Tag: mobile geolocation

The company behind the tremendously popular Firefox has started an experimental pilot project.

Mozilla has just announced that it has launched an experimental pilot project called the Mozilla Location Service, which provides geolocation lookups that are based on data from Wi-Fi access points and publicly observable cell towers.

This concept behind the service is that it croudsources and collects this information through mobile.

The idea is that by way of public hotspots for Wi-Fi, and through cell phone towers, the service crowdsources and collects geolocation information to make it possible for smartphones that have weak GPS signals and laptops that don’t have that technology to be able to rapidly pinpoin their approximate location. As of yet, it has not been made entirely clear how it will be possible for the devices to be able to identify themselves, but there are two APIs being offered for the integration of this service into applications.

The geolocation service remains in its earlier stages, but it is progressing quickly.

In order to take part in this service and contribute to its data, users can add the dedicated Android MozStumbler app from Mozilla into their devices. That app is behind the data collection, but it also has a gamified element that gives users the opportunity to enjoy the experience. In this game, they can either contribute anonymously, or they can compete against others on the leaderboard. According to Mozilla, the service is already experiencing a rapid evolution, but that there will soon be a more full featured experience that will be available to device users.

That said, Mozilla has said that it is nowhere near its final stage. This geolocation service remains in the earliest levels and provides only the most basic levels of coverage within select locations due to the generosity of the earlier contributors and adopters of the service. At the same time, the company is committed to ensuring that the privacy elements of the service are improved to a meaningful degree for all of its participants, so that users can be certain that even as they offer the data surrounding heir location, their own privacy remains safe and secure.

New data is showing that many of the industry giants are making location based progress.

According to some of the latest information that has been released by ABI Research, a number of industry giants – including Google, Apple, and eBay – are placing their focus on making considerable moves into the realm of geolocation and its many possibilities.

Though this is not necessarily anything new, it is the fact that they are taking it indoors that is drawing attention.

To start, the estimates by ABI Research have suggested that the geolocation indoor market will be worth more than $4 billion by 2018. This was revealed in the quarterly Location Technologies Market Data which is issued by that agency. It provides a measure of the adoption of indoor geolocation technologies, mapping, as well as businesses that are making their way into this particular space.

By the end of next year, the overall market of geolocation technology installations will be greater than 25,000.

This, according to the ABI Research data that was released in the report. It also pointed out that smartphones that are capable of supporting indoor geolocation technology will have reached the hundreds of millions over the span of the next two years. The result is that virtually every major company will have begun to take considerable steps into this sphere.

Patrick Connolly, an ABI Research senior analyst, stated that “Apple’s new A7 co-processor coupled with the acquisition of WifiSLAM highlights indoor as a priority.” He went on to say that “Both Apple and eBay have announced support for dedicated BLE beacons, a technology that is set for a huge 2014 as major IC and device OEMs make it widely available.”

Connolly also explained that Google is maintaining an expansion of geolocation based indoor mapping and that it has been discussing some of its intentions for this technology quite openly at I/O. He also added that it isn’t just the smartphone manufacturers that are involved in this technology, as there have been four large AP providers (Motorola, Cisco, Ruckus, and Aruba) that have acquired business within this space. He noted that it was interesting to find that Nokia had held its own indoor and mapping capabilities, showing that this was being viewed as a region in which considerable future growth was possible.