Kippster: Location, location, loki

Location, location, loki

Disclaimer: I consult for Skyhook Wireless so consider my bias (although I wasn't paid to write this)!

Location based services continue to garner interest among users, businesses, search engines, advertisers and entrepreneurs. I've been fortunate enough to have worked closely with a company that just got included in Gartner's "Cool Vendors in Mobile and Wireless, 2006" publication (ID Number: G00138458). I can't actually post the info or I'd get strung up, but it is cool!

The problem? It's hard to give location information if you don't know (more specifically, if your computing device doesn't know) where you are. The more precise the location, the better services are able to provide location specific information back to you/your computing device. We're all familiar with GPS, and some are likely familiar with Enhanced Observed Time Difference (EOTD) and Assisted GPS (A-GPS), but Skyhook has attaked the problem by using the ever growing infrastructure that is created by the wifi networks.

Rather than relying on satellites for positioning, the system utilizes wifi access points to provide location information. All that is needed is a lightweight client and a device that supports wifi (and in general, a connection to the Internet -- although this is not strictly required it sorta makes sense).

Wireless Positioning Service (WPS) is not a cure all, clearly it needs a certain density of wireless access points in order to do its job accurately. This, as of now, relegates the service to urban (and indoor) settings in which wifi radio waves are bouncing all over the place. Interestingly, this is also where GPS sometimes has a harder time. It's also handy in that no additional hardware is necessary, if you have a wifi interface, you can use the service.

They recently went Beta with a browser toolbar (pretty soon, there will be no room in my browser for actual content, all I'll have is a stack of toolbars!) called Loki. I personally think the toolbar cool and useful, but I'll let others that aren't as biased explain:


Lookie at Loki: Wi-Fi Begets Latitude, Longitude
JiWire's Weekly Guide to Wi-Fi (Friday, March 24) (sorry, no link)

Loki turns your Wi-Fi laptop into a GPS
Turns Laptop into GPS with Loki
Loki will tell you where to go - on your laptop
Loki Local Search Toolbar from Skyhook Wireless

Free Loki (Wi-Fi location solution)
Loki: Location-Based Internet Search & Navigation
Loki Local Search Toolbar from Skyhook Wireless
Loki Local Search Toolbar from Skyhook Wireless
Skyhook Wireless Offers Loki Local Toolbar
Software Which Turns Laptops Into GPS
Loki turns your Wi-Fi laptop into a GPS
Loki Tells Where You Are


There are probably others, but this seems like a good list to start things off...

I'm just bummed that there isn't a mac version out yet!