It was only a matter of time before a location tracking app found its way into laptop security software. Laptop Cop, which lets you remotely control your computer and delete files if it is stolen, now has a geo-location feature based on WiFi-hotspot triangulation technology from Skyhook Wireless. It is the same technology that is used in the iPhone (along with GPS and cell-tower triangulation) to determine your location for geo-aware apps. Now you can tell the cops exactly what door to knock on, more or less.

Laptop Cop costs $50. It does come with those other features as well. But if you want the same Lojack service for your laptop without paying, you can download MyLoki for free. It is a browser add-on from Skyhook that broadcasts the location of your laptop. And anyone can always check your personal MyLoki page to see where your is laptop (which is supposed to be a proxy for you, but not when it’s been stolen).

It won’t be too long before all of your devices will tell you where they are.

Update: There’s another laptop recovery service from GadgetTrak for Macs that also uses Skyhook. In addition to the WiFi positioning, it also uses the Mac’s built-in camera to to take a picture of the perp and sends it to your Flickr account. So busted.

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Some of the most compelling apps on the iPhone and upcoming Android phones take advantage of the GPS chips inside those devices to create services that filter information based on your location. While GPS chips are particularly good at pinpointing your location, other techniques are also used. For instance, the iPhone uses cell-tower triangulation and Wi-Fi positioning. No single technology works all the time, so having a couple fallback methods is always a good idea.

Although not talked about as much, the Wi-Fi positioning is made possible through a deal with Skyhook Wireless. Now Broadcom, which makes many of the GPS, Wi-Fi and other types of chips in a vast array of phones, is adding Skyhook’s Wi-Fi positioning to its chips as well. That means more phones will be able to take advantage of location-based apps in the future.

Skyhook keeps a constantly updated database of millions of geo-coded Wi-Fi hotspots around the country. So any phone with a Broadcom Wi-Fi chip will be able to tap into SkyHook’s database. (You can test how good SkyHook’s location detection works yourself on your laptop using its MyLoki service, which is based on the same technology).

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If you look at my Facebook page you might think that I’m still in Miami, although I returned from that trip two weeks ago. I simply forgot to change my location status back to New York City. The problem with most location updates on Facebook or elsewhere is that they require you to manually change your status every time you get on a plane. Finally, though, there is an easier way to broadcast your location automatically. It is called MyLoki.

MyLoki is a service offered by Boston-based SkyHook Wireless, the same company behind the GPS-like, WiFi-locating technology in the iPhone. Skyhook can determine your location based on the nearest WiFi routers that it picks up through your laptop or other computing device.

After first downloading the Loki toolbar for your browser, whenever you are in the vicinity of a WiFi hotspot it should be able to triangulate your location. You can then broadcast this information in a number of ways. You get your own MyLoki page that shows people your exact location, or you can embed a constantly updated map with your position on your blog:

You can add the map as a Facebook app:

You also can create an embeddable badge and append it to your e-mail signature.

Or you can even create a location feed that anyone obsessed with your whereabouts can subscribe to. This feed integrates with any GeoRSS service, such as Google MyMaps. MyLoki also works with Jaiku and Yahoo’s Fire Eagle. No Twitter integration yet, but that is in the works.

MyLoki lets you enable or disable each broadcast option. For privacy, most only show what city you are in. The embeddable map lets you choose between country, state, city, zipcode or exact location in revealing where you are. If the application becomes popular, Skyhook CEO Ted Morgan thinks that Websites will want to localize their content (and ads) to Web surfers with Loki-enabled browsers. Good thing those privacy settings can be turned on and off.

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