Geofencing and background tracking - the next features in LBSs

Abstract

The upcoming generation of LBSs will be significantly determined by geofencing applications and background tracking. A geofence is a small geographic area that is defined to generate a location event as soon as a user enters or leaves this geofence and to process this event in the context of an LBS. Background tracking continuously monitors the whereabouts of a user and is thus the major prerequisite for detecting location events. Both functions can be regarded as important enablers for an improvement and broad establishment of information relevance in mobile environments. After an overview of the emergence of LBSs in the recent years, this article provides an introduction into geofencing and background tracking and demonstrates their working for location-based recommender systems.