As I wrote in that thread, I believe a static database is not the best
solution. The device could scan networks while idle and associate them
with GPS coordinates. A way to download existing known networks from a
web service could also be presented, if one wants to have an already
built catalog as you suggest (since the scanning would probably be a
bit of a drain on batteries).
<br><br>I believe that this could all be unified with a centralized
Locations system that ties real world things (friend's houses to
gaseous clouds, and everything in between) with GPS coordinates. Those
locations would all be given Tags and extra options for addresses and
the like. (The selected tags could enable certain inputs, maybe?)
<br>For example, a theatre phone disabler service could see if you are
near a known location with the tag "Theatre", or, of course, a Wifi
access point finder could scan for nearby locations with the tag "WiFi
Access Point".
<br>With that much data, of course, such a database could be rather hard to wield. Just pondering, though :)<br><br>GPS
coordinates are a really handy way for a device to know where it
is, not just for the user to know where he is! The trouble is that
devices really don't know the real world as well as the user; only the
user knows his world well enough to know how he wants his phone to
act in it. Not even the developers can anticipate the type of
information he would want, or provide it all without some insanely
complicated infrastructure. (Google Maps times 10). Remember, this is a
small device that is there with you in the real world as you walk in
it; not a big screen at home looking down at the real world from a
distance. It needs unprecedented detail, and I think the best way to do
that is to make it as intuitive for the user to provide his own
information for that location database as it is for the system to
download existing databases from the web.
<br><br>Bye,<br>-Dylan McCall<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 7/2/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Don Park</b> <<a href="mailto:don.park@gmail.com">don.park@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On 7/2/07, Stuart Gray <randomelginguy at <a href="http://hotmail.com">hotmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> <a href="http://www.wefi.com/">http://www.wefi.com/</a> seems to be along that lines, the software they are<br>> using seems to be windows only at the moment though :(. But maybe somebody
<br>> could write and open source one that still has access to the Google Wifi<br><br>The <a href="http://www.wigle.net/">http://www.wigle.net/</a> website has something closer to what you describe. Its<br>been around for years and has an active community uploading wifi tracking
<br>logs. Its free to use and make queries from, short of downloading<br>the entire database.<br><br>Moving away from wifi for a moment, I think a personal location<br>service would be a<br>frequently requested app. <a href="http://Twitter.com">
Twitter.com</a> could be used as a place to store<br>lat/long records using its L:<location> feature.<br><br>Don<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>OpenMoko community mailing list<br><a href="mailto:community@lists.openmoko.org">
community@lists.openmoko.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community">http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community</a><br></blockquote></div><br>