or google latitude has been released. posts your location (off phone gps or mob towers) back to google. could be handy ... or could be risky.

Like most things, as long as you setup the privacy settings properly, I think it could be usefull. The amount of phone calls in the clubs I have yelling "WHERE ARE YOU!?!?" could be reduced.

If they were outside I could see their (almost) exact location, if they were inside I could at least have a pretty good guess which place they were at.

Not that I have an iPhone, or would pay for it.

Its not just iPhone - in fact its not even available for iPhone yet

would be great for festivals.... i always find myself trying to find people

I am keen to try once the iPhone version is out. I suspect it will be much more useful than that location based social networking thing that has about 3 active Australians at any one time.

How is this different from sharing your location via iPhone with the maps app?

You share it with islands of people, so your mates know where you are. (least that's what I'm going to use it for, initially).

Anyone got a link to this service? Or do you need special hardware with GPS - if so - how does google come into it?

cross linked

http://www.google.com.au/latitude

last edited by trillion at 15:25:22 06/Feb/09

Doesn't work

You'll need a compatible phone and data plan in order to use Google Latitude

That means android/symbian/windows/blackberry with an internet subscription

f*** that

last edited by thermite at 15:33:06 06/Feb/09

That means android/symbian/windows/blackberry with an internet subscription

what other phones are there? lol. working with my wm6 with built in gps. :).

Or do you need special hardware with GPS - if so - how does google come into it

as i said at the top, "gps or mobile towers".

ok just tested it... its about 600m out :( not good enough

Inside a building? Was it using GPS or Phone Towers?

Handheld GPS should be no worse then 15m. It might be harder to get a lock amoungst tall buildings (in the CBD) but when it gets a lock it shouldn't really be worse then 15m.

If you were inside though, GPS wouldn't work at all and it would be relying on Triangulation from Phone towers.

I'm still not sure how the phones project their GPS co-ords to other phones though. Do they upload them to a database (refreshing every 1-2min?) then people that want to 'see' you download that co-ord data?

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/02/05/faq-how-google-latitude-locates-you

yeh mine was picking up the phone tower

apparently i'm in charge of malaysia

as i said at the top, "gps or mobile towers".

I read that but I don't know what it means?

It seems to me if you have one of those phones with a colour screen and built-in computer you should already be able to do something like this using Google Maps API.

Impress me by triangulating my phone (which is a regular mobile phone)... it must be possible, they did it in that Sandra Bullock movie.



last edited by thermite at 17:28:17 06/Feb/09

i wonder if the hamas leadership has signed up for this?

couldn't you do this ages ago? I have an application on my phone using google maps that does this with the mobile towers, it just didn't have the friends location.

Can people get this owrking on their iPhone? For me it just says "coming soon"... and I still don't know how this is different to what we can already do? So it will load me a map, and then put icons where my friends are?

it just didn't have the friends location.

yep. the friends paret is good tho

yep...

all 3 of my girls are going to have this on their phones when they're a little older.

once they're a young adults it'll be their choice asto whether or not they still have it switched on.

by 'young adult' I mean when they're 40

couldn't you do this ages ago? I have an application on my phone using google maps that does this with the mobile towers, it just didn't have the friends location.

The "My Location" feature has existed for a while, probably since version 2 was released. Version 3 (latitude) introduced the ability to broadcast your location to friends and to see where they are.

Can people get this owrking on their iPhone? For me it just says "coming soon"... and I still don't know how this is different to what we can already do? So it will load me a map, and then put icons where my friends are?

Ah Billy, it says coming soon because it's coming soon. See above for the difference between version 3 and version 2. On the same page as it says coming soon, it shows you what latitude does. You see markers (with pictures (if enabled) of where your friends are (if they've allowed you to see it) and visa versa.

last edited by Triamks at 14:07:56 08/Feb/09

I saw an ad on tv last night for one of those scam mobile services. Anyway, this one was you send them someone's mobile number and they tell you where they are. Is this legit or a crock of s***?

^lol if it's the same ad I saw, they actually say, "we simulate locating your friend's location".

this works on my phone :D f*** yeah

if i had kids, id put it on their phones for sure.

That means android/symbian/windows/blackberry with an internet subscription

It's 2009, who doesn't have these things?

Telstra have had an API available for doing this for quite some time. A dude I work with was having a play around with it, it was fairly accurate at pointing out our location in the CBD (it got it down to the correct block). At the time though it only worked for Telstra services.

Looks like it's now iPhone compatible

I'm usin os3 and an google main page had a link. It just works trough safari. Safari asks u to use you location, then asks u for google.com.au to use your location.

Is anyone using it, my only friend last updated 180 days ago, cmon HeardY :-)

I set it manually via igoogle, I don't have a super cool phone with all these features, mine sends texts and makes calls, like phones used to do :p

Using Mobile Towers to triangulate your position is effective within high-density cell towers. However the level of accuracy diminshes dramatically when less then 3 towers are in use.

I'd be interested in knowing which Telco's towers they are using or is it all towers. We went through this from 2005 to 2007 developing this very functionality with AGIS and Nokia. The difference being we didn't use the Telco's API we used our own loaded into the phone to perform the triangulation which is called GPRx. Now called Nokia Maps. Thus making it completely telco nonindependent as far as which towers were being used for the triangulation.

One of the reasons we shelved it after 2.5 years and $2.4 million dollars was that Google began to offer the service for free. You can't compete with a free service. We were going to charge $9.95 per month for the privilege. So AGIS ended up selling the technology to Nokia and let them deal with the commercialisation.

My phone doesn't support this and even if it did no one cares where I am :(

thanks for reviving an old thread :( here i thought they did something new

whoop, you just need a super possessive crazy bitch in your life, then she'll see the need for you to have it.

infidel, it's the date in each post that gave it away, right? I could've gotten away with it if it wasn't for that damn datetime!!

last edited by natslovR at 23:29:58 24/Jul/09

whoop, you just need a super possessive crazy bitch in your life, then she'll see the need for you to have it.

Fortunately I'm also the crazy possessive one.

i used it then uninstalled it. not very useful really unless you're stalking a bunch of people, so i guess it would be handy for you, whoop.