My Location now with Wi-Fi

One of our goals here on the location team is to keep shrinking that magical blue circle that shows you where you are. In fact, just a few weeks ago, we released new optimizations for My Location that helped us calculate location even more accurately.

Today, we're taking another step toward that goal, with the release of My Location with Wi-Fi, which will provide even greater accuracy when you use a device with Wi-Fi. The premise is similar to what we do with cell tower information: information transmitted by nearby Wi-Fi access points is used to pinpoint your location. Since the range of a Wi-Fi access point is smaller than that of a cell phone tower, this often results in a much more accurate position.

Wi-Fi-based location is available in many major cities around the world, but coverage and accuracy will vary. We expect it to improve over time as more people use it.

So how can you start enjoying this Wi-Fi goodness? If you have a Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerry, please download the latest version of Google Maps for mobile. Maps for other mobile platforms, including Android, will get Wi-Fi location soon.

Wi-Fi-based location is also now available through the Gears Geolocation API, bringing more-accurate location information to the browser on your phone or laptop, including Search with My Location.

Enjoy the smaller circles!

Posted by Adel Youssef and Arunesh Mishra, Software Engineers, Google mobile team

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New Gears Geolocation API powers mobile web sites

Imagine if web sites could provide you with customized information based on your current location, even if you don't have GPS. Today we're launching the Gears Geolocation API for mobile and desktop browsers, while two third-party developers are launching the first location-enabled web apps using this API on Windows Mobile.

One of the most popular travel sites in the Europe, lastminute.com, has now location-enabled their new mobile restaurant finder to help you find restaurants near you without requiring you to type in where you are. If you're in the UK, just go to fonefood at m.lastminute.com, click the "Find your location" link on the home page, select the type of restaurant you want, and lastminute.com will automatically work out which neighbourhood and city you are in and find matching restaurants. This is great for both UK residents and the millions of tourists who visit each year.



Rummble is a new social discovery tool where you can recommend places to visit and see personalised recommendations from friends. Just go to m.rummble.com and click on the "Update location with Gears" link on the home page to see the "Rummbles" near you.

These two apps make use of the Gears Geolocation API. The API can determine your location using nearby cell-towers or GPS for your mobile device or your computer's IP address for your laptop. Google provides this service for free to both developers and users.

Gears is available on IE Mobile on mobile and Internet Explorer and Firefox on desktop. To use the location-enabled lastminute.com and Rummble web apps you will need a Windows Mobile device that supports GPS or cell-id lookup (for example the Samsung Blackjack II and HTC Touch Dual, see supported devices FAQ). We are working hard to bring Gears to more mobile platforms, such as Android and others.

Google takes your privacy very seriously. Although Gears and the Geolocation API do not record your location, you should only allow web sites that you trust to access your location. Gears will always tell you when a site wants to access your location for the first time and you can either allow or deny that site permission. Always check the privacy policy of the web site if you are in doubt as to how they may use your location information.

If you are in the UK and have a supported Windows Mobile device visit m.lastminute.com and m.rummble.com today. The first time you use the location feature you will be prompted to download and install Gears.

Posted by Charles Wiles, Product Manager, Google mobile team

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Google enables Location-aware Applications for 3rd Party Developers

Posted by Zhengrong Ji and Ravi Jain, Google mobile team

At Google we're very excited about the promise of location technology to drive innovation in the mobile industry. We of course use this location technology already in Google Maps for mobile with the My Location feature. However, we wanted 3rd party developers to also have access to the same location technology across multiple platforms. Gears for Windows Mobile and Android already contain location APIs and we expect to see an explosion of mobile applications that use location technology, particularly on the iPhone starting this month.

Some have wondered: How does it work?

Google Maps for mobile version 2.0 launched last November with a new feature called My Location. My Location enables users to pinpoint their approximate location on a map even if their phone doesn't have a GPS chip. My Location is now available in more than 200 countries and across many different platforms, including BlackBerry, Nokia Series 60, Apple iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, and many Java phones. Here's a video that explains what it does. Since the launch, we've seen accelerated growth in the adoption of Google Maps for mobile and have received lots of enthusiastic user feedback on My Location.

We're happy to lift the covers and give you a peek into the inner workings of the Google location server, which powers the My Location feature.

Wireless phones can make and receive calls because they are connected over the air to a nearby cell tower. The phone knows the ID of the cell tower that it's currently using. If the phone has GPS, the Maps application on the phone sends the GPS coordinates along with the cell ID to the Google location server. Over millions of such updates, across multiple phones, carriers, and times, the server clusters the GPS updates corresponding to a particular cell ID to find their rough center. So when a phone without GPS needs its own location, the application on the phone queries the Google location server with the cell tower ID to translate that into a geographic location, i.e., lat/long coordinates. Nifty, huh? We think so.


We're working hard to further improve our location platform and making it more widely available. Stay tuned!

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Picasa Web Albums for Windows Mobile

Posted by Zak Cohen, Software Engineer, Google mobile team

When Joe Walnes showed off the shiny AJAX interface on the iPhone version of Picasa Web Albums I started thinking - can we make an AJAX interface work on new Windows Mobile devices? After all, Internet Explorer Mobile supports many of the advanced browser features that we used to build the iPhone version. Joe and I wanted to give it a try so we got to work. Today we're pleased to tell owners of Windows Mobile 6 touchscreen devices that you can now enjoy a much faster and slicker way of browsing Picasa Web Albums on your phone.



Working with Windows Mobile also meant that we could add some cool features using the newly announced Google Gears for mobile, which gives web applications the ability to work even when there is no internet connection available. This means that you can view albums of your choice offline. Gears also lets you add a Picasa icon to your Program Files folder so you can have faster access to your favorite photos. If you'd like to learn more about how we leveraged Google Gears for mobile, watch Dion Almaer's interview with Joe.

To try out Picasa Web Albums on your WinMo 6 touchscreen phone, just go to picasaweb.google.com on your Internet Explorer Mobile browser. Let us know what you think!

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Shifting Google Gears to mobile

Posted by Charles Wiles, Product Manager, Google mobile team

Ever use a mobile web application and suddenly lose your cell connection? That's happened to me many times. If you've shared my pain, you'll be excited to know that we've launched Google Gears for mobile, which lets users access Gears-enabled mobile web apps offline. Initially available for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices, mobile web app developers have already started integrating Gears for mobile into their online services.

Take Zoho and Buxfer, for example: Zoho is a powerful suite of web-based productivity applications, while Buxfer is an innovative personal finance web application that helps you track your money. With Google Gears for mobile integrated into mobile Zoho and Buxfer, you can now access these web applications even when your phone is disconnected from the mobile web. Stuck on a plane? No problem — you can still read your docs on your mobile with Zoho Writer Mobile offline. Want to buy that new plasma TV, but can't remember how much is in your account? Check your balance with Buxfer's mobile web application, even if there is no cell phone signal. Try them out on your Windows Mobile 6 device by going to m.buxfer.com or mobile.zoho.com.

When you first access mobile Buxfer or Zoho Writer on your Windows Mobile device and go offline, you will be asked to install Google Gears for mobile. Once installed, Gears sits happily on your phone helping you stay connected to your data -- even when you lose your network connection.

If you're a developer who's interested in creating mobile web applications using Google Gears for mobile you can find out more information on our developer site. Finally, if you're not a Windows Mobile user, stay tuned -- we're working to roll out Google Gears for other platforms with capable web browsers, including Android.

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