Certainly not the fact that Google is estimating location from cell strength; that’s pretty low-tech and has been done in 911 call centres for quite some time.
What I think is cool is that they are using the 15% of Mobile Maps users who do have GPS to populate their database of cell tower locations.
Once more cell phones support wi-fi (will this EVER happen in North America?) they’ll be able to take advantage of the same infrastructure to build their wi-fi location database.
-J
1Andrew Turner on Nov 29, 2007 at 10:13 am:
Well, N95, for one, have Cell, GPS, and WiFi, so assumedly they’ve already been collecting this information.
Navizon does bring up a good questions about what to think of the inexplicit collecting of information.
2Jason Birch on Nov 30, 2007 at 2:52 am:
Hey Andrew…
For sure, there are privacy concerns. Personally, I don’t really have a problem with it unless the data is tagged against a person or unique identifier, but I can see the concerns.
Like a true geek, I guess I am more interested in the technology. It must be hard to develop a precise location from two measurements that are so variable/fuzzy. I guess that with lots and lots of data anything can be precise though…
I wonder if Google is going to push for compass, altimeter, and range finder to be added to cell phones to make it easier to capture the world for them?
3Neill on Jan 16, 2008 at 5:39 pm:
When will the Verizon Network support this? It seems as though they are always behind in the game of new technology but they have the best coverage.