From...

February 4, 2000
Web posted at: 12:01 p.m. EDT (1201 GMT)

by Paul Heltzel

(IDG) -- Swedish firm CellPoint Systems this week introduced a new application that allows you to track someone's location by cell phone -- a sort of mobile buddy list.

The service, called Finder, works with cellular phones and cellular-capable handhelds that use the Global System for Mobile Communications. Most PCS phones use the network, as do the majority of European wireless phones, accounting for about 67 percent of all cell phones worldwide.

	MESSAGE BOARD
Wireless world

According to Peter Henricsson, Chairman of CellPoint, Finder is part of a growing trend of offering entertaining applications to cell phones for phone-toting teens.

"We have several commercial products, but they are more niche and vertical," says Henricsson. "We wanted something that anyone could use. Let's face it, 19-year-olds are the future. They are the ones who will run the wireless Internet."

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As with an America Online buddy list, you start by entering your friend's name and relevant information. You can key in contact information on your phone's keypad or at the company's Web site. If you enter information at the CellPoint Web site, the data is transmitted wirelessly to your phone as a text message.

You then select a friend and tell Finder to spit out their location. A text message appears, in the form "Peter is near Landmark X, about 2.2 km west of you."

Here's how it works. The phone is already capable of determining its location in relation to up-to-seven cellular base stations, which receive and transmit your cell calls.

"The phone knows where it is," says Henricsson, "even if you're not using it."

Which brings up an interesting point. What if you don't want to be found?

"Since we use information that is in the phone, the user can switch off the service," Henricsson says. "Privacy is extremely important. When I add somebody on to my buddy list, a message is sent to the user, and the user has to accept being placed on the list."

Finder will be offered as a bundled service for GSM phones or as a pay-per-use or monthly charge, depending on the provider's marketing plan. The service should be available by April.