MIT looks at location computing

Sure there are some nice benefits to your car or cellphone knowing exactly where you are at all times, like being able to find the nearest gas station with the cheapest super unleaded, but since everyone keeps talking about how it's all gonna be paid for with personalized ads it probably makes sense that the deep thinkers at MIT threw together the Emerging Technologies Conference to discuss everything related to location-based services, GPS tracking, and finally being able to pinpoint objects to within one foot (which while being sucky for those with a nosy employer or jealous spouse, is definitely hot news for anyone prone to losing their keys or wallet or whatever). The biggest obstacle to GPS heaven/hell is that while most of the technology needed is already currently available, there still some obstacles to settling on standards for location-based services, cellphone networks dish out imprecise location info, and GPS doesn't work so hot indoors or between tall buildings. 

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:47AM]

I've been working on developing location detection based on your IP address location. For example, if you catch a Wifi point, using it's Internet IP, getting your geo-location. This is primarly useful for cities, inside buildings, etc.

There's an upcoming article in Linux Journal on this ;)