Slashdot Mirror
Apple and Google to Blog the World
Zrop writes "AppleInsider is reporting that Apple has been working on OS-level integration of an geographical mapping technology as an integral part of Leopard, its next-generation OS. The technology is rumoured to employ GPS functionality. Will GPS chips make Apple iPod phones and MacBooks location aware? Users would be able to post information at a location, hanging in the air, ready to be browsed by people passing by. Imagine getting highly relevant messages, without even pressing a button, simply because you are in the vicinity and your preferences match the content of the post."
Muh ha ha ha
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
AppleInsider is reporting that Apple has been working on OS-level integration of an geographical mapping technology as an integral part of Leopard, its next-generation OS.
Why is it that when apple does this kind of thing it's somehow "cool", but when Microsoft does it, it's somehow "evil"?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
"You're not standing in a puddle of water."
I heard ideas like this a long time ago, only then it was using cellphones.
I think if Apple releases a cell phone (iPhone), it, and the next gen iPods are much more likely to be of use for geographically targetted advertisements (airtisements?) than a macbook. Anyone walking around with an open macbook will have thier own issues to worry about.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
I remember when the Pentium III came out, and everybody freaked out because it had built-in serial number identification that were supposed to destroy your privacy. Now "They" will know where you are, but since it's Apple, slashdot puts a nice happy spin on it. Do they make tinfoil iPod cases?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
"Here I sit all broken hearted
I tried to..."
You know the rest.
Neat, a way for me to tell passers-by, "Bob Johnson sucks ****," without the hassle of finding a bathroom stall and a marker. Heck, now I can let people know right as they're passing Bob's house. He'll be so happy.
You can do geolocation with WiFi, if you have a large enough database. We have one, and there are others. Here is a good example of this kind of action. There aren't many applications that deal with location, but as you can imagine, there is a point to location-based blogging, and apparently a need for it. I wasn't successful in building a killer location-based app, but I like to see the other valiant attempts by others.
Hay, I'm looking for a gig too, Apple and Google.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Today we blame the technology. Tomorrow we blame the person.
...if this is anything like the "sudden motion sensor," it's really exciting because of all the cool stuff third parties will do with it. For example, off the top of my head I can think of a few things that I'd like to see implemented: automatically switching the "location" (which is used for determining network settings) according to the actual GPS location, linking iCal events to locations so that I can get reminders when I'm in the right place, etc.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I agree with another poster. If MS had included such functionality in Vista the Slashdot crowd would have been up-in-arms about the privacy implications, but Apple does it and its suddenly a good thing? I know the average Slashdot reader is incredibly biased and hypocritical to MS, but this one is too obvious.
The site stephansmap.org is geared towards this. It actually goes beyond: it has time integration.
I developed it. So far needs some more users. So I'm redesigning it.
Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Does anyone know this device works under Linux?
I Love to buy one.
How do I type if I'm hanging in the air? And isn't this Mac-user-levitation technology a bigger story than boring old GPS?
... and then they built the supercollider.
At least in mobile phones. Some phones (in the UK at least) will automatically display the dialling code for the area you're in. It's a more simplified version but it's a handy feature to have. Of course, this is a more complex version and should hopefully have more beneficial uses.
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
There are ads on the back and on the front inside of the shopping cart. There are ads on the floor that I walk on, while trying to manuever my cart around instrusive stands of featured products placed so as to block the aisle. Hanging off shelves in the aisle are little machines with bright blinking LEDs ready to dispense coupons for products. Flat-panel TV sets with sound hang near the meat section, running a continuous informercial. Another TV set with sound hangs above the cash register in the checkout line, running a different infomercial.
As I check out, the process is interrupted by the cashier asking whether I want to buy their X-Treme Value of the Week, which is stacked near the cash register with an ad on it, and hands me two long slips of paper: a receipt, and a bunch of ads and coupons. These latter are "highly targeted," alright: they are always for competing brands of products I just bought.
Can I "imagine getting highly relevant messages, without even pressing a button, simply because you are in the vicinity and your preferences match the content of the post?"
Yes, I can.
And I know exactly kind of messages they'll be.
And I betcha a nickel those preferences will be opt-out.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
and do you remember the quality of the grafitti board on every BBS in the 80's...
I guess as long as you know the worst people will take over this kind of a system... you can still get something useful out of it.
While this might be a nice geek toy, it wouldn't be practical for everyday use. Picture the scenario: You're in some unknown city, now you have to pull out your MacBook (better hope the battery's charged). After that you can either whip out your phone as well to switch on Bluetooth and get your laptop online via GSM or UMTS, or you've got to find a WLAN hotspot which would only let you look up stuff around that very hotspot. Not a killer app. Not Apple-like at all.
I could see something like this being useful on a PDA or a cell phone (if you've got a data plan), so it might be a feature of the rumored "iPhone". However, looking at the prices for Bluetooth GPS units, I wonder whether the chipsets aren't too expensive to make them a default option.
I am going to give my girlfriend one of these so I can stalk her.
Could this lead to tracking purchases to enforce taxes, or prohibit purchases from unauthorized countries (no allofmp3 from outside of Russia)?
Thanks. Yep, found it: Linux GPS.
"Sorry, your content is not authorized for consumption in the country which you currently are in"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If it's as unobtrusive as Gmail's topical advertising, I think topical+geographic advertising would be OK.
>> Users would be able to post information at a location, hanging in the air, ready to be browsed by people passing by. Imagine getting highly relevant messages, without even pressing a button, simply because you are in the vicinity and your preferences match the content of the post."
Right. This didn't even work when users were able to post information at a web site using invisible notes back in the 1990s. Remember that "revolution"? Users of a web site could discuss its contents with each other using software that interfaced with their web browser. End result? No one posted anything except the occasional juvenile comment.
Now I'm expected to believe that people are going to be walking around with a cellphone and eagerly texting messages and posts that others will be able to read when they enter the area.
Good luck with that.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
And if Apple releases a MacThin touch tablet, then the ability to scrawl on the virtual bathroom wall will be that much more realistic.
"For a good time, IM..."
The Garmin nuvi 660, IMHO that's the GPS to beat with its perfect screen size and resolution (around $700 retail after discounts etc. i believe .. higher MSRP).
.. The cheapest decent GPS I found with a sirfstarIII chip is around $399 MSRP (Magellan RoadMate 2000).
.. but then again if maybe if they buy 'em we may see technology improvements go in the shitter.
.. then I'll be buying it.
Anyway
I have no idea how much a SIRFStarIII chip costs. I'm reckoning that it ain't cheap. Until the cost of that chip (or an equivalent competing one?) drops to $15 I doubt we'll be seeing GPS ubiquitously in devices such as digital cameras, laptops, and mp3 players. I am hoping Intel or AMD buys them
I think someday even laptops will have GPS, and with boosted satellite signal strengths the chips should be able to function inside buildings.
Me? I am waiting for the price to drop to $400 for the Garmin nuvi 660
Its been a long time since we have seen a truly innovative feature.. Hail Apple.
You will never have experience until after you needed it.
Damn, this is an awful use technology.
I mean really, first a Trusted Computing chip, now "location awareness" to "fix" the fact that geolocation by IP is inacurate.
The thing is - when you have a platform that has video and location awareness it raises a host of issues including "What happens when this platform gets compromised by theives?"
Instead of wasting resources on spying on people, get them to spy on themselves. Finding out where the owner of an Ipod lives will soon be as simple as checking where they are the most.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Why don't cameras have GPS built in? How great would it be to be able to have all pictures geotagged automatically?
if someone passing through an area is unfamiliar with that area (as tourist or otherwise), that person could get notes about the immediate local relevant to their interest -- say you're hanging out on the other side of town and want to see if there's any good sushi around. or comic book stores, or whatever.
would be like local.google does now, except on my phone, and i don't have to type in my location.
mrc
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - R. Feynman
... you will hover by a school and be attacked by "LOL U teh gay!!1" messages.
... you wife borrows your nano nuclear powered PDA only to receive the following message as she passes one of the store downtown "Hello again, Mr Smith! We hope you enjoyed Chixx with Dixx 69. May we also suggest: Brazilian Tranny Wars 43?"
... your n00b neighbor has got his box pwned again and it is constantly broadcasting ads for Viagra alcopops and penis pumps with festive Christmas motifs.
Just imagine using google to search for drunk females feeling lonely and vulnerable within a 20 mile radius
And then the fun of finding your sexy net lady is still a 40 year old homosexual man
This could be a whole new twist on DVD region codes. "Sorry, your computer is not allowed to operate in the country you are currently in.... turning off..."
I, for one, welcome our new GPS-messaging overlords.
The probability that I would give a rat's ass about the opinions of people who just happen to be in physical proximity to me is vanishingly small. I don't even want to LOOK at the other people on the subway, much less know what they're thinking.
At least on an Internet forum I stand a reasonable chance of meeting people I actually want to talk to, and where they are physically located is irrelevant.
I piss off bigots.
Imagine getting tons and tons of spam, without even pressing a button, simply because you are in the vicinity and even if your preferences don't match the content of the post.
Mod parent up.
In Vista, Microsoft puts central control from the mothership in Redmond into the OS.
Apple's answer to this: integrate spam into the OS.
Earth to Cupertino: bad idea.
(Idea for an new exploit: write an adware program which randomly injects ad slides into PowerPoint presentations.)
The clocks in GPS are extremely accurate. Accurate enough to be used in communications protocols without clock sync or worry about too much drift. If I were at Apple and building GPS into all of my computers, my first thought would be using the clock as the system clock and then, how I could exploit the clock.
Apple is unlikely to screw its consumers with a bunch of lame proximity-based advertising.
Sounds to me like we'll see the equivalent of Google Earth's community markers adapted to these devices.
Although I like the principle, I really don't like the implementation of community markers as I last saw it. Too often there is a complete jungle of markers making it hard to find relevant ones.
Some community markers contain spam, some are riddled with mistakes and information that is totally wrong. Mostly they can't be trusted, and there are so many simply annoying markers.
Of course, abuse would be just as easy as messing up a wiki page, but that hasn't stopped their popularity either.
I don't see why this would have to be tied into an OS though, and it would make more sense for phones than laptops. Once we have cheap unlimited GPRS/UMTS connections, that is.
This sig is intentionally left blank
Location based encryption based on lat/long and password.... must be standing on Mount Ranier within 50 meters of a specific point. Or as you move through a building, it decrypts and gives you instructions.
meh
"DON'T TURN AROUND! There is a troll behind you. Run to the next corner and turn right. NOW!"
But GPS:
a) Does not work indoors, and there are very few times I would consider using a laptop outside in this climate.
b)Eats battery like nothing else, this might be good for the odd fix now and again when you boot up, but running continously would probably put a bit of a crimp on your battery.
Come as you are, do what you must, be who you will.
Whew..one of my best posts on /. in a long time...
Roll the clock forward almost a decade and a "twist of fate" later (involving Admiral Grace Hopper and a former CEO of the most corrupt defense contractor in United States history) and Jobs returns to Apple Computer, where he has now added the following consumer surveillance 'features' to the Mac operating system:
1) Macs now "phone home" to Apple.com with their hardware serial number; Apple reportedly has every IP address ever seen at Apple.com from that hardware serial number, enabling bi-directional lookups. (Jobs says, "who posted that on XYZNews, which provides the first 3 octets of anonymous posts in the hope of encouraging accountability to the anonymous poster's ISP, and within 1 second now has a list of Mac owners who have ever used those first 3 octets.) Want to discredit your employer, wait until he is away from his MacBook and anonymously post something deeply offending to Jobs or Apple on OSNews.com
2) Spotlight indexes all user-content stored on all Tiger/Leopard Macs with kernel-hook efficiency and zero user interaction. In Leopard, these indexes can be remotely accessed over the network, potentially in aggregate. Is it really paranoia to expect that an authorized party at Apple.com (or acting on authority from a "polite request" from someone in the government) could conduct a Spotlight search on your Mac without revealing the fact to you? Want to mess with your soon to be ex? Download some kiddy-porn off the Net and then start surfing those cable news networks in the Middle East and asking lots of questions in their online forums.
3) Macs are reportedly gaining the ability to identify their current location (using space-based GPS signals created by the company once headed by the chrony who returned Jobs to power), thereby enabling the network to know exactly where a Mac is --within a few feet. This is pretty important as city-wide WiFi, free hotspots and neighbor-coops combine with VoIP-over-WiFi to replace all other telecom options.
4) Most Macs now come with built-in unoccludable cameras and microphones with all necessary software pre-installed to digitally stream those analog sources over the network. This is reportedly being expanded to such a degree that the CCD (charge-coupled device/image-array) of the camera (invented by the former CEO of the most corrupt defense contractor in United States history and the man who recruited Jobs back to Apple) is being integrated into the LCD (liquid-crystal display) of the Mac display so that they are one in the same.
The conclusion is that it is technically/legally possible for the government or for Apple (or for the government through Apple) to know what you are doing on the Internet, where you are when you are doing it, to place you under audio/video surveillance and to search all of your files within seconds.
This kind of power belongs exclusively with the government, not with a private company, but as consumers it is our "choice" whether or not to empower such private companies. But what are you going to do? Piss away more of your life dealing with Windows configuration issues, low quality third-party apps and fear of viruses? Throw in with the folks who have no choice but to trade their heartbeats (time) for money they don't have building barely working shit like Unbuntu because they are from places where there is no infrastructure to leverage (like Silicon Valley) --or worse, buy into their quasi-communist task-masters in East Coast academia or the book-peddlers looking to profit from the whole "fame-slave racket"? I don't think so, especially when Macs can run everything the poor bastards struggling with their Unbuntu can turn-out and companies like Apple will always be cherry picking their work for you. The reality is that you can't even buy cold medicine these days without having your name run through a national database and the cell and land phone companies already have much (if not more) of this power. So buy Macs, but ma
You have to supply your own GPS, the cord is a pain, but there are lots of bluetooth enabled GPS units available and if the camera makers would get their head out of there nether ends (And I'm looking at YOU Nikon), they could easily put a bluetooth chip in the camera.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Yes, I can imagine it. I worked on a project at Ericsson for a while called Geobility (or Geoportal, mattering on the whim of our head honcho) that was formed to accomplish this. I guess it's past the NDA. (1998...)
Basically, the idea was you'd have a GPS enabled phone that would correlate location to your personal profile. (This was a revolutionary concept in '98) You'd also have a Geobility brand Visa card. Your movements and purchases would be recorded. If you had an item on your todo list, say "buy jeans," if you passed close enough to The Gap a little alert would show up on your phone: "Would you like to get %20 off jeans at The Gap? Only for a limited (next 30 minutes) time!"
The idea was way, way ahead of it's time. So ahead that it was technically unfeasible. Also undoable for Ericsson. (Not enough industry clout to interest giants like Visa.) And eventually all RnD was shipped back to Sweden so the project was scuttled. Makes for a good yarn, though.
"You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Burn him! Burn him at the stake!
apple fags, get over yourselves. it's not new, you're not innovating (as in microsoft) and you're still fag.
Will this be known as moblogging or GPSyblogging?
West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
>examine mailbox
The small mailbox reveals a leaflet.
>get leaflet
Taken.
>
this is AWFUL tech if there's no ability to turn OFF auto-location
1) consider a woman fearing for her life from a stalker. she logs into her mac, he finds her with the handy-dandy GPS, then kills her.
and what about the proliferation of all kinds of advertising?
2) imagine going on a vacation, and every frkng 10 feet your cell phone bleeps because of new ads pouring in.
it's bad enough already with my T-Mobile MDA which doesn't have spam filters (even the crappy ms outlook is better for spam filtering than my phone).
staying over with a chick, my phone beeped all night because of the damned spam ads. she thought i was just getting booty calls.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Apple: Gee, google, what are we going to do tonight? Google: The same thing we do everynight apple, try to take over the world!
I learn new things the hard way.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but doesn't GPS need a satellite signal for it to provide location info? I can see all those MacBook toting trendies (me included!) hanging out of top floor windows just trying to get some reception (unless of course Wifi hotspots will all have GPS tags associated with them!)
29 mpg. YMMV.
woule be a great feature. And then it should be able to be turned off for privacy issues. Dead man switch which activates the call home feature.
Wouldn't it be far more likely for the information to be downloaded to your iPod FIRST, and then the information already on your iPod is then simply triggered to come up when you're in a specific location? Stores could potentially use this data for advertisements, but you'd have to agree to download them first... not likely. I think a more likely use of this technology could be by museums or various attractions to provide a kind of "virtual guide" to people with iPods/iPhones, or by individuals themselves to possibly import information from iCal for example to help them remember appointments, or to use as a personal shopping list reminder that sits right there in one device with your music, phone, etc, quite convenient. Dak
When are we going to see GoogleDesktop for the Mac. Spotlight sucks.
Brazilian Tranny Wars 43 is a pile of garbage. No self-respecting porn recommendation system would offer that up to a fan of the far superior Chixx with Dixx series.
Why do I want to have my location known, by Apple, advertisers, Google, you name it? Isn't it enough to be tracked by the use of cellphones? Most of the time I don't want people to know where I am. But then again, it's Apple so it's cool. What's next? The cool iRFID, a new implant so we will not have to enter any info any more, because it's "there"? Give me a break.
First of all Apple refused to sign any OEM deals at all - if you want Apple hardware it comes with OSX installed. Try ordering it with XP instead, or without an OS as all (and the $50 rebate Dell will actually give you).
Secondly, Apple authorized resellers have evil restrictions on what they can/can't sell. I had a chat to my local one a bit ago at a time of iPod shortage. Apple really didn't want him to sell PC stuff, and those that fell out of favour (for whatever reason) suddenly found they were last on the allocation list for limited supply stock.
Apple have simultaneously treated their indie sellers like shit, causing a number of them to close, whilst simultaneously rolling out their own boutiques. Apple now do the hardware, the software and the retailing via their site and shops - htf can you then turn round and say Apple doesn't have a monopoly?
In Soviet Russia, graffiti writes on you.
Does this mean I have to go outside to aquire a satellite each time I use my MacBook? The only alternative I see is trangulation with cell towers, but that seems like an expensive solution.
> You would have thought the same thing for 'regions' on DVD's, but the public didnt form a lynching gang on that one either.
Mostly because region free DVD players were available from day one.
"B u Y V eye AhGra H Earr !!1! @t ChUks DzC0unT Drug St0re!"
Great - as long as the 'wonderful new feature' can be disabled by default.
It was slightly irrelevant to my already overwrought rant, so I didn't give the full story about how I recently got interrupted _five_ times while trying to pay for my groceries.
First, to ask for my Shaw's card. (I presented it).
Second, to ask whether I wanted to buy a card shaped like a pumpkin and donate $1 to some charity. (I accepted).
Third, to ask whether I had some kind of promotional game card in which my supermarket purchases would entitle me to paste stickers onto a sort of Candyland map with the eventual goal of obtaining a free turkey. (I declined, causing a further forty-five-second delay as the clerk could not tolerate the idea of someone passing up the possibility of getting something for free, and felt obliged, in my own interest, to explain the deal to me several times).
Fourth, to ask whether I wanted to buy the week's X-Treme Value, ten bottles of Ex-Pel sports water fortified with urea or something like that for just $10, regular price $1.29 each. (I declined. I've yet to see anyone accept. This, at least, is always a short interruption as the salespeople, obviously smarting from repeated rejection, make the request in a half-hearted, perfunctory way. I've never yet had one of them actually say "You don't want to buy this weeks X-Treme Value item, do you?" but it's only a matter of time.)
Fifth, to remind me, when asked whether the total is OK, not to push the Yes button, but to push the green Enter button instead. (This has not always been true. It started... ummm... about a year ago. I keep wondering why they don't just fix it...)
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Shortly before the MacBook Pros were first released, I was in on a conference call with other reps from most of the big AppleStores. Apple's hardware engineers wanted to hear what features customers were requesting most for their laptops. Just about every store rep including myself chimed in almost simultaneously "GPS". I personally can't get psyched for the technology (Still dont have a nav system in mr car and probably never will- analog maps work fine for me) but there's no question people were asking for it all the time. That, and power cords that wouldn't break. I think they chose the right one to fix first, and now they're maybe tackling the other?
"Eagles may soar, but weasels dont get sucked into jet engines."
I tossed my Shaw's card. I don't care about free turkey's and the such. If you tell them you don't want a card they will usually scan in their own card so they get the "rewards points" but you still get the discount and targeted coupons.
I can't see why they even attempt to push the "Xtreme Value" on people as they are checking out. I know the kids that work at the registers have to do it, but it still seems like a waste of time and energy with so little sales potential. Especially considering you are already bombarded with magazines, candy, and soda in the checkout line already. The only reasoning behind this I can see is that Martin Lloyd infiltrated their sales executive team.
The most annoying thing about the Yes vs. Enter button is the reaction from the clerk. Despite the fact that I shop there every week and know the drill, they still insist on rushing you through the debit card process. If you aren't quick enough, they will even press the buttons accepting the payment and cashback amounts for you. That really gets on my nerves, because *I* am responsible for verifying and accepting the amount. You wouldn't reach into my wallet to get the cash, so why would you do the same thing to my debit card?
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
What about a 100 % monopolistic approach to iTunes songs and videos, perhaps?
.iso image, or pick up a copy of it at the Apple store for $9.95 CD in a box. The Lite OS X CD should be a bootable full playing install CD like a Linux Live Install CD.
iTunes files only play on an Apple iPod.
When Apple customers can play there tunes on this and their movies on this, while running an GPL OS license copy of iTunes on this,
then you know that Apple is dedicated to meeting the needs of ALL of it's customers, worldwide.
Typically, the marketplace favors the more open companies, more open formats.
So Apple should release a stripped down 'Lite' version of OS X for all PCs, for free.
(Include TextEdit, Calculator, DVD player, Safari, Mail, and iTunes, and the Utilities with the Lite OS X for PCs).
Sell iLife, QuickTime Pro, and iWork as separate products, that still can run on the Lite OS X for PCs.
License the Apple protected file format to other manufacturers.
Release the free Lite OS X the same day when MS Vista ships - let customers decide what they want.
Make Lite OS X downloadable as a burnable
Still a full copy of OS X (with iLife) comes with the purchase of an Apple Mac PC.
Having more compatibility with an even larger user base does not diminish profits,
it should increase global sales for Apple and from iTunes even more.
iTunes proved that when iTunes went from a Macintosh Only software - to a Windows & Mac software.
OS X can prove that same example too - since it would run quite easily on any 'Vista' compatible PC.
After reading most of the comments, and concerns that this is either "cool because Apple are doing it" or universally bad, the issue with a technology is not the technology, but the use it is put to. The reason this idea is percieved as cool because Apple are doing it is because Apple has always had a reputation of being user focused, while Microsoft are more "owner focused".
Apple expect the owner to be the user. All their talk earlier this decade about "digital hubs" in the loungeroom mean they see their product as being sold to the person who will make the "policy" decisions about acceptable use as well as doing the work on it. That means it will integrate well in Mac OS, stay out of the way and simply work. The cool stuff will come from the garage developers, just like with motion sensor stuff.
If Microsoft were to implement this (in Vista +10 years? OK, that was cheeky, sorry) it would be focused on corporate environments, and would be all about reminding people about company policy, advertising and keeping the user in line. I don't blame microsoft for this, they are serving their largest customer base, the corporate world - it's exactly what they should do, because that's their most important sector. It's probably perceived as "evil" because "the boss" is seen as a villain by most people.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
This has been out for awhile. Siemen's Digital graffitti http://w4.siemens.de/ct/en/technologies/se/beispie le/graffitis.html, Yellow Arrow http://yellowarrow.net/ and Socialight http://socialight.com/ all do GPS based info.
Although they all basically suck right now so maybe apple will figure out how to do it right.