Personally, I don't care which company Google licenses its mapping data from, as long as it is accurate. 

-Eric Zeman, Information Week

When asked about implications of the Google deal with regards to Navigation on the iPhone...

We are making sure that navigation is an application that is allowed.  If there is any restriction on the platform, that indeed has to do with the restrictions that we have in our contracts. Navigation is allowed, provided that the right fees are paid

- Alain De Taeye, Founder, Tele Atlas

Google's My Location works better than an MPC/GMLC in terms of responsiveness and performance. I'm still not exactly sure how it works (Google won't tell me), but had a hunch it was a crowdsourced database of published information from millions of mobile users unknowingly volunteering to the system through Google Maps usage. Ted Morgan's comment on my theory, however, made me second guess these assumptions. With Skyhook already investing heavily in mapping wifi access points with drive-by-surveys, why not capture the cell side of the wireless airwaves? Consider this snippet from the Geolocation API description (yes, there's an API coming from Google...)

Many devices do not have native access to GPS or other location data. Additionally, GPS can take a long time to get an accurate location fix, drains battery, and does not work indoors. Because of these problems, the location API also has the ability to send various signals that the devices has access to (nearby cell sites, wifi nodes, etc) to a third-party location service provider, who can resolve the signals into a location estimate.

It's the third-party location service provider reference that's interesting – in addition to Ted’s comments…

MIT's minds of tomorrow value Location in mobility contexts more than other features such as voice or messaging.  A professor there recently challenged his computer science students to develop applications using Google's Android SDK, and a majority of the entries focused on location-based scenarios. 

If the brainstorms of these MIT students are an indication, phones will soon challenge the Internet as a source of innovation. For these students at least, cell phones should be all about location, location, location. Most of the projects produced by the seven teams of students involved programs that let phones track people's physical place -- or that of their friends -- to help them do things and meet up.

Here's one example from project Loco 

You just can't help but to be curious about Android.  It's not like a Linux-Java stack is revolutionary, but rather that the Android packaging and porting plan is by supporting the rapid introduction of thousands of mobile clones leading to the emergence of a device long tail, which could indeed lead to free phones someday.  That approach belittles big mobile OEM efforts big time by democratizing the tools of production and design now down to mobile manufacturing, and it arrives with impeccable timing when everyone is distracted by Apple and the head of the tail.  And with Google rounding up 1788 developers to write long tail apps for their Android Challenge, OEM Jedi's best watch your back.  A clone army is mobilizing.

While the video says it uses algorithms and implies it contains some sort of signaling smarts, that's not possible without access to network RF GIS data or network timing information.  Could MyLocation be more inline with an involuntary crowdsourcing technique like this?  Yikes GSM Carriers,... watch your back bros!   

Wow, real public relations for Android!  That's refreshing kool aid from a stand usually producing cagey question marks shadowed in secrecy for product releases.  Perhaps there's more pressure to be a bit more open on this one, since, well, Android is open LJ with others in the ecosystem involved to support it.  The integrated service delivery between 'features' that might previously been referred to as 'apps' is quite impressive, and the globaltime demo based on OpenGL 3D kicks.   

-Gizmodo

The WSJ is reporting we'll see the Google phone [by HTC or LG], OS, or whatever the special secret is in about two weeks, with hints that TMo may be the first US carrier to open its airwaves for the offering in the middle of 2008.  If any of the previous rumors are true about the Linux-Java developer-friendly combo coupled with GPS and other optics/sensors, LBS developers (sub required) may soon roll up their sleeves and get their coding hands on what may likely become the grail of consumer-grade mobile platforms.  We'll see...       

While hanging out with the brightest-of-the-brightest GSM telecom-world analysts in Lake Las Vegas this week, I noticed there weren't any 20-or-30-something publishers, developers, entrepreneurs, or Web 2.0 think-tank advocates mingling among the crowd of vendors and carriers at the 2007 3G Americas Analyst Forum. I'm sure your perspectives are welcome (and needed) though—the analysts here are acutely aware of your existence, and while you might think the network operators aren’t, here's a few notable quotes to prove otherwise...

When questioned on the impact of Skype, and other disruptive Web forces challenging the GSM Telecom regime (of which T-Mobile and AT&T belong) over Mobility...

There's a big difference between the Internet-over-Wireless and the Wireless-Internet

-Neville Ray, SVP, T-Mobile

Translation… Mr. Ray has no intention of becoming an open access bit pipe. His users will see and use what he wants them to see and use. The media-shoved-down-your-face broadcasting mentality is alive, strong, and well at the upper echelons of Seattle T-Mobile brass.

The second notable quote…

I'm curious what the panels’ perspective is on Google becoming a network operator?

-Tole Hart, Gartner

The answer? None—not a single solitary word. Not even an “ahem” to clear a throat. A dead, deafening serious silence overtook the auditorium as I watched mature bodies and their language not even nudge poker-faces to indicate nothing. Lacking even the slightest red inclination to perspire, these seasoned corporate veteran suits might chose corporate death over any inkling of exposure revealing a soft under-belly denial that the 700 Mhz Google threat is indeed real and feared. When further provoked to provide comment following auditorium-wide laughter over the silence, and after not one soul took the plunge to dare share insight, G3 Americas President Chris Pearson and panelist chair said:

The FCC and Kevin Martin have not yet fully resolved the details of the proposed open access conditions.

Thank the WSJ for this week’s most recent round of gPhone gossipsphere speculation. The facts are is that we have no facts. That said, consider the following timeline food for thought to formulate your own educated guess for Google’s mobile device plan, mobility, and location-based services play:

• Jones – “Most people will discover the world through their phone”
• Google Ante’s Up $4.6 Billion for Mobile Networks
• Sprint and Google Team
• Gates Acknowledges Threat  
• Intel See’s Breakout Year and Bakes GPS into Mobile Linux
• Sprint Bows out of Cable Partnerships
• Google Doesn’t Deny Phone Project

I personally think all of these observations and announcements are interconnected in some mysterious way.

When FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s predecessor Michael Powell used Skype for the first time and said “I knew it was over when I downloaded Skype; this will change everything”, he had no way of knowing three years later larger Web forces would take the Skype open-internet mantra to the next level and challenge an over-the-hill old-guard group of Ma Bell incumbents on the airwaves themselves. Today, implementation rules for the January 2008 700MHz spectrum auction were voted on in DC, with five FCC commissioners weighing in on what has become a battle of the ages between the Bells and Google—for what each party considers their versions of Open Mobile Networks.  Deep breath...  OK.  Ready?  The vote outcome is in favor of the following conditions:

• Open applications: any software application, content, or service on any device
• Open devices: any device can run on the network
• Open networks: total open network access

So despite Google loosing approval for the forth Open Services wholesale access condition request, today is nonetheless the day that will go down in history as the beginning of liberated mobility— a day when oppressive hierarchies were flattened—the day that the Berlin wall of wireless carrier protected gardens collapsed—a day were old ways of doing business began to die their slow and painful well-deserved deaths—the day when the U.S. Federal Govt. and the office of the FCC accepted and agreed that the next mobile broadband network should be completely Open and Programmable, designed for the people, by the people!

So, Ma Bell no longer ‘has you by the calls’. The 700 MHz network will allow you [the developer, publisher, content provider] to launch anything, anywhere, anytime, on any device.  Halleluiah!