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January 12, 2009
Geolocation API Research
I'm starting to do some research into geolocation APIs. Right now, I'm planning on checking out the Google Gears and Google Chrome APIs, the new Firefox 3.1 APIs, Skyhook's technology, and IP geolocation technology like that used by ip2location. Anything else you think I should be looking into? How valuable do you think geolocation APIs on the desktop are? Will all computers (or at least all laptops which are gradually becoming all computers) have GPS chips soon? Other than GPS, IP addresses, Wi-Fi access points, and cell tower triangulation, how else can people be located?
Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.
Posted by cantrell at January 12, 2009 10:28 AM
Comments
Haven't played with it yet, but Fire Eagle from Yahoo looks interesting: http://developer.yahoo.com/fireeagle/
Posted by: Stephen Judd at January 12, 2009 11:34 AM
Thanks, Stephen. That looks like a good lead, as well.
Christian
Posted by: Christian Cantrell at January 12, 2009 12:24 PM
Hi, there is also the Google Loader API and the Loki FF Addon API that are available.
Looking forward to see what you achieve :)
Posted by: Marin at January 13, 2009 4:19 AM
Have a look at geoPlugin
Gears I find is too restrictive with it being pure Javascript. geoPlugin offers their geolocation webservice in multiple programming languages, which gives more flexibility with what you can do with it.
Posted by: Andy at January 13, 2009 11:35 PM
I'm not hip with the whole Google Gears things, but here's this: http://code.google.com/apis/gears/api_geolocation.html
Posted by: lee at January 14, 2009 8:36 AM
The W3C has a spec for Geolocation API:
http://dev.w3.org/geo/api/spec-source.html
You can also check out Geode from Mozilla.
Posted by: Kevin Suttle at January 16, 2009 9:02 AM
hostIP used to be the largest free database and service for GeoIP (http://hostip.info)
btw, I come to your blog following links at FlashGateway documentation, since official site and osFlash page shutdown, can I ask you here why loadVariables called from Flash clip ruin gateway communication with JS?! ;-)
hope you dont mind ;-)
Posted by: Alek at February 26, 2009 3:38 AM
Geolocation by WiFi:
WiGLE (http://www.wigle.net)
http://developer.skyhookwireless.com
Navizon (http://www.navizon.com)
Geolocation by GSM:
GSMLoc (http://gsmloc.org)
Others:
Intel's PlaceLab (http://placelab.org)
The POLS (http://pols.sourceforge.net/)
Plazes (http://plazes.com)
Posted by: Alek at February 26, 2009 4:10 AM