Microsoft has posted up a new job listing that states it is looking for an individual to help them track every single Windows Phone device even without the aid of GPS. This job description comes in contrast to a recent statement where they denied tracking claims in a recent class action lawsuit.
The posting went live on Microsoft’s career search page today and indicates that they want an individual to help track their Windows Phone devices all over the world. The posting is clear and to the point by stating:
The team is looking for highly motivated, extremely intelligent, and deeply technical people to build the core location service platform. We are tasked with delivering a highly scalable service to find the location of every Windows Phone device in the world, either by assisting GPS, or by using signal-analysis techniques to compute location where GPS cannot. You will work closely with MSR and other research groups to improve our algorithms for mining large amounts of data using Bayesian analysis and other machine learning techniques. We have incredibly hard problems to solve in the coming year such as solving the indoor positioning problem as well as motion detection and relevance based positioning.
The service could be similar to the “Find my iPhone” that Apple currently uses to find lost or stolen iPhones. This is speculation only at this point as the job description does not indicate that would be the purpose for this type of service, but it does seem to make a bit of sense.
Considering that this type of tool will link closely with cloud based services, Microsoft may be looking to capitalize on its cloud technologies to deliver a competing service to Apple’s “Find my iPhone” application that goes beyond what Apple is able to offer. Windows Phone currently has a find my phone service, but may be looking to enhance its features.
While the true reasoning behind the job posting is not currently known, it is clear that Microsoft wants to be able to find it’s devices anywhere in the World without the need for GPS. Go ahead and put your tinfoil hats on, but this is most likely service related and not a government conspiracy act.