Rethinking GPS: Engineering Next-Gen Location at Uber
Neat! However...The nice thing about standard GPS is that it's passive. You listen to the some signals, do some local calculation, and you know your position. Then, optionally, you can send that position data to a third party.Uber's approach changes that. You might not know exactly where you are, but send Uber your info and they'll figure it out.IMO this is not the way we want things to go: various services, all with their own location-determining tech, all done out of the user's sight or control. (Uber's reputation for privacy reinforces this.)Let's work on improving the accuracy with which a device can determine its own location. Apparently there's progress there: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/25/16362296/g...Once it's determined on-device, users should be able to determine the granularity at which we share our location.