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As the rumors swirl about a new iPhone model, there’s speculation that the phone will include a GPS chipset. The original iPhone simulated GPS though some Google technology, as described in this Business Week article by Arik Hesseldahl. He believes that Apple might wait on true GPS, and add it to the 3rd generation iPhone in 2009.

I think that we will see a GPS-enabled iPhone this month. Om Malik claims the new iPhone will have new GPS capabilities because of FCC regulations. Emergency 911 services are just one way that GPS can help mobile phone users.

Google engineers have been working hard on the company’s Android platform for mobile phones. This is a Linux-based system that can be used in a wide ranges of devices, from low-power basic models to CPU-intensive touch screen devices.

It’s about advertising revenue

Google, Apple and advertisers really want mobile phones to produce ongoing revenue streams, and the easiest way to do that is by placing advertising on the devices.

The Android platform will let Google serve ads onto these phones in a seamless, personalized manner. GPS chips help content providers find and serve appropriate ads based on the user’s location.

Apple and Google saw early indications that users wanted accurate location-based mobile services within the first 3 months of iPhone service in the US, according to another Om Malik article. Google Maps usage on iPhones rose quickly, while YouTube usage lagged.

The first generation iPhone suffers from its slow EDGE connection to AT&T’s network. Users want to access location-based services when they are on the move, away from WiFi networks. YouTube is a connection-intensive application, and a good indicator of user acceptance for bandwidth-intensive, media-rich location-based service.

Related posts and pages on billso.com

• Our iPhone page has over 25 articles from billso.com
• 29 April 2008: New iPhone will be subsidized, faster and thinner
• 22 April 2008: Android vs iPhone

This New York Times article describes a software project called Viewfinder. The goal is to help Internet users post pictures of buildings and landmarks directly into an application like Google Maps, or into a web mashup application. I discussed mashups in two billso.com articles in 2007:

• 12 February 2008: More web mashups
• 8 February 2008: Web mashups

The usability issues in mashup design can be tricky, as programmers are taking data and applications that might be related but aren’t directly compatible. An app like Viewfinder has to deal with location data, the map images, the user’s image, and a variety of visual issues including perspective and orientation.

See the official web site at the University of Southern California for more details. Here’s a video demo from the site.

Last Thursday, I posted a brief article about Internet problems in India, Africa and the Middle East. Two undersea cables had been cut in the Mediterranean Sea, near Egypt.

In the following days, two more undersea cables were damaged. The International Herald Tribune printed an article about the third cable cut, and Wired followed suit with its own article, including a helpful map.

This Tuesday, as Reuters was reporting that a repair ship had reached one of the cut cables, reports surfaced of a fifth cable cut in the same region. BoingBoing has been following the cable cut story, and linked to a report from a Dubai newspaper. CrunchGear also reported on the fifth cut, and added a global map of high-speed fiber-optic connections. Wired claims the fifth cut is actually a cable failure that occurred before the Egypt cuts.

Bruce Schneier has a brief article with several links that I’ve used in this article.

All of these cable failures can be repaired. Here’s a link to pictures of various cable repair ships.

In the meantime, attention is focused on something most Internet users take for granted: the fiber backbone that supports the Internet.

This map from StrangeMaps.com and BigPicture.com relabels each of the 50 United States with countries that have similar gross domestic products (GDPs). GDP is the market value of all goods and services produced in a country within a year. Of course, we can find similar figures for each of the 50 states.

Hawaii is world famous, not a world economic power

For example, Nigeria’s GDP of US$82 billion is about the same size as the state of Hawaii, which is also 39th on a ranking of the 50 states and DC.

New Zealand’s GDP of US$99 billion is comparable to the District of Columbia. Yes, the nation’s capital city has a bigger economy than the entire state of Hawaii.

New Jersey is comparable to Russia (US$733 billion), so there’s the number five slot.

Texas is number two: it matches up to Canada, which is the #10 country at US$1.08 trillion.

In the number one slot: California, which matches up to France’s GDP of US$2.15 trillion.

As noted in the article, a map based on per capita GDP would look very different. Most of the US states have smaller populations than their GDP equivalents.

Thanks to Boing Boing for links!

From the Associated Press: Akamai has posted a few interactive maps and charts, based on the company’s traffic analyses.

I like this map, which shows spikes in Internet traffic, latency, and attacks.

I mentioned latency in this post from September 24, 2006.