Readers of this blog may recall that we have referred to location-based services as jam tomorrow but not today. Readers may also have detected a note of frustration about this, as I personally believe this to be an area of high impact change.

Yesterday, Google announced the release of Android. “The system, which will control an untold number of cell phones, is designed to unify the developers of mobile applications around a common platform that makes it easier and more enticing to surf the Web on cell phones. The new package is called “Android” in tribute to a Silicon Valley startup that Google acquired two years ago to steer its secretive project. Google is hoping Android opens another lucrative channel for peddling ads and services to people when they’re away from their personal computers, supplementing the revenue already pouring into the company from Internet advertising.”

…”For now, Google is focused on rallying support for Android, which relies on openly available computer code that gives equal access to all programmers. That freedom is meant to foster innovation and new uses for the sophisticated handsets known as smart phones. “You will be able to do amazing things with your mobile device that you had never thought of before,” Schmidt promised. Google will release a tool kit for developers next week.”

The information assurance impact could be quickly addressed by a monitoring service that ensures that IA concerns are part of the innovation this is sure to stimulate, and perhaps going so far as having the UK government sponsor IA innovations via competitions or provisional service contracts.

Many of the innovations that have been talked about will be of value to UK government–field workers, including social services as well as emergency service first responders, education, especially in terms of concerns about truancy and punctuality, and traffic, if road charging is to move ahead. If IA is designed into the innovations, so much the better. If an IA solution is available on the market as a separate innovation, it will give government bodies more confidence about taking advantage of them.