Gmail adds location-aware signatures

Google must be on a location-aware kick this month. Just a week after the search firm released its Latitude mobile device friend-tracker, Google Labs has a new tool that lets Gmail automatically include your location in an e-mail's signature. "Sometime ago, I noticed how all mail systems tell you when an email was written, …

[Magani]

Latitude and Wrong-itude?

Is it just me or is Latitude actually crap when it comes to estimating your location?

From a huge sample of 2, both were found by Latitude to be at least a block away from where they actually were - one was a WiFi laptop in the UK, the other a Windows Mobile 6 Pro phone with GPS in the Greater.Antipodes.

While Loki gets the suburb name wrong, at least its positions are within 25yds or so.

Penguins don't need Latitude, as they always know where they are.

[Kevin]

Triangulation?

This is very pedantic but everybody gets it wrong. There is no triangulation. You need to know angles to do triangulation and mobile & wifi basestation id's don't tell you your angle relative to them.

The process of taking the known positions of at least 3 things and placing you in the middle of them is probably best called trilateration

[Anonymous Coward]

Lattitude

If it only estimated me wrong by a block I'd be delighted. Was actually having this conversation on a forum last night about how it seems to think I'm about 1.5 miles away from where I actually am. On a good day.

Although this is probably due in large part to being in Wales where we have a mast every parsec or thereabouts. I'm probably relying on biang... sorry, bilateration ;)

Paris, because I think she should try bilateration to expand her repertoire.

[Christopher Ahrens]

IP GeoLocation = Fail

The company I work for uses the same IP range Globally, so this will show that a user at the Johannesburg, South Africa campus is in Redmond, Washington, USA which is almost on the complete opposite side of the World... Talk about being a little off, similar story with my ISP, I am connected almost directly to their trans-continental backbone, so my traffic usually shows as being from the East coast...

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of

"Sometime ago, I noticed how all mail systems tell you when an email was written, but not where it was sent from."

Bollocks. It's called headers and usually contains the sender's IP if not qualified domain name. That is nothing new (although different from the way Google is doing it now, and certainly not as pretty/user-friendly) but don't try to tell me it's never been there in the past. I've back-traced many a sender's IP address.

[Anonymously Deflowered]

Disneyland example

...made I larf!

[Paul Young]

What LABS Tab?

I looked and I don't see a LABS Tab

So Where is it then

[Anonymously Deflowered]

@Paul Young

Click on Settings in the top right corner of your gmail screen, then find the Labs tab with your eyes.

[James Dunmore]

how many divorces/sakings will be generated because of this!?

"Yes dear, I was round Dave's playing Pro Evo" - but your signature says you were somewhere else....

You know what I mean !

Or

"can't make it into work today boss" - signature says "the pub"

It's going to happen (but not to me!)

[Peyton]

@What a load of

I was thinking the same thing... but reading further shows the creator describing his reply process: "and by the time I answer I am often somewhere else." I know when I click reply, I am usually right where I am, and not somewhere else.

So in his world, all bets may be off.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind me not to use GMail for my Ransom Letters...

To: Billionaire Richard Branson

From: The Dude Who Kidnapped Your Dog

Dear Mr. Branson,

If you do not deposit $5 Million Pounds into the account # 298348124 in the Caymans before noon Friday, you will never see your precious little dog Fluffy again! Muahahahah!

Sincerely,

The Kidnapper

--

Sent from: The Secret Lair at 229 High Street

[Menno]

No Labs tab here either

@Anonymously Deflowered: My Gmail account lacks a "Labs" tab as well. And no, just like PY, I am not blind either. Not that I'd use the function: living in the West Indies, I often get suggestions to meet hot women in Enkhuizen when browsing pr0n^H^H^H^H the web, so I am not expecting Gmail to fare any better.

[babz]

420miles out

tis a nice app but given the way IPs seem to be assigned for ADSL connections in the UK it isnt going to work...

Good idea I guess, but wouldn't it be better to have settings to assign IP ranges a location..

[Paul Wells]

Labs depends on the browser you use

"...Gmail labs aren't yet compatible with all of our supported browsers. Labs are available only in Internet Explorer 7.0+, Firefox 2.0+, Safari 3.0+, and Google Chrome. You won't see a 'Labs' tab in your Settings if you're not using the newer version of Gmail on the browsers listed above. Please note that if you're using Internet Explorer 6.0, you will not have Gmail Labs..."