<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/13/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Tilman Baumann</b> <<a href="mailto:tilman@baumann.name">tilman@baumann.name</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;">
<br><br>The biggest challenge would be a mapping from gps coordinates to<br>regions/postcodes or such.<br></blockquote></div><br>I believe Yahoo maps among others provides this geocoding data, but as I think of it, this could blow out into something larger: Imagine a defined standard for location based data, similar to the way RSS works.
<br><br>as a start, we define a URL scheme, such as <domain>.<tld>/<channel>?lat=<latitude>&lon=<longitude>&type=<UTM|NAD87|<insert coordinate system here>><br><br>the schema for the return document should include a 4 dimensional map for when/where the data is good (
I.E. we give forecasts for the next 30 mins or so, inside of your zipcode) as well as a way to specify rich content(weather, photos, loose women living nearby whatever people so choose). The user should be able to override the server's data (you decide you only want weather updates every hour for instance)
<br><br>there should also be a way to send up login information for services which need user data, and if you're worried, you would have the option of using "ghost" locations... I.E. transmitting fake locations so that you can't be tracked, with the results discarded... for those worried about that kind of thing. Maybe using TOR for the anonymous sites would work too. I'm also thinking that this could be used to store your location... and show other nearby users(I probably wouldn't use it, but the potential is there)
<br><br>From there, we build a reader application (this is why I'm likening it to RSS feeds). This wouldn't be limited to just the openmoko, but other GPS enabled devices<br><br>anyways, I'm sure I'll get about 3 emails about ways this is already being done, but what do people think?
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Jeff<br>O|||||||O