There are all kinds of apps for your smartphone that are designed to use GPS to help improve our lives. Some of them are incredibly useful, and others…well, they are mostly just odd. Joining the ranks of odd (and slightly creepy) apps is the app Sickweather.

The idea behind Sickweather is to map out places where people are sick by scanning social media like Facebook and Twitter for people posting they aren’t feeling well, and then using GPS to see where they are. The app then puts it on a map so you can see where the sick reports are and follow trends of illnesses. That’s the idea, anyway. And while the theory sounds kind of useful, when you stop and think about it… well, it isn’t. read more

In the digital age, it seems like people have become more and more detached from each other as social media and messaging becomes more and more common. A new app, called Traces, is trying to change that with an immersive messaging system that uses GPS location and augmented reality to force users to get out of the computer chair and go and find messages from friends. Half treasure hunt, half phone messenger, Traces is a really unique and awesome use of GPS technology that I just had to share.

“Facebook and WhatsApp broadcast frequent, out-of-context information that’s of very little value to you, leaving you a completely passive receiver,” said Beau Lotto, CEO of Ripple Inc, based in San Francisco, which created Traces. “Instead of reading tweets in a random location you can choose the location to add context to your delivery,” Lotto said. read more