This article from Raper et al. (2007) identifies main research issues within the field of Location Based Services (LBS), which includes sciences and technologies involving LBS, matter concerning LBS users and also the aspect regarding legal, social and ethical issues with LBS. Majority of the article covers distinct domains of sciences and technologies research areas connected to LBS and it is well established how wide range of subjects are associated with LBS. It was very rich and informative on that matter, but one can recognize some aspects being reappeared frequently on distinct subjects, such as visualization, users, ubiquity, etc. Unfortunately, specific differences were not elaborated and therefore it sounds repetitive, and difficult to differentiate if one was reading about whether GIScience or Spatial cognition, since it could have been either, and therefore it became tedious at some point.
As for the paragraphs where user issues are being discussed, it seems like many subjects were not being mentioned, such as VGI, managing geospatial data after its immediate use, etc. However, that was mainly because this article was written in 2007, when the Smartphone with GPS receiver capabilities and wireless broadband internet features were yet to be distributed among population as present date. On the other hand, it seemed like Raper et al. believed that it is only natural and obvious for the LBS to replace the traditional paper map, which was a controversial subject in GEOG 506: “LBS have to ‘substitute’ existing analogue approaches, e.g. the use of cheap, durable and easy-to-use paper maps for the most part…”. However, even today, lot of people still use paper maps despite the fact that they carry a smartphone that has a perfectly fine GPS receiver function, including myself. On the other hand, it is slowly but surely being replaced by less-analogue technologies for the majority of population who can afford it.
In the legal, social and ethical dimensions section, the authors consider the potential for surveillance and the exercise of power over individual movement as a negative effect, whereas the potential to guide people and the new social possibilities regarding LBS is positive implication. However, as we have discussed in class, this is just a mere perception from a particular culture or perhaps it is somewhat an individualistic view, rather than a representative perspective of a culture as a whole.
What can be defined as positive and/or negative? It is all relative….again….sigh
ESRI