Mozilla has posted more information about Geode, the Labs plugin we foreshadowed yesterday that helps websites detect your current location. Geode is also now available for download here.
Geode is a forerunner to Firefox’s future implementation of the W3C Geolocation Specification, a standard that (once universally implemented) will allow websites to serve up localized content and services within any browser. Mozilla plans to let the user determine how they want to reveal their location (via GPS, WiFi, manual entry, or other methods) and how specific they want that information to be (exact location, neighborhood, city, etc).
The plugin, however, will only leverage one method for determining your location – Skyhook’s Loki technology, which uses WiFi to determine your location within a second and with an accuracy of about 10-20 meters.
Since location-aware services are most useful on mobile devices, Mozilla plans to integrate Geode functionality into alpha releases of Fennec, its mobile browser under development.
Pownce and Yahoo’s Fire Eagle are launch partners of sorts for Geode, having both already hooked the plugin up to their services. Pownce is using the plugin to attach location information to messages and other contributions to the service. Fire Eagle will use Geode as another way to gather and broker location information for its users and the services they use.
Mozilla isn’t the only one who has decided to innovate in geolocation technology on its own instead of waiting for standards to evolve. Google Gears, another browser plugin of sorts, features similar location-aware functionality for websites.
My workstation doesn’t have wifi, and neither does my living room PC.
Thats a shame.
@Frank and what does this have to do with Geode?
Firefox crashed once i installed and started locating my place in the google map of the Welcome page at Geode!
Lets try this again!
Same here. It crashed the first time for me, but it seems to be OK now.
Same here too :/
I know it’s just a test but.. come on!
Such geo targetting is mostly used by ad networks… And ads are mostly high paying for US or Canada regions…
I think you’ve got the URL for Fire Eagle wrong there. You seem to be linking through to an old outdated privacy policy rather than the site itself which is at fireeagle.com
“location-aware services are most useful on mobile devices”.
everything on the internet and mobile is coming down to location. Location is universal. You either got it or you dont. The great land grab of the 21st century is over. People and businesses need to find a strategic keyphrase location that best fits there agenda.
Heres google gears theory on Location and below it is a video of Mine.:
http://professi...%3AVideo%3A4082
Apex of Innovation Theory- http://seesmic....deos/Q7B9X13aTE
LocationExpert.com
Wanted to give it a test run but got this:
Error getting your position. Mea Culpa!
If it can detect your current location, shouldnt there be some more interesting apps in the areas of dating/ social networking that tell you when available singles that fit your criteria are near.
Wait, so does this mean, every time a website attempts to figure out where I am, I can choose to tell them nothing and they won’t be able to place my IP address?
Both geode and fireeagle are good product to get the location of a user. I also like the way http://mygpsid.com has implemented their approach. With mygpsid, you can have address IDs similar to email IDs. For example michele@home and michele@office represents my home and office address respectively. With their web 2.0 platform, mygpsid protects my privacy while letting websites know my approx location. Hopefull I will be able use my address ids within geode, which will be awesome.
where do they get their geo-location database?
Even I doubt it!!!!!!
crashed! let’s try this again in a year or 5.
Doesn’t work in India, says it can’t find my location
Seems to work pretty well – takes a couple of seconds to get your location. We’ve made a version of our motorcycle ride mapping page that includes this feature. Check it out if you want to find GPS mapped motorcycle rides in your area – http://www.sund...loc-aware.shtml
Definitely gonna keep an eye on developments…
for those in the US, we just integrated our local news site– http://outside.in/radar– to work with Geode. very excited to see FF 3.1 in action so that users don’t have to worry about installing any extra plugins.