Forget GPS, Hello WPS

Posted by timothy on Tuesday June 21, 2005 @03:51PM from the ded-reckoning dept.

No France writes "A company known as skyhook wireless has announced the commercial availability of its Wi-Fi Positioning System, or WPS. The company has compiled a database of every wireless access point it can find in a given city. When a mobile user running th Skyhook client is in a recorded area, their position is calculated by selecting the surrounding signals and comparing them to the reference database. Currently there are 25 US cities mapped, including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Apparently this device is accurate to within 20-40 meters, though one has to wonder how well it deals with people moving their wireless access points."

2 of 286 comments (clear)

...what? by CommanderNacho · 2005-06-21 15:53 · Score: 0, Troll

...and you can geocache with this how?

--
PORN
PORN
PORN
PORN
Re:but there's really no point! by cryptoz · 2005-06-21 16:06 · Score: 0, Troll

Eh? I think you have the wrong country here. It's talking about cities in the United States, not Japan...your examples are completely irrelevant!

And with an accuracy of 40 meters, how does it even know what street you're actually on? There are plenty of places where there are streets inside of 40m from each other.