November 28, 2007
Where Am I? Ah - Thank You Google - in the Blue Circle of Enlightenment...
And so it goes... My Location, from Google (I checked - it's not April 1st...)
We've all been there: You're out and about, and you need to figure out where you are, what's around you, and how to get there. ... Starting today, we have an answer: Google Maps for mobile with My Location . My Location is a new beta technology from Google that uses cell tower identification to provide you with approximate location information, so it will work on phones without GPS. Simply fire up Google Maps for mobile, press [0], and the map will indicate your approximate location by centering on a blue circle like this:
Common Craft style video explanation
(Just by the by, I wonder how well that sort of explanation would go down as an introductory explanation in any of our ICT courses?)
Next stop, Google's "MyThings"...
You think I'm joking? The Internet of Things
PS check out Google Maps, too - it now features a terrain view as a well as map or satellite; and hybrid view has disappeared as a top level view option - the satellite view shows 'labels' as a default option. As if that wasn't enough, you can now collaborate on My Map custom map creation too, and enter KML or KMZ file URLs into the Google Maps search box to plot data that you needed Google Earth to view before... Keep current with the crazy pace of Google Maps innovation at the Google LatLong blog.
PPS I really should pay more attention to Yahoo too - they have an API as part of their Zonetag service that returns location info based on mobile cell tower IDs (I don't know if it works in the UK?): Yahoo Zonetag Locate Cell API
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Tags: google, everywhere
Posted by ajh59 at November 28, 2007 07:31 PM