This is an example of using the wrong technology to solve the problem. If the actual goal is to deliver targetted ads to a consumer based on his/her location, the right thing to do is to use a local solution, not a global one.
If all stores acquired short range transmitters that continuously broadcast their advertisements, and phones (or other PDAs) were equipped with simple receivers, then simply being in proximity to the store would allow the PDA's owner to get the messages. Each store would be able to provide custom messages without having to bother to send ads and location information to some sort of central server. This would give much greater flexibility for stores, as well as removing the need to broadcast fine-grained location information to random advertisers.
I imagine technology like Bluetooth could easily be adapted to do this. It almost seems like the only reason to use GPS is to make use of an existing (centralized) infrastructure...
NT crashes, it's headline *news* about how bad NT is, but if linux does, well it's the perl_mod, or the sql server you're using.. anything but linux.
Well, when "NT crashes", it often really is NT that crashes. The whole operating system (e.g. the blue screen of death). On the other hand, in Linux (and Unix), it is usually the application that crashes. In Linux, an application crash leaves the operating system in usable state.
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This is an example of using the wrong technology to solve the problem. If the actual goal is to deliver targetted ads to a consumer based on his/her location, the right thing to do is to use a local solution, not a global one.
If all stores acquired short range transmitters that continuously broadcast their advertisements, and phones (or other PDAs) were equipped with simple receivers, then simply being in proximity to the store would allow the PDA's owner to get the messages. Each store would be able to provide custom messages without having to bother to send ads and location information to some sort of central server. This would give much greater flexibility for stores, as well as removing the need to broadcast fine-grained location information to random advertisers.
I imagine technology like Bluetooth could easily be adapted to do this. It almost seems like the only reason to use GPS is to make use of an existing (centralized) infrastructure...
Well, when "NT crashes", it often really is NT that crashes. The whole operating system (e.g. the blue screen of death). On the other hand, in Linux (and Unix), it is usually the application that crashes. In Linux, an application crash leaves the operating system in usable state.