Notices

I seem to remember that on my 5800, if I went to google, it would tell me my current location, based on triangulation of my cell towers........without using my GPS at all.

Does anyone know how this works, and is it possible to get similar functionality from the N900 (I know it has GPS built-in).

I know that the N900 has GPS built-in, but i am curious to find out how google achieved this and would like to come up with a similar thing in Maemo

Yes, it can. In GPS settings enable only the second flag, network positioning.

Except, it still works with phones that have no positioning features at all......what do they query to get this???


There are services for Location Based Services, but these cost money for each request, does google really pay for this each time a user views their search engine?

Positioning is due by triangulation of cellular towers. Or if your using a wireless router, based on the rough location of the assigned IP address.

Yeah, I get that........

So, can I come up with some script that will tell me about the cell towers, allowing me to see which ones are in range.

I remember that years ago some of the Nokias had a network monitor you could activate. There is probably an app that just does that on here somewhere but I guess I m more curious about what is queried on the phone, what results, and how to turn that into a location.

I apprecite that maybe not al of it can be explained easily, but some starting place to get the raw data from the device is what I am after