(Preface: Most of the scenarios I am going to point out have actually been around for a long time, since Loki toolbar existed for a while now. However, I live under a stone and seem to learn things a million years after the “in crowd”. So, no flaming pls.)
So, the Mozilla Labs have released an experimental Geode plugin that is a preview for possible future native features in the Firefox mainline (and derived) browsers. The plugin basically provides a possibility for web sites to receive the user’s current physical location on a fairly precise scale.
I have played with the plug-in a little and found that it is between 10 and 50 meters off in an urban, although not very densely populated area of Hannover, Germany. This is surely not GPS-quality positioning, but it works indoors and gives a detailed enough ballpark figure to enable most “where’s the next café”-like business models.
The whole endeavor is part of an upcoming W3C spec for geolocation and thus somewhat high-profile and “official”. This is no longer a niche project, or at least aims not to be. Sure enough, my interest was sparked and I dug a little deeper.
Continue reading "Geode, Loki and the implications"
