The term applies to navigating, real-time locating, and positioning support with global, regional or local scope.
With the advent of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) and radio-equipped mobile devices, the term was redefined to include consumer-focused applications.
Context models have been proposed[1] to support context-aware applications which use location to tailor interfaces, refine application-relevant data, increase the precision of information retrieval, discover services, make user interaction implicit and build smart environments.
These include: "Crisp" locating offers precise coordinates, using wireless signals or optical sighting, possibly[attribution needed] with phase angle measurements.
Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) have become ubiquitous in long-haul transport operation and are becoming a standard automobile feature.
It is essential for delineating land ownership and for architects and civil engineers designing construction projects.
[18] Currently location awareness is applied to design innovative process controls, and is integral to ubiquitous and wearable computing.
Such applications include the automatic reconfiguration of a computing device to suit the location in which it is currently being used (examples include ControlPlane Archived 2017-11-07 at the Wayback Machine and Locamatic), or publishing a user's location to appropriate members of a social network, and allowing retailers to publish special offers to potential customers who are near to the retailers.
This approach uses for example mobile phone systems, such as 3GPP, GSM or LTE, typically returning information in standardized coordinates as with WGS84 in standardized formats such as National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) for outdoor usage or in symbolic coordinates referring to street addresses.
This approach relies on global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technology generally adopting WGS84 and NMEA.