This document summarizes a presentation on geolocation. It defines geolocation as using location technologies to determine the real-world geographic location of a device. It discusses the history and rise of geolocation on the web from 2009 onward. It then covers various location technologies like IP geolocation, triangulation, GPS, Wi-Fi and cell towers. It provides code examples and applications of using geolocation such as finding nearby points of interest, turn-by-turn navigation, and geotagging photos taken on mobile devices.

1. Geolocation
ID meeting
18 th May 2010
Filip Mares

2. Agenda
•What is Geolocation?
•History of Geolocation on the web
•Location Technologies
•Code Examples
•Geotagging
•Questions?

3. What is Geolocation?
Location is Context and higher Relevancy
Location is becoming the new wave of contextual
advertising
When people think of location, they think of a place
What makes a place?
• 51°52’19.62”N, -0°07’15.18”W
• 146 Brick Lane, E1 6RU, London
• 93 Feet East

4. Why Geolocation?
•People want to talk about where they are
•People want to discover what’s around them

5. History of Geolocation on the web
•a lot has changed in a year
•2009 was the year of location in the Browser

6. Location Technologies
•IP Geolocation
•Triangulation
• GPS
10m
• Wi-Fi
20m
• Cell Tower
1000m

7. Under the hood of the HTML 5
Geolocation API
The Geolocation API itself is agnostic of the underlying location
information sources. Common sources of location information
include Global Positioning System (GPS) and location inferred from
network signals such as IP address, RFID, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs, as well as user input.
Typically, your browser uses information about the Wi-Fi access
points around you to estimate your location. If no Wi-Fi access
points are in range, or your computer doesn't have Wi-Fi, it may
resort to using your computer's IP address to get an approximate
location.

8. Technologies comparison
IP Address Geolocation
• IP Address
• Medium Accuracy (City
level)
• High Availability
• Medium Privacy
• No End-user Permission
• All Browsers
Wireless Geolocation
• MAC Address and Signal
Strength
• Medium-High Accuracy
• Medium Availability
(Depends to Data)
• Low Privacy
• Required End-user
Permission
• HTML 5 and above

9. Sample applications using
IP address Geolocation
•Display native language and currency
•Redirect web pages based on geographical
•Digital Rights Management
•Prevent password sharing and abuse of service
•Reduce credit card fraud
•Web log statistics and analysis
•Auto-selection of country on forms
•Filter access from countries you do not do business with
•Geo targeting for increased sales and click-through
•Spam filtering by location

10. Sample applications using
HTML 5 Geolocation API
•Find points of interest in the user's area
•Annotating content with location information
•Show the user's position on a map
•Turn-by-turn route navigation
•Alerts when points of interest are in the user's vicinity
•Up-to-date local information
•Location-tagged status updates in social networking applications

11. Other APIs are available
•Geode (Firefox 3.1)
•Loki (Skyhook plugin)
•Google Gears

12. Geotagging
is the process of assigning geographical information
metadata, called geo-tags, to various media e.g.
photographs, video, websites etc.
Mobile Devices (cameras) are geotagging photos

13. Questions?

14. Thanks
for listening