The US wireless market is not free. Apple's iPhone imprisonment care of AT&T's dungeon ball and chain is evidence. When you buy an iPhone in the US, you go to jail for 2 years, and the get out of jail free card is thrown away along with your prison cell key. Not only are you locked in, but you don't even have the choice to change cells once imprisoned. This oppressive, authoritarian behavior in a democratic society is disgusting, and it's sadly pathetic that empowered citizens, consumers, and other businesses don't stand up to confront these injustices.

Europeans do care, do speak up, and now, as a German, you can buy an unlocked iPhone for a €999 premium and use any one of your preferred service providers by simply popping in your SIM card. Granted, a standardized GSM world offers more switching freedom anyway over the current CDMA/GSM US mess, but beyond these fundamental dysfunctional issues, the unlocked German iPhone development is perhaps more of a sign of a society that cares to be involved.

APB posted a podcast revisiting the age old challenge of defining LBS. In lieu of older, no longer relevant definitions rooted within telecom regimes specific to cellular camps, I now use the following with academic peers and Saturday geeks squads who can't get enough. We think it's a more holistic, fixed-mobile convergence definition that captures Semiconductor, Mobile Broadband, Web, and Consumer Electronic Manufacturer perspectives across a diversity of networks and devices:

A Location-based service (a.k.a. location service, location-based application, location enabled service, location enhanced service, etc) is any information, communications, emergency, entertainment, or fused application service based on the determined location of any Internet-connected, un-tethered mobile or portable device. Devices can include laptop computers, ultra-mobile PCs, hand-held multimedia computers, personal digital assistants, Smartphone’s, personal navigation devices, personal media players, and other single purpose devices connected to the Web over an Internet connection - be it fixed or wireless.

What do you think? 

With the US LBS market tapped out (in terms of Carrier cooperation and on-deck placements) you have four remaining choices as a developer aspiring to set-up business in Europe (the next LBS frontier (again)). 

1. Use existing Carrier Cell-ID systems (these have been in place for about 7 years), reduce yourself in an exhaustive on-deck brownose act, and build your apps around poor accuracy with gross network-inefficiencies 
2. Wait for SUPL (you'd probably run out of operational cash if you did this)
3. Go off deck, D2C, and couple any bluetooth-enabled handset with clunky GPS-puck aftermarket accessories [it's ugly, but Jentro, Webraska, and others have done well with it]
4. Use a Blackberry, go off-deck, or convince a Carrier your RIM app is worth an on-deck placement

Number four is the only free (i.e. liberated) option - a testament to RIM's developer-friendly approach and commitment to GPS in an open and accessible device environment independent of Carrier control (except when explicitly told to disable it).  Trimble Outdoors recently chose option four to deploy three of their outdoor products.  The Blackberry's available in Europe are not exactly the hard gear Trimble would typically use, but with the business freedom offered by RIM to deploy, why not exersize this choice!         

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

For the last four years, I've received an email from the organizers at O'Reilly inviting me to submit a proposal to speak at their Where 2.0 conference.  I've responded the last three years, and each time they've written to inform me my proposed topic was not accepted, but yet they still of course encouraged me to consider sponsoring the event, and of course attend by all means.  Last Friday I received the same invitation, but this time told them I'm sick of receiving their disingenuous offer, and that I'll pass on suggesting a topic I assume they won't accept. 

I've attended this event all years this thing has run [with the exception of 2005].  I've listened to mobile LBS talks from start-ups with limited historical industry knowledge, I heard people rant about Carriers not giving developers Location [sometimes without fully understanding why], I've heard talks about the Geoweb, talks about Privacy, and user generated content, and blah blah blah.  And I've equally been invited by a previous Where 2.0 keynote speaker to participate in an edgecraft session at his office [which I enjoyed!]. 

This time however, the latest invitation helped me realize O'Reilly show organizers don't want me there to speak, they want me there to listen.  To listen to the privileged; the same lot who also attend invitation-only closed-door Where camps at the Googleplex.  Those are the folks that speak at Where 2.0, and O'Reilly cronies sponsor it.  It's corporate marketing welfare at its best, camouflaged as a geospatial open source hacker event.  

While at least one mountain here in Colorado has been open for nearly a month now, today I was finally able to record my first knuckle-dragging jibber session of the 07/08 snowboarding season.  The snow wasn't champagne-esque at the Stone, but hey I'm not complaining - this is the best field research I've ever done!

Bob's Blog is showcasing a torture-test clip of the Sonim XP1 run through a gauntlet of destructive attempts to kill the device.  The results are quite different from that of a blender obliterating an iPhone into dust for example.  I'm fired-up over this built-tough, work hard/play hard outdoor mobile product, and happy to be joining the Sonim team, effective Nov 19.     

Apple's iPhone hits UK high streets this Friday, but competitors aren't too concerned.  Vodafone is responding to the O^₂ exclusive offer with its rent-model MusicStation iTunes-killer offering [best of luck], and Simon Ainslie at Nokia says his N95 "provides everything the iPhone does but also GPS navigation as well."  Will this current differentiator last much longer?  Not likely.  

-BBC News 

MapmyIndia reversed the map data provider sell-out trend with a non-conformist move down the Navigation stack to maintain independence but still offer D2C Nav via a branded P-Nav device—the MapmyIndia Navigator manufactured by Delphi—a move that makes sense in an emerging market and when you "have more coverage and more detail than any other provider out there"

-Rohan Verma, CE Info Systems 

Socialight's volunteered views to psfk for their work in enabling UK cross-carrier Cell-ID Location cooperation needed for Mobile Social Networking, highlights the first rule non-exclusive need for LBS wares to traverse networks. Case in point—traffic transparency that we see today in the US and globally for SMS and MMS, but lacking for Location traffic.

For those unfamiliar with this UK Location history, carriers gathered together, identified a cooperative need for wholesale, and decided to collectively expose their data at different prices. What followed was an explosive build of start-ups launching what each marketed as cross-carrier LBS 'partnerships' and wholesale pricing claims towards innovation. Due credit however in reality belongs to Parliament and advocates, rather than to app providers still piggy-backing on the accomplishment. 

The below is a sample output of the initial effort, which today now seems like a bloated set of pricing for a commodity - one which US carriers still resist to offer up collectively.