Introducing Google Latitude…

To download the cab, you need to visit http://www.google.com/latitude with Pocket IE. When I tried it with opera, it gave me the java version. of course, ymmv.

I had trouble getting the cab off of Opera and my PIE wasn’t working so I found the cab on this thread – http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=479231&highlight=latitude – or you can download it from my site, http://blownfuze.org, in the GPS section.

Doug

hell no worse program ever lol what about if i want to cheat on my girlfriend and she knows im in a hotel how the hell am i gonna lie! this program is for loosers!

i haven’t installed it yet since i don’t have a gmail account. but can it be setup in a fashion that it could be used if my Fuxe got stolen? meaning does it give location info wihtout constant consent, and is it an always on GPS location?

As far as I can tell you have to start it, fire up the Latitude thing, then exit Google Maps and it asks you if you want it to keep running in the background to update your position (you say yes). So you’d have to do that every time you turn on your phone and I don’t know off hand how much extra juice that would use. It would have to keep the data connection open constantly, asking Google for tower location information, relaying your position and so on. Also your phone’s cpu will have to do some math to calculate your location either by doing decibel math on the towers or running GPS. GPS isn’t much of an option as it needs a constant fix and it will kill the battery rather quickly whereas the My Location non-GPS position is less intensive on the phone but at best in a heavily populated area with a lot of towers it will only give you a 500 meter approximation.

So, though I haven’t messed with it outside yet, you have to fire it up manually each time you start the phone and no it does not have to use GPS. I think.

Doug – you don’t have to have it running all the time…I turn it on when I want to and that’s when it updates my location and to other recipients it tells you the last time their location was updated. I do hope that future versions permit you to set update frequencies (like every half hour only during certian hours) but it is pretty neat.

@ David – But what Doug was getting at, was the question that was asked about if your phone was lost, would you be able to track it… and Doug answered that IF ran the program when the phone was on and IF you had it running in the background and IF the guy who stole it had not turned it off and back on to not run the program.

So to further Dougs comment, it sounds like its more of a battery killer than anything. For it to work you would either have to constantly keep updating it manually to be accurate or keep the program running all of the time which will put more of a load on the phone.

For me, Id rather dedicate my battery to programs that I use and if someone needs to see where Im at they can call me.

I don’t think this would be very useful for tracking down a stolen phone for the reasons Doug Simmons already stated. But it is useful if you have a lot of friends on GTalk (use Gmail). It’s nice to see if someone is close to you. The only major downside is that it forces you to be more honest with people. Ie- your spouse/SO won’t believe you were putting in a late night at work when your phone says it was on the other side of town within a 500m radius of your favorite bar.

@benjamin
Don’t worry, your girlfriend won’t notice since she’s been spending all of her free time at my place.

Jonathan (and others),

If you are interested in anti theft software, you may want SmartProtect – http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=464336 – which does pretty much everything you could think of like tipping you off of its location either based on gps or cell tower approximation, you can control the phone remotely to do a number of things including locking it down, deleting everything, texting everyone on your contacts something, passwords, IMEI retrieval, you name it. I haven’t messed with it but it may not need to run gps constantly or do anything cpu intensive until you triggered it to do so remotely.

Google Latitude is for your intents and purposes not a viable security or anti theft tool. It’s mostly for fun and has a wow-factor, a dumbed down knock off of TrackMe mixed with Facebook-like traits. That said, it’s pretty cool; but if I wanted to install a black box like device in my son’s car to make sure he wasn’t speeding or to spy on my wife (I’m being hypothetical, I have neither type of family member currently), you’d want TrackMe which, cough, is on my site http://blownfuze.org/.

Doug

[...] already talked about Google Latitude in the past and a few people raised privacy concerns over this. I just saw an interesting article in the NY [...]

[...] – Transportation – Taxicab Services (or Limousine Service if you’re feeling up to it:)). In Google Maps it’s similar (without the ability to speak a search query) and just go to Search and type in [...]

[...] – Transportation – Taxicab Services (or Limousine Service if you’re feeling up to it:)). In Google Maps it’s similar (without the ability to speak a search query) and just go to Search and type in taxi [...]