geolocation

Skyhook's love/hate relationship with GPS

After I heard that Skyhook Wireless was announcing a deal that would put its geolocation technology into a line of Dell Netbooks, I talked with the company's CEO, Ted Morgan. I'd last talked to Morgan three years ago when he pitched me on the merits of Wi-Fi over traditional satellite GPS location-finding technologies. Ironically, the Dell deal puts Skyhook technology only in those Netbooks ordered with the optional GPS hardware in them, even though all Netbooks have Wi-Fi. But as Morgan described it to me, the best real-world solution for geolocation today is a combination of GPS and … Read more

Firefox 3.5: Excellent for fans, but competition getting tougher

Firefox 3.5 brings the world's second-most popular browser up to speed with current browsing technology and trends, and perhaps nudges it just a bit ahead of the competition. However, it is by no means the leap ahead that its predecessor Firefox 3 was, and it's clear that the competition isn't going away anytime soon.

Available for Windows, Windows Portable, Mac, or Linux, Firefox 3.5 nevertheless represents the best Firefox we've yet seen from Mozilla. This comes as no surprise, and with a testing process that involved four beta builds, three release candidates, and a … Read more

Firefox 3.5 and Fennec aboard Google's location service

Updated May 1, 2009, at 8:40 a.m. PT with more specifics about how the Google Location Service works, and again at 11:40 a.m. with additional background information.

When Google Labs released its experimental browser toolbar with its My Location finder for Internet Explorer last week, we wondered why it wasn't available for Firefox. Now we know. Instead of being added on through a toolbar or extension, it was intended to be built in. So, on Thursday, Mozilla turned on a new feature for Firefox 3.5 beta 4, and for Fennec, the code name for … Read more

Google's Gears gives laptops location smarts

Google has updated its open-source Gears project so Web sites can take advantage of location services in Gears-enabled Web browsers.

The underlying technology, which used signals from cell phone towers, was initially developed so mobile-phone users could get a rough fix on their location, even without GPS technology. Now, though, Gears has been augmented with location smarts based on signals from Wi-Fi networks so that people with laptops also can figure out their location to within about 200 meters in many major cities.

That means that a Web site that might benefit from showing a person's location--most anything mapping-related, … Read more

Google offers location services to Web sites

Google announced two services Thursday that programmers can use to build services into Web sites that employ a site user's location.

The first is a tool for Web sites built with the Ajax programming method. The Ajax client location property provides Web sites with a rough estimate of a user's location based on his or Internet Protocol address, said Google engineer Steve Block on the Google Code blog. The property can be seen in action in the "news by state" feature on Google's 2008 election site API (application programming interface).

Second is an expected change to endow Google's Gears software with the ability to employ more detailed location information. … 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

Skyhook combines GPS and Wi-Fi for location

Skyhook Wireless announced Monday that it is integrating GPS into its geolocation service to get an even more accurate fix for location-based services.

Up until now, Skyhook's geolocation service, which is used on Apple's iPhone, among other services and devices, has used Wi-Fi hot spots to get a fix on location. The service works very well in densely populated areas where there are a lot of Wi-Fi radios transmitting signals. And it's great for locating places indoors or in cities with a lot of tall buildings, all places where satellite-based GPS, or Global Positioning System, technology has … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 732: Make family, not phone

An amusement park in the U.K. thinks you'll have more fun if they confiscate your smartphone. I think I would not go to that amusement park. I don't care if they say I'll have more fun-- I don't trust them with my iPhone. Also YouTube and Viacom are spatting again, and Brazilian beetles might lead to photonic computing! Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 732

Why Friday audio sucked

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First pictures from Mars Phoenix lander … Read more

The Real Deal 111: Geolocation

Rafe and Tom talk about the new apps and services that use geolocation. They help you find people and help people find you. But is that a good thing? Listen now: Download today's podcast Where 2.0 ConferenceWeb apps that know where you areDodgeball, Brightkite, Fire Eagle, Trippit, DopplrWhy? Know where friends/associates areso they can find youCar - Dash NavigatorTraffic reportrouting around jamsInteresting new startups http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9942507-2.htmlVery few companies do this right http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9940433-2.htmlPhilosophical discussionWhat if I don't want to be found-------------------------Next episode - Virtualization