are aimed at preventing "state secrets being disclosed and uncertified maps published online."

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.

Nokia acquired location-based services company MetaCarta on Friday, a service with two distinct focuses: geosearch and geotagging. With MetaCarta's geosearch technology, the service finds content, data and information about a place and then presents it in a single mapped-based view using any map server, whether one from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, ESRI or another company. The geotagging technology, on the other hand, lets MetaCarta pull geographic references from online content and then allow that information to be used in other applications.

Loopt, a location-aware mobile application and social network, just announced that it will become the first third-party iPhone app that will be able to offer an always-on location service on the iPhone. From what we have seen, AT&T officially sanctioned this feature, which Loopt already offers on other platforms. Normally, apps can't run in the background on the iPhone. This is clearly a severe limitation for a lot of developers, and few developers have the clout to get around this limitation the way Loopt apparently did (Loopt demoed its app at WWDC last year).

This week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office revealed a patent filed by Apple for "Transitional Data Sets" - a technology that would update an iPhone's home screen based on your current physical location. Of course, as with all patents filed by major technology companies, a patent won't necessarily translate to an actual feature - it just represents intellectual property. For this reason, we don't typically report on every new patent application that comes through the U.S. PTO, but in this case, we couldn't help ourselves. The concept behind the location-aware home screen is one we want now. It represents everything a smartphone should be.

Mobile startup Aloqa launched earlier this week at the MobileBeat conference, revealing their innovative interface for location-aware search. Their new application proactively seeks out nearby businesses, services, events, and even Facebook friends and presents them to you in a colorful yet streamlined interface. The app essentially lists everything that's nearby - with no need for you to perform map-based searches or launch a browser. Instead, all you have to do is look at your phone.

Where's the nearest Starbucks? Where did my children go today after school? How do I get to that new Thai restaurant downtown? What are my friends saying about this new club? If you've ever asked yourself any of these questions or something similar, you were probably able to get the answers you needed just by picking up your mobile phone.

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.

According to a new report from web analytics firm Compete, 1 in 3 smartphone users use a location based service at least once a month. Weather and navigation apps are currently the most popular location based services, followed by apps that provide store locations, movie showtimes, and local news. Interestingly, there also seem to be a number of highly underserved markets. According to Compete's research, users also want to be able to receive local alerts about topics like traffic jams and gas sales.