Google wants to make it easier for Latitude users to track where they’ve been and it has introduced a dashboard that will help users retrace where they’ve been.
If you’ve already chosen to enable Location History, the new dashboard view will try to highlight interesting trends from your existing location history, such as trips you’ve taken, places you’ve visited, time spent at home vs. out, and more. Ever wonder how much time you’ve spent at work recently compared to six months ago, or where it was that you stopped on your last road trip? Just check out Location History for some of the answers.
The dashboard can be accessed here and it will also track the mileage you’ve traveled if you want it to. Of course, privacy is always a concern with services like this and Google said users will have to intermittently re-enter their passwords to view their history. Additionally, Latitude is an opt-in service that will periodically remind the user that it’s running. Google also stresses that the Location History is in beta, so some of the data may not be completely accurate at first.
The move comes on the heels of Google introducing an application-programming interfaces for its location service and this could spur a variety of cool, new apps because developers don’t have to create their own location database. Check-in services like Yelp or Foursquare are just the tip of the spear, as credit card companies could use this as an extra layer of verification, or there could be an app that automatically turns off your home lights when it realizes you’re nowhere near your house.
This is a cool little feature from the search giant and it shows it is taking the location-based service space seriously. It should too, as Facebook and other tech giants are going to try and push LBS in a big way.
[Via Google Mobile blog]