LOCATION BASED SERVICES FOR MOBILE COMMERCE
APPLICATIONS
C. K. Georgiadis, G. Melas and P. Tzamtzis
Department of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia, 156 Egnatia Str., 540 06 Thessaloniki, Greece
Keywords: Location services, mobile commerce, Java ME.
Abstract: Mobile setting considerations provide valuable issues regarding flexible mobile applications. In this paper,
we indicate the advantages of an m-commerce application capable to provide users with useful information
(e.g. historical buildings, shops, hotels) according to their location. First, the application creates a basic
profile of the current user (type of information the user is mainly interested in). Then, in addition with the
location awareness of the user’s position the application provides only useful information according to the
user’s whereabouts. When the user is alerted that he is in close proximity of one place that he is interested
in, he has the option to access more info about it (streaming video or photo and text). The application is
implemented using the Java Micro Edition (Java ME) platform and is mainly making use of the Location
API, which provides information about the device's present physical location and orientation. The
customized information is stored online and is accessed only when user needs it.
1 INTRODUCTION
In a more and more dynamic and competitive
business environment where innovation and quality
servicing is crucial there has to be revolutionary
ways to serve customer needs tailored only to their
interests. The best way to attract the customer’s
attention is to personalize the services you provide
by offering a product or service that your customer
definitely wants. The evolution of mobile commerce
(m-commerce) nowadays has come to built on this
key strategy. M-commerce stands for electronic
commerce made through mobile devices. It is
currently mainly used for the sale of mobile phone
ring-tones and games, while other services include
the sending of textual information (such as football
scores, weather reports, emergency news, etc. via
SMS. Additional examples of m-commerce
applications are information-on-demand systems
such as news services or stock tickers, banking and
stock brokerage applications, using not only SMS,
but also mobile Internet access services (WAP or
iMode). In addition, as 3G/UMTS services roll out it
is increasingly used to enable payment for location-
based services such as image content (maps, photos,
etc.), as well as video and audio content, including
full length music tracks (Elliot et al., 2004).
In m-commerce applications a beneficial subject
is to be able to track a user’s location. By knowing
the user’s location and by using a simple profile of
his needs you can offer him a product or a service
that he probably won’t refuse (Ververidis et al.,
2006).
2 LOCATION BASED SERVICES
The term Location Based Services (LBS) refers to
services that utilize geographical data. The goal is to
deliver information and services on location. LBS
offer personalized services to users, who possess
mobile devices, tailored to their present location in
the right time needed. LBS answer three questions:
Where am I? What’s around me? How do I get
there?
At this point it is important to emphasize the
differentiation between LBS and Geographical
Information Systems (GIS). Certainly, there are
many similarities between them due to the nature of
their functionality. Both of them manipulate data
with positional references and make use of spatial
analysis functions. Whereas LBS were born quite
recently by the evolution of public mobile devices,
GIS have been developed during several decades on
the basis of professional geographic data
162
K. Georgiadis C., Melas G. and Tzamtzis P. (2007).
LOCATION BASED SERVICES FOR MOBILE COMMERCE APPLICATIONS.
In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on e-Business, pages 162-167
DOI: 10.5220/0002111901620167
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

applications. GIS can be seen as professional
systems intended for experienced users, which
require extensive computing resources. In contrast,
LBS are developed as limited services for large non-
professional user groups (LBSZone, 2006). In
addition, LBS applications operate with the
restrictions of mobile computational power, small
displays or battery run time of the mobile device.
2.1 Mobile Commerce
M-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and
services through wireless handheld devices such as
cellular telephone and personal digital assistants
(PDAs). Known as next-generation e-commerce, m-
commerce enables transactions by accessing the
Internet without needing to find a place to plug in,
via mobile phone networks.
Corporations are now using m-commerce to
expand everything from services to marketing and
advertisement. The benefits of M-Commerce among
others include cost savings, and new business
opportunities. As content delivery over wireless
devices becomes faster, more secure, and scalable,
there is wide speculation that m-commerce will
surpass wireline e-commerce as the method of
choice for digital commerce transactions.
2.2 Location Based Services in
M-Commerce Applications
2.2.1 Advantages
The geographic intelligence delivers a new
dimension to wireless businesses through LBS. The
level of detail, accuracy and currency opens up a
broad scope of potential applications, enabling you
to tailor your technology and services to the exact
location of your customers. The insurgence of high-
bandwidth networks has significantly enhanced the
potential of LBS, generating a potentially significant
return on infrastructure investment with the delivery
of personalized data (Georgiadis et al., 2005).
Possible use case scenarios for LBS in m-
commerce applications have a very wide target
group (Elliot et al., 2004). The following, are among
the most promising: entertainment (searching and
advertising of entertainment centers, such as bars,
clubs, etc. in close proximity of the user),
information (the user can get information about
historical buildings/sites, museums or the weather
for his current position), services (information about
hospitals, hotels, etc.) and shopping (inform the user
about special offers in nearby shops or guide the
user to a specific store in a big mall).
2.2.2 Disadvantages
Location based applications can bring many benefits
to business processes. But poorly used or
mismanaged, they can become a major area of
concern (Spinney, 2004). One major concern is the
monitoring of users (without their consent) and the
invasion of their privacy. Other problems that could
appear from the misuse of LBS and the illegal
knowledge of the user’s whereabouts are the
following: embarrassment (one customer's
knowledge of another's location may lead to
embarrassing situations), harassment (location
information can be used to harass or attack a user),
service denial (a health insurance firm might deny a
claim if it learned that a user visited a high-risk area)
and legal restrictions (some countries regulate the
use of personal data).
M-Commerce and, generally, the use of mobile
devices for more sensitive operations is fairly new
and in a “primitive” stage, especially the LBS. But
even with these drawbacks if the application and the
carrier in question are trustworthy the user doesn’t
have to worry about privacy issues. For these and
other reasons, users must know when their location
is given to an application (Giaglis, 2004).
2.2.3 Requirements
Mobile computing environment has certain features
that impose restrictions. The properties of mobile
networks are: (relatively) low bandwidth, strong
bandwidth variability, long latency, unpredictable
disconnections and communication autonomy. The
properties of mobile terminals are: small and low-
resolution displays, limited input capabilities,
limited computing power, limited power and small
memory size (Ververidis et al., 2006). The practical
conditions, when and where the mobile devices are
used, brings also additional restrictions.
LBS are intended mainly for traveling people as
a tool providing support in making decisions about
where to go. Therefore, wrong information may
mean wrong decisions, lost time and, as a result,
anger of the client in the best case and a court
examination in a worse case. A location based
service consists of roughly two phases, determining
the position of the customer and providing service or
contents based on the position. For the location
method at least the following requirements can be
listed (Nokia, 2002):
• The method should provide good accuracy
subject to the requirements of the application and the
respective cost.
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• The location method should not generate too
much signaling load within the mobile network.
• The location method should have a minimum
impact on the mobile network in terms of
complexity and cost.
• Consumer privacy must be ensured, by, e.g.,
providing means for the consumer to turn off the
locating feature of the terminal.
3 THE JAVA MICRO EDITON
(JAVA ME) PLATFORM
Considering all of the aforementioned subjects we
believe it’s mandatory at this point to illustrate an
application implicating a scenario which makes use
of some of the benefits that LBS may offer to end
users and the market. We have thus effected an
application which makes use of Java Micro Edition
(Java ME) platform and the Location API (JSR 179).
Java ME combines a resource-constrained Java
Virtual Machine (JVM) and a set of Java APIs for
developing applications for mobile devices. These
APIs cannot run on a traditional JVM, due to the
limited size of mobile devices in regards to memory
and resource availability, so Java ME defines a
limited version of the JVM as well.
Java ME can be divided into three parts: a
configuration, a profile, and optional packages. A
configuration contains the JVM (not the traditional
JVM, but the cut-down version) and some class
libraries; a profile builds on top of these base class
libraries by providing a useful set of APIs; and
optional packages. The most popular profile and
configuration that Sun provides are the Mobile
Information Device Profile (MIDP) and Connected
Limited Device Configuration (CLDC),
respectively. As the name suggests, CLDC is for
devices with limited configurations; for example,
devices that have only 128 to 512KB of memory
available for Java applications. Consequently, the
JVM that it provides is very limited and supports
only a small number of traditional Java classes
(Tauber, 2001).
3.1 Location API Java Specification
Request (JSR 179)
We will briefly describe some major classes and
definitions, in order to facilitate the conception of
the logical construction of location based
applications using the Java Specification Request
(JSR) 179. This extract has been taken from the
Location API JSR 179 (JCP, 2007).
The Location API for Java ME specification defines
an optional package, javax.microedition.location,
which enables developers to write wireless location-
based applications and services for resource-limited
devices like mobile phones, and can be implemented
with any common location method. The compact
and generic Java ME location APIs provide mobile
applications with information about the device's
present physical location and orientation (compass
direction), and support the creation and use of
databases of known landmarks, stored in the device.
JSR 179 requires the Connected Device
Configuration (CDC) or version 1.1 of the CLDC.
CLDC 1.0 isn't adequate because it doesn't support
floating-point numbers, which the API uses to
represent coordinates and other measurements. The
Location API doesn't depend on any particular
profile; it can be used with MIDP or the Personal
Profile.
In the following lines we will give you a brief
introduction to some classes and means of the
location API. The javax.microedition.location
package contains the basic classes needed to request
and get a location result.
Figure 2: A demonstrative profile settings for
m
(frmOptions).
Figure 1: Location API UML diagram.
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The LocationProvider class is a module able of
determining the location of the device. The
implementation can make use of any possible
location methods. We can also combine the methods
in various ways to get the optimal result.
The application specifies criteria for selecting an
appropriate location provider and obtains a
LocationProvider instance that is able to fulfil these
criteria as closely as possible. The LocationProvider
creates the Location objects representing the
location of the terminal at the time of the
measurement. The application can either request a
single Location object or can be updated with new
Location objects via another implementation of the
application the LocationListener.
The location is represented by the Location
object that contains a QualifiedCoordinates object
representing the geographical coordinates (latitude,
longitude and altitude) and information about their
accuracy, a timestamp and possibly information
about speed and course of the terminal. For some
location methods, the Location object may also
contain an AddressInfo object that includes textual
address information, e.g. a street address.
This package also includes a device-based
database of landmarks. A landmark is a known
physical location that is associated with a name
representing that location for the end user. The user
gets landmark information directly from the server
according to his location. For example if the user is
in the eastern side of Thessaloniki and he activates
the application he will get from the server info about
the places near him (e.g. Macedonia airport). The
grouping of the landmarks is used so that the mobile
phone won’t have big memory needs and it depends
on the administration of the application from the
server side.
4 CASE STUDY
The application is implemented with the Java
Wireless Toolkit (version 2.3), a Java based
environment designed for mobile applications
development. Our application takes advantage
mainly of the location API which is designed to
offer location based information. The purpose of our
application is to highlight some of the
aforementioned advantages that LBS have to offer to
end users who possess mobile devices.
The application is composed by a client application
and an online “database”. The two parts of our
application communicate when it is needed to
exchange information. The main purpose of the
client application is to alert the user about nearby
places of interest and if the user is interested in
them, he can have access to extended info. The
client application also has to filter the appearing
places according to the user’s profile.
The server, to which the application connects to,
is used to store all the information that is provided
through the client application on the mobile device.
The server is the one that contains all the multimedia
information (e.g. direction maps, commercial videos
and pictures) and contains all the information of the
landmarks that appear to the user. The server is also
Figure 3: Creating the necessary objects for LBS (code
detail).
Figure 5: Extended Information form about a point o
f
interest, e.g. The Mall (frmMoreInfo).
Figure 4: Showing the current Location of the user, the
Places that are near him and some of the Places he
recently passed by (frmLAPI).
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the one that streams the informative videos to the
device.
The goal is to make feasible a scenario, where a
client should be informed about things that interest
him according to his geo location at any time
without having to ask for them. To manage this, a
user profile should be firstly created (fig. 2). By
creating a user profile the places that appear can
coincide with the exact interests of the user. This
way the application becomes more user-friendly and
less annoying.
After setting the profile, user can start using the
application. When the “Location Informer” form is
opened, the application creates the proper objects
(Criteria, Location, LocationProvider) and the
LocationListener (fig. 3) so that the mobile phone
can start getting location information from a source.
After all the necessary objects have been created and
initiated, the LocationListener updates every 7
seconds the location of the user. If there are any
places of interest in close proximity the user is
alerted through the “Location Informer” form (fig.
4). If user is interested in one of the Landmarks on
screen he can request for more information selecting
them.
The information sent to the user is intended to be
in multimedia form such as a video in streaming
format. An example scenario could be a man
roaming with his car to an unknown city for him
where he is for business purposes. While he enjoys
the miscellaneous sightseeing’s his mobile device
informs him that in proximity of 30 meters a mall
centre exists. In this point as shown in picture the
user has the option to choose to see more info (fig.
5) about the mall, with the use of a video stream
held in a web streaming server. In addition to that he
has the option to see a map (fig. 6) of the area and
the precise location of the mall.
Multimedia info can excite the user’s interest
better than plain text. So the user after seeing how
many different things about this mall can offer and
the fact that it is next to his current location he
decides to pay it a visit. After being directed by the
map about the precise location and starting walking
glancing here and there, the predefined profile
settings of the user (cinema, restaurants, mall
centres) addresses the application to inform him that
he is outside a place of interest: cinema. By
choosing “more info” he has the advantage to see a
trailer of the current playing movies in a streaming
format video. On the other hand, if the user does not
wish to activate the LBS, he can simply browse all
the registered landmarks (fig. 7) of his location.
By selecting any of them he can have access to
extended information. Below, in fig.8, the
application’s GUI and the connections between all
the forms we have described above are presented:
The server side of the application provides some
web-based tools to the system administrator for the
landmark management. Through a specific web page
the administrator can add new or edit existing
landmarks (fig. 9). When the landmarks on the
server are updated the application users will be able
to get the updated land marks the next time, they
connect to the server to get landmark info. In
addition, the administrator can also change the
settings of the streaming services which are also
provided from the server, through a streaming
server.
5 CONCLUSION
In a few years, most mobile phones will have
location tracking methods. So, our goal is to take
advantage of these future capabilities, to allow users
to make use of them in their day-to-day life.
Figure 7: The provided landmarks (list1).
Figure 6: A direction map indicating the precise location
of the point of interest (frmMap).
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Our demonstrative application case study shows
how users can always be aware of their location and
also how can be informed about places of their
interest near their current location. When user is
alerted that is in close proximity of place that he
may be interested (according to his profile), he has
the ability to ask for more information about it. He
can see basic info in text form, a direction map or
streaming video about that place. Even in times of
emergency, the application can be used to inform
him about the nearest hospital or pharmacy.
All of the above functions may be useful to
either a tourist in case that he feels “lost” or to a
permanent citizen of the city. Furthermore, the
search time for everyday places a certain person
usually look for, is deceased. Even from the
advertisers point of view, the application indicates a
viable way to target to a specific group of people
(e.g. for a shop, all the people who walk by and may
not notice it). LBS applications may facilitate the
approach of people who are interested in a shop’s
products and also have the ability to go visit it (with
almost no waste of time).
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Figure 9: The administrator web page.
Figure 8: The GUI navigation chart of the application.
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