eagle

Yahoo counters Google Latitude: Friends on Fire

Taking a different approach to Google's Latitude software, Yahoo has released a Facebook application called Friends on Fire that lets people share their location with each other.

Google Latitude is an island unto itself, using Google's own technology for cell phone-based location detection and for managing who gets access to your location. Friends on Fire, though, stitches together a variety of services: Yahoo's Fire Eagle, a service that can store and share your location with authorized applications, and Facebook, which handles the issue of identifying who your friends are and granting them permission to see your location.

The service is intriguing, though as with any service that has to tiptoe carefully around a lot of privacy landmines, it can be somewhat burdensome to set up. It's great that Yahoo is making something real out of its Fire Eagle service, which previously was more about plumbing than a faucet. … Read more

Facebook post gets NFL Eagles' worker fired

You don't normally associate negative emotions with Philadelphia sports.

In the City of Brotherly Love, they believe in affection, even when the circumstances don't warrant it. Criticism knows no place in Philadelphian hearts and bars.

So perhaps it was odd to the management of the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles that one of their stadium operations workers, Dan Leone, seemed a little upset when the Eagles allowed defensive back Brian Dawkins to sign for the depressingly hapless Denver Broncos.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Mr. Leone posted this on his Facebook page: "Dan is ******* devastated about Dawkins signing … Read more

Twitter in the court: Federal judge gets it

U.S. District Judge Thomas J. Marten gets it. He's the judge who has allowed a reporter to Twitter court proceedings in a trial of six Crips gang defendants taking place in his Wichita, Kan., courtroom.

"The more we can do to open the process to the public, the greater the public understanding," Marten told the Associated Press. And when asked about lawyers' concerns that jurors might be influenced by the tweets, he said that jurors are always told to avoid broadcasts, newspaper, and online reports.

The tweets are from Ron Sylvester, a reporter from the Wichita … Read more

Podcast: Twitter in the court

Ron Sylvester, a reporter from the Wichita Eagle is Twittering news from a trial in a federal courtroom. While that's been done before in state courts, it may be the first time it's been done in a federal court. CBS News chief legal analyst Andrew Cohen says that while it might be violating federal procedures, it could eventually become a more common occurrence. CBS News and CNET Technology analyst Larry Magid reports.

Yes, Fire Eagle's cool. It also freaks me out

Fire Eagle, Yahoo's new geolocation service, is fresh out of the company's Brickhouse development team, and third parties are lining up to cut deals.

Who can deny that location is going to become increasingly important for Web services? In the initial rush of coverage, MG Siegler correctly noted that Fire Eagle essentially serves as the intermediary between services offering that geolocation capability and those wishing to make use of it. (Fire Eagle's not an original idea. There's also Loopt, a cell phone-based service that allows people to track and communicate with friends, as well as Whrrl … Read more

Yahoo's Fire Eagle geolocation service now open to all

Fire Eagle, Yahoo's formerly experimental geolocation platform, is officially opening up to all users, and several companies are announcing products that work with it.

A refresher: Fire Eagle is a storehouse for personal location information. If you tell Fire Eagle where you are, or have applications or devices that can do so on your behalf, then other applications can grab that info (with your permission) and provide you geo-related services or social network features.

One of the most interesting parts of Fire Eagle is its variable privacy feature. Even if Fire Eagle knows precisely at what address you are, … Read more

Fire Eagle's missing apps

Tom Coates, creator of Yahoo's Fire Eagle data location broker, took the stage at Where 2.0 to talk up some of the cool new apps that use the platform. "Fire Eagle is nothing," Coates said, without the apps. Nearly all the apps he mentioned are listed on the Fire Eagle's Gallery page (log-in required), but what I thought was more interesting were the apps he mentioned that don't support Fire Eagle yet, but should. Or that simply don't exist:

The Spot Satellite Messenger is a handheld device that reports your position, anywhere in … Read more

The software of spring

Spring is an exciting time for tech. A slew of products that have been hibernating in development cocoons are ready to emerge just in time for the flora to wake up, the the sun to turn on (at least here in the northern hemisphere,) and for techies to regain that bounce in their step. Here are eight downloads and Web applications we expect to see frolicking across computer screens this spring.

But why stop there? CNET editors have also slaved to bring you details galore on the season's top gadgets. Check out the latest in cameras, phones, laptops, and … Read more

Wikinear mashes geolocation, Wikipedia using Fire Eagle

Yahoo's Fire Eagle service is very much in its infancy, but we're already beginning to see some early developer applications pour out of the service. One of them, Wikinear is a smart mashup, combining Google Maps with Wikipedia. Every time you update your location on Fire Eagle, the map and related entries will change, which could be useful if you're traveling or feel like learning more about some of the buildings or attractions around you.

The site is optimized for mobile phones with simple text and links. While local services such as Yelp offer quite a bit … Read more