ABSTRACT
The mobile environment provides an exciting frontier for geographic information systems (GIS) development, especially in the evolution of location-based services (LBS) for the public sector. The mobile environment could be described as a convergence of mobile devices and wireless infrastructure. Mobile devices generally refer to smartphones and tablets (and intermediate-size devices such as phablets). Wearables (body-worn devices, such as smart watches) are also poised to grow significantly in the near future. Mobile devices fundamentally depend on the wireless infrastructure for communications. While 4G networks have become increasingly common, the devices often come equipped with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and near field communications (NFC) capabilities. The devices commonly include several hardware features, such as the geographical positioning system (GPS) (allows real time location), camera (to take geocoded still life and motion pictures), and sensors (such as accelerometers that sense motion, including shake and tilt of the device), all of which aid in location-based services.
