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Comment by savrajsingh | Hacker News Reader

When will it just run in the background, so it'll tell me when I happen to be within 400 yards of a friend in NYC? Now that would be cool.

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You could write a mobile Facebook app to take the stress out of restraining orders...

Google Latitude can do that. But that would mean you and your friend would have to use be using it, and the chances of that approach zero.

(There's a joke there about how the chances of you having an actual friend in NYC approach zero too, but I'm going to leave that one..)

I upvoted you because I agree and disagree. I agree because it would be totally cool if we both wanted that. It would be totally annoying if one of us actually wished to be private at that moment, or was in a rush, etc, and just forgot to turn off facebook.

I totally see why this is a fear. But actually I don't see a feature like this causing these kind of problems. How is it any different than receiving a text when you are busy or running into someone you know when you don't have time to chat. Everyone has times when they are busy and everyone has times when they aren't busy and want to be social.

I guess it's just like bumping into someone that you know when you don't have time to chat - but with a 50-fold increase in the radius of my personal sphere. I'd definitely give it a shot, at least, to see if I liked it.

My phone is going to need a 'private' toggle just like it has a 'silent mode' toggle - right on the home screen, or physical.

http://www.loopt.com/

loopt does that

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