Either direct or reverse, local or distant , localisation functions are rich in potential applications. Geolocation services to be implemented in the near future will rely on localisation functions. But today, except for outdoor local localisation (GPS and in the near future Galileo), few technical solutions (maybe none) could implement localisation functions on great portions of the globe surface and for a great number of objects.
And in the times of nanotechnologies and pervasive computing, most manufactured objects will probably be communicating objects, that may be subject to reverse or local localisation.