Write it and they will come. You could do something simple like create a Palm/WinCE map viewer for NYC that zoomed you in and marked a 'you are here' on the right spot on the map whenever it saw a wifi ethernet address in its database that it recognized and also collected more ethernet addresses. It should also let you say "I am here" collect the nearby ethernet addresses.
I think if you added then a syncing program that uploaded the discovered ethernet addresses to a database you would quickly create the location database and get a lot of users with just the map. You could do this as a thesis project or just for kicks or even try to leverage the userbase into a viable business. (This is better than ads on cell phones because the users are less likely to object to ads on a free program than on a $20-60 a month mobile phone service, you could also sell a location service to outfits like Zagat which make Palm guides to resturants). Newer palm sized computers already have built in WiFi, but no GPS, and besides GPS doesn't work well in urban situations anyway. -- Daniel << When truth is outlawed; only outlaws will tell the truth. >> - RLiegh On Sat, 6 Dec 2003, Kris Kolodziej wrote: ]Hi, ] ]I am curious to hear what this list has to say about the topic of location- ]aware computing. ] ]I am doing research on this topic, which overall has been �in the lab� for the ]last decade where applications, frameworks, technology infrastructure, etc. ]have been extensively explored. So far location-based services have not made ]an impact in the mobile computing world (except perhaps with E911 services). ] ]The reason is the dilemma of having both infrastructure investment and ]the �killer� (or at least a valuable) application. Without the application ]people won�t invest in infrastructure and without the infrastructure the open- ]market for iterating towards valuable applications and their business models ]doesn�t exist. ] ]One approach is to exploit the proliferation of Wi-Fi hotspots that can ]provide positioning comparable to GPS in urban settings and also function ]indoors where GPS does not. ] ]One technique would be to have a WiFi positioning database for a region. With ]this database, notebook computer and PDA users without GPS can start ]contributing more information into the database. For example, assume a user ]goes to a Starbuck�s and receives beacons from three APs but only two are in ]the database. The third AP can then be added to the database with some high ]confidence that it is near the location of the other two APs. Data can also be ]added when an unknown AP is detected temporarily between two known APs. This ]collection of techniques for refining the details of the WiFi Positioning ]database as a side effect of people using their mobile computers is the ]second, geographic statistical technique. Clearly, the data being collected by ]the geographic statistical technique would be much more useful if it was sent ]back into the infrastructure and then redistributed to all users as part of ]the WiFi positioning database. A third technique is to employ a distributed ]contributor update mechanism for the WiFi positioning database� ] ] ]Any thoughts? ] ] ] ]Thanks in advance! ] ]Kris ] ] ] ]-- ]NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ ]Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ ]Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/ ] -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
