from the dept.  And suddenly there were killer services! Mobile portal Vizzavi has launched a WAP service that even sends map images to your phone. Vizzavi, the multi-access portal owned jointly by French media group Vivendi and UK-based phone network Vodafone has launched what is probably one of the most sophisticated widely accessible location based services in the world. Known as Find & Seek, the service is a new section on the Vizzavi portal.Cell location Through the section you can find out where you are and find out what is near you. All without having to enter your postcode or local co-ordinates. By knowing who you are and what is your nearest cell (the area covered by transceiver masts) the system know where you are up to an accuracy of 500m. This goes down to 5km in rural areas. It even sends a line drawing representation of the local roads, although it might be an exaggeration to call this an actual map! Nearest shops The service allows you to find the closest shops of various kinds. Vizzavi has “partnered” with Blockbuster video stores, BP fuel stations, retail group Kingfisher and drinking and leisure group Whitbread to allow users to search for these companies’ premises. An additional director of “things to see and do” draws on the Scoot database to provide information on taxis, museums and theatres. A spokesperson promised that ever more companies would join the service and announcements would be made soon. Enhancements The company added that the first service available on its location-based platform would be just the beginning. Vizzavi UK managing director Geraldine Wilson said that there would a “series of enhancements which will ensure that our service becomes an essential part of people’s lives, providing them with the information they need, however they want it”. The spokesperson told WAP.com that the additional “value-added services” would shortly include the ability to bookmark locations. For example, you would be able to check the nearest restaurants to your office while you were at home. Transactional services - m-commerce - are also just around the corner. Vodafone only The full service is currently only available through Vodafone in the UK. Non-Vodafone users can access the section through the Vizzavi portal if they wish but they will not benefit from the automatic identification of their location. This aspect gives a hint at why Vodafone jointly set up Vizzavi in the first place and why networks are working so had to develop unique application. They are the ones that control the information about the location that is calculated using the network's infrastructure. This can help them tie in users to the network and increase loyalty. Satellite alternative Satellite-based systems can be used as an alternative that would be independent of the networks. However, few phones - one of them being the new Benefon Esc! - are able to offer this expensive facility. Orange recently launched its own location-based services through its Orange.net WAP portal but it is not as sophisticated or widely available as Vizzavi UK’s Find & Seek. Limitations The Find & Seek has a lot of limitations. It does not work with all phones for example: we found that it was fine on Nokia, Ericsson and UP WAP browsers but generated a server-side java error with a Panasonic. What is more, you need to make sure that your caller line ID (CLI) option is switched on and you need to clear the phone’s WAP cache or else you get location information for the last place you used the phone. Map gimmick The map is also no more than a gimmick: due to its low accuracy you can only be pinpointed by a stickman icon in the centre of your postcode while the roads do not show any names. Nonetheless, it is impressive that you can pan and zoom and get such detailed graphics even on a three-line Siemens C35 phone. Just a taster The limitations aside, location-based services and the soon-to-launch m-commerce applications will elevate WAP to a new level. They genuinely add usability to mobile Internet applications that are unique to handheld devices. Find & Seek is already a great service but it is only a taster of the exciting WAP services to launch this year. < | >
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