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Google Maps GPS Simulator
garbletext writes "A new version of Google Maps introduced this week includes a beta feature dubbed My Location that was designed to simulate the GPS experience on mobile phones and handheld devices that do not include GPS hardware, like Apple's iPhone. Essentially, the My Location feature takes information broadcast from mobile towers near non-GPS equipped mobile phones to approximate the device's current location on the map down to about 10 city blocks. "It's not GPS, but it comes pretty close (approximately 1000m close, on average)," the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant explained on its website. "We're still in beta, but we're excited to launch this feature and are constantly working to improve our coverage and accuracy." The My Location feature is currently available for most web-enabled mobile phones, including Java, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices."
Except this doesn't actually work on iPhone.
Now I can pay to have my cellphone tell me I'm somewhere in downtown Toronto. Just what I've always wanted - I always keep forgetting these minor details.
So, hypothetically speaking, if I had been driving to my relatives' house on, say, Thanksgiving, and I possibly took a right turn instead of a left one and ended up 3 miles away before turning back, I was, in theory, also pretty close?
It's not terribly useful if you're truly lost. Once they can get the triangulation between towers to work better, it'll be pretty damn slick. Until then, 'tis just a toy.
"In caelum, illuc est libertas."
Um... What's the standard deviation on that?
While I like the sentiment, I suspect the usefulness is going to be... limited... It'll be as easy to put in the street names and such.
Deleted
I believe MapPoint Location Server had these same features based on GPRS/GSM available back in 2004. For a price of course :)
Given your posting record thus far, I'm gonna side with Sean Connery on this one and say that you're missing a space after that "e".
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
The usefulness will come from the fact that you now have a localized map of roughly where you are. As long as you think of it as a personalized map service instead of a GPS replacement service, it still quite handy
I downloaded it to my phone and I hit Zero many times and it still hasn't shown me the blue dot. Is there something special I have to do?
Apple has promised to continuously update and improve upon the feature set of its inaugural mobile handset, making it more than likely that the feature will turn up once it emerges from the beta stage.
Oh, good, once a Google feature gets out of beta iPhone users can expect support. That'll only be a couple of years, then...
No, it's not going to tell you your exact location. But if you need to get somewhere it can give you direct starting within 1000 feet of where you are.
It is NOT for Geo caching, or to give you constant real time updates as you hurl down the road.
So if you are in downtown Toronto and decide you want to check out the new book store in BF Canada, you can get a close start position on Google maps. If you can't figure it our from there, then please stop using technology.Any technology.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If it's based on the deployment of Cell towers, it's not exactly a *Global* Positioning System. I think GPSs are more useful in remote areas than urban ones and probably less dangerous there too.
I think this product might lead people into a false sense of security:
"Hey, I think were lost out here in the middle of the Oregon woods in a blizzard. Better check the GPS on my iPhone.
"WTF?
"We're doomed!"
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
"It's not GPS, but it comes pretty close (approximately 1000m close, on average),"
it's even close? GPS give approx 10m in proximity.
I was so excited to get my sexy VZW Blackberry World Edition phone cause it had GPS. To later learn that the GPS is gimped and VZW wont let it talk to 3rd party apps.
Hopefully this gets me 'good enough' placement on the map.
It found my location to "within 2400 meters". It is about 2K off actually.
But I am impressed by the fact alone that it started zoomed right into my city. And I am connected with WiFi, not even GPRS.
Pretty swift if you ask me.
Add parent to lameness filter for obscured URL.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It may not be as accurate as full-on GPS, but now you can do searches for nearby businesses...without having to type in your location. I don't know how many times I've been looking for something NEARBY and either didn't know what zip code or city I was in (keep in mind in a place like LA, something might be nearby but technically in a different city, and sometimes it wouldn't find things unless you gave it specific locations - I know this from experience). I finally resorted to doing a browser Google search because the maps app just wasn't finding stuff.
I've also noticed that now, when you search without putting in a location (i.e. "pizza" instead of "pizza los angeles ca") it will search the nearby area visible on the map. With the previous version, for some reason, it kept giving me locations in the UK when I didn't specify a city/state in the US instead of just searching the area of the map that was currently visible.
Too bad the "My Location" feature doesn't currently work on Sprint Touch and Mogul phones (whether this is a Google or Sprint thing, who knows...) as it says the phones aren't reporting any cell towers (you can see this in Help>About where it says "myl: N/A". Oh, well...hopefully it will work sometime in the future.
1000m is not close to GPS. But it is a good development nevertheless.
Good job!
I tried to do something every similiar a few years back.
If the area has good GSM coverage, usually the handphone will be able to pick up signals from multiple "towers". With a bit of triangulation and intersection, you can get very good estimation of where you are.
But without the telco revealing their towers location, it will not be accurate.
"You're within 1000m of coffee. Can you smell it yet?". Thanks!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
http://www.nav4all.com/ - I haven't tried this so I can't vouch for it, but it looks interesting and is also free.
Note that when people say "GPS" in the context of cellphones, they are usually talking about GPRS/GSM location-based services which use celltower triangulation. There are very few cellphones that have GPS satellite antennas, although there are a few Bluetooth GPS add-on devices available.
Unlike CDMA networks, you are never connected to more than one tower with GSM. GSM is an archaic piece of crap that needs to go away. Unfortunately, it is also the most widely deployed technology, so that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
dfdfd
Not sure why the post linked to an appleinsider article... this is a general google maps mobile thing.
:)
Here's a more detailed article from cnet
I can't wait to use it - it looks like they're using the beta to build up a database of towers around the world
Working pretty well on my BB - About one half block from exact location. Pretty cool for the price.
I don't think 1 km can really be considered close to gps. GPS needs to be "close enough" to tell you when you are coming to your exit at 140 kph. I still think that you can use this for basic by hand navigation. Just look for an intersection and then at least this tool will give you a smaller square in which to search for your present actual location. Then, you can set you location and ask how to get where you need to be. By no means can this replace a real navi, but in a pinch it can save your butt.
Where are they getting the information about what tower you're connected to and how strong the signal is? If it's from the app running on the phone, and you selected to install the app (plus agree to a very long disclaimer) then I have fewer issues. But if they are getting the information from the phone company or from the network requests (e.g. http headers added by phone company) then I'd question if the phone company is giving away private information on their customers.
And if they get the information from the app on the phone, I'd be curious of what api's there are to do this ourselves and if that access infringes on some kind of separation between the phone and app that users and phone companies may want (e.g. apps dialing 900 numbers or racking up charges for sms messages without your knowledge).
(And FYI, testing this on a Sprint Treo 600 claims to download the 2.0 version, but it's really the 1.2 version after the installer runs, so it doesn't work for me yet.)
I don't need any fancy technology to do all that. Give me a map and a street intersection and I'm there. Or just call the store for directions.
a 1000 metre range is very useful e.g.
Movies @ nearest cinemas
Weather forecasts
Traffic congestion
Local News
Its a clever and evil breakthrough. Telcos have been trying to monetize LBS and google come right along and do it better with user contributed data! Whats the bet google will be selling this data back to carriers in a few years
I have a datacard for the notebook. This would be handy for it too.
Even though my phone doesn't have GPS application capabilities, it does have GPS for e911. There's a hidden service menu that has an option to enable the GPS test screen. All I have to do is enable the test screen and call the test number (922, which seems to forward to different things depending on where I am) to find out my location, velocity, altitude, etc.
I assume that GPS navigation software uses the same chip as e911, but service providers take the opportunity to charge customers extra for it (even though it costs them essentially nothing).
The purpose of this is not to tell you where you are. It's to get you to the right map, without needing to type a location using clumsy cell-phone input. Once you're looking at a map, you can figure out where you are by looking at street signs. Think of it as a road atlas which always opens to the right page.
google Navizon
OK
my review -
GOOD
My Location actually WORKS !
My Location works outside of the USA (at least in the UK)
well put together app not a resource hog on my symbian Nokia Series 60 v2 phone (e50)
BAD
you cant do ANYTHING with "My Location" except watch a pretty blue point on the map
No My Location for route finding
No traffic outside USA
Route does not work for a found location it adds a ")" at the end for some reason.
Nice but you need to actaully finish it or it's just a plaything
I am curious what Database of cell locations is google using do you gut think ?
(the phone companies often lie about locations in there headers so you have to build your own (wiggle) or use OFCOM in the uk)
regards
John Jones
http://www.johnjones.me.uk/
Stupid I know, but until slash starts cradling us with some form of protection, I wrote the following
javascript:(function(){
var i,x,l,h;
for(i=0;x=document.links[i];++i){
l=x.href.toLowerCase();
if(l.indexOf('google')>=0 && l.indexOf('btni')>=0) {
x.href = x.href.replace(/btni/gi, "btnG");
h=document.createTextNode("[I'm Feeling unlucky]");
x.parentNode.insertBefore(h, x.nextSibling);
}
} })()
incorporate into greasemonkey or your own standard method and forget about feeling lucky.
Is this a google vulnerability though or just creative thinking?
If google actually checked the link and rejected commands if invalid parameter data is present then we would land on a harmless search page no matter what.
(incidentally, will some regex wiz work their magic on the initial link test)
liqbase
This seems like it will be great technology when technology catches up............. wait a minute:\
Too bad google maps won't use the built in GPS on my 7520... it'll talk to a bluetooth gps receiver though.
Though, with the below dialup speeds of the blackberry, and 8 dollar a meg transfer charges, I'm not sure I'd want to do much with google maps anyways.
"My location" doesn't work on this unit anyways.
http://www.navizon.com/ is another alternative that uses a community-based approach to build its database of cell tower and wifi access point locations. Users who want to use the service pay a small fee, while users who have a GPS can get paid for contributing location data.
Since Navizon also combines wifi access points (which are generally have shorter ranges), it can theoretically narrow down your position even more accurately than relying just on cell towers.
Don't waste those cycles! Put them to use! http://www.distributed.net/
Given that Google maps only finds my location on my GPS equipped Blackberry 8800 about 25% of the time, it will be nice to have an alternative. Now if they could just get traffic information that was worth a damn and actually works consistently. I haven't been able to get traffic information for my commute for the last two days. It says "No Traffic Information Available." despite the fact that I'm in downtown Los Angeles. Trust me, there is all sorts of traffic info available... I'm sitting in it. ;)
A few other very interesting features were released this week for Google Maps... and I'm sorry that this story is all we got on /. so far. Here's a copy from the site in my sig.
Google Maps Adds Terrain
Google Lat Lon Blog announces the addition of terrain to their free Google Maps site. In addition to adding the Terrain button, they've removed the Hybrid button. They explain, "You may notice in this screenshot that the handy "Hybrid" button, which shows satellite images overlaid with labels and roads, seems to have gone missing. Don't worry -- this view can now be accessed by clicking the "Satellite" button and checking the "Show labels" check box that will appear under the "Satellite" button."
New Google Maps Features Launched Including Collaborative Mapping
In addition to the important new terrain layer announced yesterday, Google Maps received a few significant updates, first, Google Maps searches are now providing a thumbnail of the related street view photo, second, the My Maps feature somehow becomes Our Maps, allowing to collaborate directly on someone else's My Maps, this has a lot of potential of getting big, and last, you can more easily share KML and KMZ files and GeoRSS feeds through My Maps. From the Our Maps announcement: "Just click the "Collaborate" link and enter the email addresses of the people you want to invite. They'll receive an email invitation with a link to the map. Once they open the map, they should be able to edit it, as long as they are signed into a Google Account that's associated with that email address. You can also open your map to the world so anyone can edit it by selecting the "Allow anyone to edit this map" checkbox."
Animoog.org
I killed the old version I had (1.7-something), downloaded 2.0, fired it up. Nothing. "Your location is currently unavailable." Rebooted the phone, now it works great. It's showing the blue dot about half a block from my actual location. I'm well within the grey circle around the dot. Pretty awesome for not using GPS.
A few years ago, I had an Ericsson T28 (GSM), and it had a function called Cell Info.
All of my others phones (GSM) have had it, but I only ever noticed it when I was in Denmark in 2003.
Living in Stockholm (Sweden), I never noticed it, and turning it on did nothing - but as soon as I crossed the bridge, it would tell me exactly where I was, right under where it told me which operator I was connected to.
(example)
S Comviq
Main Boulevard 3, Copenhagen
My guess at the time was that three (or more) towers were triangulating me, and that the towers had some built in map, since it was sending me that information. My guess isn't any better today, and I haven't gotten cell info again since then, but I also haven't been back to Copenhagen.
Pretty cool - but as far as privacy issues go.. if anyone could program a phone to ask the network - or clone that phones ID - and have the towers tell you where subscriber with phone number 123 456 789 is, that wouldn't be all to great. It also isn't impossible that people working for the operator could query this.
Je nais sais pas.
-- Google pushes to your phone which nearby businesses are having sales at the moment.
-- During non-peak hours, Starbucks sends you a coupon for a half-price latte redeemable in the next 15 minutes.
-- Capital One, knowing your buying habits, lets you know which nearby clothing stores they can get you a discount at.
-- Match.com tells you which matches are in the area to meet up with.
-- LinkedIn lets you know there's a consultant nearby at lunch with just the kind of Indian outsourcing experience you need.
-- Facebook takes your location info, accidentally leaks it to a Facebook app, and Ron Paul supporters swarm your location with placards and chants.
In other words, massively delivered location-contextual ads and services are the next big thing. This is huge!
Btw, nice greasemonkey script
It doesn't even launch on my LG Cu500 I get an "Invalid Class Can't Launch" error. Thank you for not having any quality assurance other than for your crackberries.
Nokia phones have a hidden menu netmonitor, which shows you not only your current cell, but also other available cells. For the cell to which you are connected, you also get a distance estimation (close to 300m), but you still don't know the direction. In most cities (at least in Europe) the cells are really small (microcells) because otherwise they would be overwhelmed with connections. So if google actually mapped the different cells and had access to this information, they should be able to do much better than 1000m.
IF you can't find your own position on a map of the area less then 1km across, you SUCK. My god, even females should be able to do this.
Hint, look around you for any landmarks, then look on the tiny area of the map you KNOW you are on thanks to this new tech and voila, you found where you are.
If you can't even do that, find a nearby river and drown yourselve and stop being a disgrace to the species. Whatever that may be.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
At least that's what I heard, so that would obviate this service.
..........FULL STOP.
I'm pretty sure AT&T had this capability several years ago. I can remember testing it out on my mobile phone, probably around 5 years ago. The only thing it was really useful for was to find a certain type of place "nearby", which means within a short drive, but it never told you what your location actually is, just what is near you. When I tested it, it seemed more accurate then I expected (or just lucky). It was recommending locations that were within a block or two of where I was, in opposite directions.
I tried this on my T-mobile wing tonight and it works great. It was about 3 blocks off which is better than I expected. People seem to forget (when reviewing this before trying it) that your STARTING point is generally less important than your destination. If you got directions before you hit that fork in the road, yes you would know to go left assuming you can read directions. The directions are going to be exact and it's just a matter of finding your way to the beginning of them. Also, I'm not sure why the poster below said this functionality was nothing more than a 'pretty blue dot.' If I checked off 'use GPS location' (even though it's not technically GPS), it would give me directions to anywhere from my approximate assumed location as well as tell me local business listings such as pizza. I have a bluetooth GPS device but am much more likely to use this because it works faster than it takes the GPS to discover satellites, it uses a stronger signal source, and it doesn't need to pair to any external equipment. Looking up your location is manual, so I will still use my GPS for determining speed and distance traveled (Tracky is a great program for that), but this will pretty much replace the GPS for finding businesses and getting directions. Finally, a note that this worked for me in Chicago but did not work for my friend in Kansas City. Looks like google hasn't mapped all the cell towers yet.
...which just displayed a big fat cross on the screen one line of text stating "You are here".
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
OK - I just tried it out - it put me 650-750 meters from my actual location. It seems to have drawn a 1k radius around the dot indicating that you are in that general area. To be honest, this looks very useful to me - Roll on a windows mobile API for me to use it in my own apps without paying license to someone. There isn't a pizza, taxi, video store or motorway (freeway) junction that would be selected incorrectly from using this location rather than my actual one.
I'd say the fix is to not allow I'm Feeling Lucky searches with non-google referers. I don't really think its their problem though, so I don't expect them to do anything.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
So will Google now use this in conjuction with giving out 'real' information about anonymous users so the Feds can find them with the GPS? Nice idea! :--(
Stop by and watch a Christmas movie, commercial or cartoon! -->http://www.XmasDVD.com
Driving distances in feet? Ah, Americans. I trust they're going to broaden its appeal to the rest of us!
Why not use PlaceLab?
http://placelab.org/publications/pubs/pervasive-placelab-2005-final.pdf
"Place Lab is software providing low-cost, easy-to-use device positioning for location-enhanced computing applications. Place Lab tries to provide positioning which works worldwide, both indoors and out (unlike GPS which only works well outside). Place Lab clients can determine their location privately without constant interaction with a central service (unlike badge tracking or mobile phone location services where the service owns your location information).
The Place Lab approach is to allow devices like notebooks, PDAs and cell phones to locate themselves by listening for radio beacons such as 802.11 access points, GSM cell phone towers, and fixed Bluetooth devices that already exist in large numbers around us in the environment. These beacons all have unique or semi-unique IDs, for example, a MAC address. Clients compute their own location by hearing one or more IDs, looking up the associated beacons' positions in a locally cached map, and estimating their own position referenced to the beacons' positions. "
We found your position within a 5000Mt precision. And the little tool was pretending I was somewhere in roma city center while I actually was around 6000 mt from the position. Not bad, I guess from the previuos alpha version that supposely was indicating me being actually on earth or within one satellite distance. You still need a GPS receiver for positioning. And anyway anyone heard of the mtfuxx called Galileo? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_positioning_system Doesen't the project be awaiable nowadays? Did it got a takedown notice under the DCMA?
Thought some of you might find this interesting...
From their site:
Skyhook's Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) is the world's first location platform to use the native 802.11 radio already on a mobile device to deliver accurate positioning across the US. And soon the world.
http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/
Never tried it myself.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
> theycantrackyou
They can't rack you? What is this, taking away your identity and installing you in a "rack" of identical machines?
I had that as well back in the early 90's I think. It was accurate to the millimeter.
I believe Sprint has had something like this for a while now. "Sprint Family Locator" lets you see where your kids are using GPS, or, when unavailable, cell signal approximation.
My understanding is that many GPS apps use "Assisted GPS" like this, triangulating from cell towers for location help, since traditional GPS requires a clear view of the sky and that's not always practical (you're indoors, or in an urban or actual canyon, etc).
WAY back when (When the Matrix was new out, and I'd just gotten my new Nokia 7110 with WAP), Orange had a service that would find local businesses/amenities based on triangulation of cell towers (As phones at the time didn't have GPS). You'd go into the WAP portal and choose "Where's the nearest", it'd ask you for the kind of service you were looking for (Restaraunt, phone, ATM etc), and would tell you where they were (Street name/number, it couldn't tell which direction you were as it was a one-time lookup). The system's accuracy was around 10 meters, and (when I left the UK) they were starting to offer turn-by-turn directions (Using SMS and triangulation), and child location monitoring using their cellphones.
Anyone have any luck getting this to work on a Treo 700p? The update doesn't seem to be applying to mine :(
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
I'm sat in London's West end, but it seems to think that I'm actually in East Finchley. Still needs a little work, I think.
There's a 3rd party app that runs on iPhone called Navizon, it does this exact same thing, and it works pretty well. As others have stated, this is not GPS, more like a neighborhood level positioner. It's also the only 3rd party iPhone app I know of that charges money for the software. Its free for a trial period, so if you have installer.app cranking, give it a shot.
It essentially finds your location based on cell tower, then opens the google maps application with your neighborhood on the screen. Search for Peet's or whatever and it'll bring up the closest locations.
Phones not equipped with an actual GPS receiver typically use something called assisted GPS. This is where the phone gets positioning information from an assistance server (typically located at the cell tower) and location is determined through some combination of tower triangulation and signal timing. Each tower has a good satellite fix and is able to convey relevant information to the handset for the purpose of determining its location (though not as accurately when compared to a GPS receiver on-board the handset).
Finally! I was worried that Google maps with GPS would be exclusive to Helio, and I was beginning to begrudge Google for the apparent exclusivity.
Installed it on my 7105t, slick.
Since it's Beta, I won't whine about the shortcuts that don't work, key mappings that don't work, nor the interesting quirks in the map display. Overall, it's usable.
But I was in an area where there is often only one tower in range, and My Location was off by as much as 5 miles. It was mostly off in a quadrant that was WSW to WNW. Today, in an area with two good towers and one weak one (and the weak one is my carrier, so it grabs me at all costs - I watch my bars go from 5 to 1 when I actually make a call...) and I'm located within an unmeasurable 100m. Not bad.
My wife installed it too. She thinks it will be cool. She's a complete Luddite. We'll see.
For now, one snap with a twist.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Ever since 2002/2001, I've had location aware phones: the Samsung a500, a600, and now th LG LX550 (Fusic). It has taken three successive generations of supposedly 3G phones to finally get location aware applications.
Fuck, I only just now am getting them on my Fusic. I've wanted to know where the nearest ATM is, and how to get there WITHOUT ENTERING MY LOCATION MANUALLY, I've wanted to get turn by turn directions WITHOUT ENTERING MY LOCATION MANUALLY, I've wanted to see if I'm at the right coffee shop to meet some one, but only NOW, 6 years after I was promised the ability, do I actually have it!
If only more people had SDKs for phones and were developing such applications...I've scoured the web for six years and only just now have I begun to find any, and their either officially sponsored by the cell service providers or Google! Where are the 3rd party apps? The independent apps? Where are all the network operator apps they promised me?
On their map control panel maybe Sys 7 or so. Lat 0 / Lon 0 was labeled as such on one version of the Map panel. In the Atlantic south of the western "chin"
of Africa, IIRC.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Part of of the problem ( like in Vodafone ) is that they are content centric, not service or application centric. So a lot of Mobile operators have not developed a very good infrastructure for taking a request from an MSISN and hashing it to pass out to a third party service provider or application. We do not want to pass out MSISDN's.
Marketing people do not give a shit about API's. Orange in Europe is the most advanced in terms of Service API's for network service like location.
The technology has been there for a long time, but the marketing will was not there. As I said, they could only imagine location services based upon a resolution that did not exist, so they discarded it completely.
There SHOULD have been by now a massive ecosystem of location/context/presence apps and services. Instead we get Vodafone Live!
As I travel a lot, all i ever wanted was directions to the nearest toilet , ATM and taxi rank for each new airport.
Now GPS phones and Google will eat our lunch on building that Ecosystem.
I have a non-GPS-enabled phone (a Sanyo Katana, for the curious) that I use as a GPS navigation device because I run software (Telenav) provided by my service carrier. The thing is accurate to a few meters and works by triangulating off of 3 or more cell towers. Google can't utilize this so they're limited to 1000m -- that's pretty damn useless.
Has anyone else noticed spam using I'm Feeling Lucky links? One got past GMail's filters into my inbox the other day.
I tried it, but it did not work at all (in Sweden). It downloaded 50-100 Kbyte of data for every pan-operation. That is expensive. There are better alternatives (5 times less data) at www.idevio.com // Magnus