Google's Latitude: Another Look
Artwork: Chip TaylorIn what seems to be a weekly occurrence, Google has announced yet another new product seemingly designed to suck what little privacy you have left out of your life.
It's called Latitude, and it uses your phone's GPS chip and/or cell tower triangulation to locate you and your friends on a map. Sounds rather Big Brotherish, don't it?
Well, it is and it isn't. More on that in a bit. First a little about what Latitude is and how it works -- or, at least, how it's supposed to work.
The idea is you install Latitude on your cell phone and invite your geeky friends to do the same. Then they can see exactly where you are on a Google Map on their phone or the Web, and you can see them. Feel like hiding from the world? Tweak the privacy settings and you disappear. Or you can just X out certain friends when you're no longer feeling so friendly toward them.
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