Geode - the Firefox add-on that knows where you are Mozilla's virtual lab has unveiled an experimental browser add-on capable of identifying where you are. Give or take 20 meters. Known as Geode, this Firefox 3 add-on leverages the new W3C Geolocation spec, a way for websites to request your physical location - and for you to oblige. If you feel like it. In trumpeting Geode …
.. find myself, unexpectedly, in a new country, a new city or a new coffee shop. So unexpectedly, in fact, that I haven't taken time to prepare myself and do some research about possible eateries.
Then again, I could always enjoy the pleasure of exploration rather than have some system tell me where the nearest (sponsor / donor / paid up) restaurant is!
while pretty useful for all the given scenarios, location id also means you can be denied access because "you are in the wrong place". The other day I came across some Knight Rider (the new one) content that I would have liked to look at. Sadly, European eyes were not desired. "Thank you for your interest". I am considering measures to anonimize all my browsing instead of just some so the constant "are you sure you want to see the US version of our site" nagging, if they are nice enough to nag and do not just forward you elsewhere, comes to an end.
This was going to be one of the BIG benefits of 2nd generation cellphones (in the UK at least). We were going to be bombarded by "local" offers whenever you walked past your local McDee's / Pizza Hut / GAP, etc. It was all going to be tied into WAP.
We didn't want it then. Why would we want it now?
Paris, 'cause all roads lead to Rome (I am pretty sure there is a Rome Hilton, so she can just ask there!)
For this to work you need to have a (up to date) database of what wifi access points are "visible" in any location. To do this you'd probably need to drive up and down every street in the area you want to cover (hmm, who'd do a thing like that!) to sample the access points and hope that people didn't upgrade too often.
Also, if anything serious tried to make use of this location info then how long before we get stories of people rigging up hacked APs to spoof the APs in a designated location.
Wifi access points give a net SSID, which can be pinged, if you have the security key, to find the current IP address which tells you (sometimes) what country you are in. Most computers still don't have WiFi adaptors, especially in corporate environments. Public WiFi hotspots change with the wind pretty much, so there is no way this can work. I expected the Add On to at least give me the option to type in my location if it couldn't detect it automatically. But no, it just prefers to be wrong.
As I read 'You’ve arrived in a new city, a new continent, a new coffee shop. You don’t really know where you are, and are looking for a good place to eat...' I just couldn't help thinking of some old text based adventure game.
> get coffee
You cannot do that
> drink coffee
You cannot do that
When you can't get GPS lock but are in range of Wifi, this is the second fallback it uses before falling back to cell tower triangulation (I think that's the order). It's just based on people giving the lat/long of their Wifi router, nothing more sinister than that. I guess they assume the router has a static IP address, so they traceroute back to you and look up the last hop but one in their database.
It's worldwide, and if you want you can submit the position of your router at http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/submit_ap.php. It's only accurate to within a few yards so not really a privacy issue in a big city.
I've always assumed the Reg originated in Blighty - so PLEASE will you not commit the sickening Americanism of using the word "leverage" as a verb? It's a noun meaning "use of a lever," either literally or metaphorically.
There's been too much of bringing American management speak into use in Britain, and it's disgusting; we have the richest language in the universe, why can't we use it?
PH because richness of language would be irrelevant.
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