Location, Location, Location

I was reading about a patent Google just filed in an apparent effort to improve their ability to locate wireless users without having to rely so much on carriers cooperating and sharing tower tower information but getting better clues of our locations from our phones’ encounters with access points by letting us geo-datamine access points for them basically pinging them and measuring latency, throughput and transmission strength, cross-referencing that with other known information, and then using that data to help pinpoint us and in doing so Google takes another stab at the carrier middleman to show us the love directly and while reading about it I thought of the subtle joys of Google Latitude, some of which you may not be aware.

Now this isn’t fresh news but let me go over all the fun anyway you can already have with Google Latitude on Google Maps Mobile (cab). Google Latitude essentially lets everyone who wants to share their locations with friends or visitors to their blogs. Provided you have a Google account you can now enable Google Location History which, clearly inspired by TrackMe, keeps your past locations plotted down, visible either just to you or to everyone you share it with. Google Location Alerts, when enabled, will alert you over email and text when you’re near your Latitude buddies. I think if you can talk your ol’ lady into using it (or just sort of borrow her phone for a little while when she’s sleeping to set it up) you can be alerted when she’s on her way home from getting a facial so you know just in time when to crank up the window fan on full blast exhaust and fumagate the place with Glade while dumping your ash tray in the toilet and ziplocking and stashing it and your pack of Newpies inside your computer, washing your hands, splashing a little aftershave and drinking some Listerine and she’s none the wiser all thanks to Google. So what if you can’t do it in awesome 3D like you could with Android phones — at least you can have some me-time without getting your balls broken.

If you think what I just did up there, showing you my location instead of a goofy picture on the top right of the article, and you want to do it on your own site, piece of cake with Google Public Location Badge. And for you Google Talkers if you’re just dying to indicate the city you’re in to your Google Talking buddies without having to manually adjust your profile, Google Talk Location Status has got you covered. I didn’t say I was saving the best for last.

Doug Simmons