Google Unveils Latitude People Tracker

February 4, 2009

Have you ever counted the number of times you ask friends “where are you?” in a given day? Well, Google is aiming to help answer this question before it needs to be asked. Google Latitude is a feature in Google Maps for mobile and iGoogle that allows you to share your location with your friends and family. While it won’t pinpoint your exact location, it gives you a good idea of where your friends are at a given time.

Using your Google account, you can opt into the feature, and then invite friends and family to join Google Latitude. Once they accept, you will see their profile picture appear on a map through your mobile device or your desktop PC. So imagine if you spot your friend in the same neighborhood as you on the map, using Google Latitude you can then click on their icon to call, text, IM or email them. We can also give you directions to their location on the map.

Users have complete control over how and when they want to be found. Once you’ve shared your location, you can hide it from individual friends or all of your friends at once, or you can turn off Google Latitude completely at any time. You can adjust your privacy settings in Latitude so that you share as much or as little about your location as you want, with whom you want.

Latitude leverages GPS and cell tower triangulation for Latitude. Latitude looks for the closest three cell towers and, with GPS, combines the data to get the fix.

Latitude works on any phone with Internet capabilities, but not the iPhone.

Google Latitude is available in 27 countries, and across a variety of devices, including: