As I wrote in that thread, I believe a static database is not the best solution. The device could scan networks while idle and associate them with GPS coordinates. A way to download existing known networks from a web service could also be presented, if one wants to have an already built catalog as you suggest (since the scanning would probably be a bit of a drain on batteries).
I believe that this could all be unified with a centralized Locations system that ties real world things (friend's houses to gaseous clouds, and everything in between) with GPS coordinates. Those locations would all be given Tags and extra options for addresses and the like. (The selected tags could enable certain inputs, maybe?) For example, a theatre phone disabler service could see if you are near a known location with the tag "Theatre", or, of course, a Wifi access point finder could scan for nearby locations with the tag "WiFi Access Point". With that much data, of course, such a database could be rather hard to wield. Just pondering, though :) GPS coordinates are a really handy way for a device to know where it is, not just for the user to know where he is! The trouble is that devices really don't know the real world as well as the user; only the user knows his world well enough to know how he wants his phone to act in it. Not even the developers can anticipate the type of information he would want, or provide it all without some insanely complicated infrastructure. (Google Maps times 10). Remember, this is a small device that is there with you in the real world as you walk in it; not a big screen at home looking down at the real world from a distance. It needs unprecedented detail, and I think the best way to do that is to make it as intuitive for the user to provide his own information for that location database as it is for the system to download existing databases from the web. Bye, -Dylan McCall On 7/2/07, Don Park <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 7/2/07, Stuart Gray <randomelginguy at hotmail.com> wrote: > http://www.wefi.com/ seems to be along that lines, the software they are > using seems to be windows only at the moment though :(. But maybe somebody > could write and open source one that still has access to the Google Wifi The http://www.wigle.net/ website has something closer to what you describe. Its been around for years and has an active community uploading wifi tracking logs. Its free to use and make queries from, short of downloading the entire database. Moving away from wifi for a moment, I think a personal location service would be a frequently requested app. Twitter.com could be used as a place to store lat/long records using its L:<location> feature. Don _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
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