The motivation for every location based information system is: “To assist with the exact information, at right place in real time with personalized setup and location sensitiveness”. In this era we are dealing with palmtops and iPhones, which are going to replace the bulky desktops even for computational purposes. We have vast number of applications and usage where a person sitting in a roadside café needs to get relevant data and information. Such needs can only be catered with the help of LBS. These applications include security related jobs, general survey regarding traffic patterns, decision based on vehicular information for validity of registration and license numbers etc. A very appealing application includes surveillance where instant information is needed to decide if the people being monitored are any real threat or an erroneous target. We have been able to create a number of different applications where we provide the user with information regarding a place he or she wants to visit. But these applications are limited to desktops only. We need to import them on mobile devices. We must ensure that a person when visiting places need not carry the travel guides with him. All the information must be available in his mobile device and also in user customized format.
Initially mobile phones were developed only for voice communication but now days the scenario has changed, voice communication is just one aspect of a mobile phone. There are other aspects which are major focus of interest. Two such major factors are web browser and GPS services. Both of these functionalities are already implemented but are only in the hands of manufacturers not in the hands of users because of proprietary issues, the system does not allow the user to access the mobile hardware directly. But now, after the release of android based open source mobile phone a user can access the hardware directly and design customized native applications to develop Web and GPS enabled services and can program the other hardware components like camera etc.
The LBS application can help user to find hospitals, school, gas filling station or any other facility of interest indicated by user within certain range. Just like a GPS device its location will also be updated as soon as user changes his/her position.
Google Map in Android
Android provides a number of objects to handle maps in LBS system like MapView which displays the map. To handle this a MapActivity class is there. To annotate map it provides the overlays class. Even it provides canvas by which one can easily create and display multiple layers over the map. Moreover, sufficient provisions are there to zoom the map, localize the map by means of MapController.