No.

The services you mention, Cat, are not currently tied to any mobile GPS service. That's the missing link.

What do you mean? Google uses the GPS coordinates for everything in their database. If you want a list of local Starbucks, just type it in and a list with GPS coordinates and even directions is available. How is this not what the OP wanted?

I should note that I anticipate a GPS-NS as working independently of the web.

That's why I suggest some of the logic has to be local to the device.

Not to say that somehow interfacing the information we do have with the access we do have shouldn't be used to make life easier for us non-sailors.

And sgosnell, I'm arguing for multiple protocols via the GPS system that's in place, the same way with the internet that ftp got supplemented by http, not done away with. We all know that http, the Web, is only part of the internet. I think most everybody agrees that http and html have succeeded so well precisely because of the design simplicity and the low barrier to use it successfully. I'm not arguing for anything more than to emulate that approach with location.

And if I'm not on a WiFi network, then this is one-way, btw. Same as it always was.

Yeah, Roger, after thinking about Cybercat's last post I got the idea you were limiting your thoughts to a GPS analog to the web-- which really isn't a bad idea IMO. I don't see anything technically holding it back...

DNS loc records have been around for, er, nearly 10 years!!!
http://www.ckdhr.com/dns-loc/

the problem is actually getting them used.

I did a quick search in reverse geocoding and found out a way to use wikipedia to get xml data that contains info about articles about the places nearby for the given latitude, longitude. From there user can get some idea of where this place is.

http://ws.geonames.org/findNearbyWik...lng=-83.129082

So if wikipedia is updated with the correct latitude & longitude and entries are there for the place, you can get info like the nearest place with wiki entry, the distance to this place from the given lat, lon, etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong but there's many sites that already offer location-based queries, the first being Google. Just go to Google Mobile (www.google.com/m) and you can make a search based on your location (My default location in Google Maps for now).

So, all is needed is a small applet on our tablets that will update sites like Google Mobile, Google Maps, or Wikipedia as mentionned by Vabgeo so the default location is the current GPS coordinates.



Vincent

Small update:

I tried www.google.ca/m on the tablet and the option to make the search based on location doesn't appear when I'm using the tablet (on both MicroB or Opera).

However, it works well on my WM5 mobile phone and laptop as long as I stay in French. So, there's probably something to do with the browser too to make sure Google offer the option.

While I'm still thinking about it, that's something that could be done s an upgraded version of the existing Web Search applet so it send the query to Google (or other sites) with the proper parameters to set your current position and activate a local search.

I think this would answer most of the needs for local search based on GPS location with limited effort.

So the more I think about it, the simpler it seems, except that it's still above my very limited programming skills.

your idea is interesting , having a local search applet and launch google maps, or wiki with current location or user entered location within a specified radius.
it really should be a part of gpsd or the map software maybe