Thoughts On Location Based Services

As I was composing the last of the figures which would appear in my PhD thesis using the online graphics tool, Gliffy, some thoughts on location-based services came to mind to share and discuss with the Chief Investigator, Professor Katina Michael.

Email Correspondence - Alexander Hayes to Katina Michael - June 18, 2019.

“... Hi Katina,

Just thinking through the differences between the LBS figure and the emergent themes figure.

LBS was hardly raised at all by interviewees and to a large extent for many of the people I spoke to HOW LBS works and to what extent they are personally tracked remains an inconvenient mystery to them.

What and I both know is that LBS makes intelligence gathering possible and I would like to liken it to the ‘fuel’ in the realm of the actuator metaphor. For instance, in 2004 a GoPro was a dumb device in a waterproof cover. Two years later it was WiFi and GPS equipped and making its impact known by tracking all the best extreme sports enthusiasts.

What I am conscious of is saying what I discovered, what I learned, and nothing more powerful than anecdotes and empirical evidence that demonstrates that LBS ‘burns’ culture as it gives away patterns to the Anthropos and makes those patterns exploitable.

Onto chapter formations and reading for me now.”