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Posts: 139 | Thanked: 24 times | Joined on Sep 2005
#96
Originally Posted by anidel View Post
A-GPS, AFAIK, only works, now, over GSM networks that support it.
Not true, AFAIK. A-GPS can contain several methods of assistance. IIRC at least these:
* rough location (e.g. from GSM network)
* ephemeris & almanac data
* computational help

SkyHookWireless is building up a database of AP's positions and using that to tell you where you are.
They already mapped a lot of US and starting mapping the rest of the world (they simply go around taking note of MAC addresses and position or ask people to provide them with that info).
Apple merges that information with the google location information (based on the repeater position that Google knows) to come down to an approximate position of circa 20mt (Apple says).
That pretty impressive for a device without a GPS chip, isn't it ?

So. If there could be a why to use SkyHookWireless SDK with the GPS SDK and feed the GPS chip with "Assisted" data from the SkyHookWireless' database.. we could improve the fix time in those areas.
You could add, to that, also the repeater's position provided you've got bluetooth access to the cellphone and there's a small utility that reads the repeater's ID and report it or directly it's location to the tablet.
Moreover you could save the positions you have been already AND the "Assisted" data of that location and feed it manually to the tablet (by stating, thru some interface, that you are at a know position)

I think this could be done in the GeoClue project.
And would be an awesome piece of work.
I'm not interested in Skyhook (proprietary, expensive, closed), but I've done some tests on my own. Based on those test I can believe the 20m figure (as a best case scenario). It would open quite a lot of possibilities...

A personal MAC address database could very well be a geoclue data provider, and would work pretty well for the common locations (home, office, ...).