Comments on: Is Google about to release an API for location?

By: GeoLocation finds its place in the ecosystem « Urban Horizon

GeoLocation finds its place in the ecosystem « Urban Horizon — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:10:19 +0000

[...] and I only mention this now having read posts in Techcrunch UK and Techcrunch.com – for which I was not the source! Posted in Internet en general, Mobile [...]

By: Google To Launch Large Scale Geo-Services

Google To Launch Large Scale Geo-Services — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:29:56 +0000

[...] sister publication Techcrunch UK noticed that a Location services API had been added to Google Gears. The developers behind Gears [...]

By: AJ

AJ — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:52:36 +0000

Hey Mike,

I spoke to a Googler at a conference a few months back who hinted towards (or at least didn’t deny) a mobile location API. I think they might be moving towards providing a location based adsense for mobile apps. They are already doing location specific adwords on the mobile search engine right? Very excited about this!

–AJ.

By: Peter Cranstone

Peter Cranstone — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:16:41 +0000

This could be very good news. We have an API that allows Blackberry and Windows Mobile developers to access the GPS on the mobile device and then make that information available inside the browser.

This enables real time location (GPS) based search from inside the browser.

Cheers

Peter
5o9 Inc

By: jonmul

jonmul — Thu, 29 May 2008 09:29:43 +0000

Wow. Great find Mike, if this is true this would be a huge development, although I’m not sure how long this will take to dawn on mobile operators.

‘Ownership’ of user location is one of the few valuable things mobile telcos have left to differentiate themselves. It’s the key to being able to create services that actually create value for consumers, fundamental to the evolution of the mobile industry.

This would be great for Google, but really disruptive to mobile operators…

By: Jamie

Jamie — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:54:23 +0000

There is a similar API available in the iPhone SDK, called CoreLocation. Its available for all developers to use in their application and is how FlickrExport Touch geotags photos taken on the iPhone before sending to Flickr.

CoreLocation triangulates using cell towers and WiFi and has room to include GPS if the iPhone 2 includes it.

By: Richard T

Richard T — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:46:39 +0000

Dion Almaer mentioned this at the Adobe on Air roadshow in London a few months ago. I understood gears to just be the offline storage that it is best known for but apparently it is meant to be a suite of tools that effectively extend the web browser. Storage and the location API being just a couple of those tools. They also currently have a WorkerPool in gears as well, this allows you to run long-running tasks asynchronously in the browser.

By: Steve E

Steve E — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:34:23 +0000

That’s pretty cool! I can think of lot’s of interesting apps which will surface if this does happen!

By: Mike Butcher

Mike Butcher — Thu, 29 May 2008 06:44:29 +0000

Grant – I think what we’re talking about here s geo-location based on mobile cell-tower IDs, not postcodes.

By: grant

grant — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:19:15 +0000

Not going to happen, despite the fact that you are a uk tax payer and you have paid for the creation of the postcode database, post office still charges a fortune to give access to post code data and the proviso of having it- is that you cannot give other parties access to it.

I think that the reason postcode and location based services will never take off in this country is because of the post offices stranglehold on the post code database. unless you are willing to pay pence per lookup, you are going to have a whole lotta expense in getting something working.