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FireEagle - Yahoo's Service for Geo Information
posted by gywright
on Monday November 05, @12:28PM
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from the we-know-where-you-are dept.
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from the we-know-where-you-are dept.
TechCrunch, Wired, and I'm sure many others are talking about Yahoo's new FireEagle service which is in alpha release now. TechCrunch describes the service,
"FireEagle, which is built entirely on Ruby on Rails, was originally inspired by Yahoo’s ZoneTag research product. It is a platform for controlling people’s location information. Tell it (directly or via a third party application built on FireEagle’s APIs) where you are (give it specific lat/long, or a city name, or a zip code, etc.) and it will note your location. Alternatively, users with GPS phones (or other GPS device) could set it to periodically update FireEagle with geo information."
Wired touches on something I'm sure we'll hear a lot about services that know your location, the "creepy" factor,
"As with most developments in the geo-location realm, FireEagle offers some really cool possibilities —I have no doubt that web developers will leap at the chance to offer seamless integration of geodata — but it also looks a little bit creepy. Do we really want everyone to know exactly where we are all the time? Of course, if you consider that your mobile service provider already has that information, perhaps concern over making it public is a moot point."
I see plenty of "cool possibilities" to having a single warehouse and API for that kind of data, so I'll be trying to get myself in the alpha-testing along with many others I'm sure.
"FireEagle, which is built entirely on Ruby on Rails, was originally inspired by Yahoo’s ZoneTag research product. It is a platform for controlling people’s location information. Tell it (directly or via a third party application built on FireEagle’s APIs) where you are (give it specific lat/long, or a city name, or a zip code, etc.) and it will note your location. Alternatively, users with GPS phones (or other GPS device) could set it to periodically update FireEagle with geo information."
Wired touches on something I'm sure we'll hear a lot about services that know your location, the "creepy" factor,
"As with most developments in the geo-location realm, FireEagle offers some really cool possibilities —I have no doubt that web developers will leap at the chance to offer seamless integration of geodata — but it also looks a little bit creepy. Do we really want everyone to know exactly where we are all the time? Of course, if you consider that your mobile service provider already has that information, perhaps concern over making it public is a moot point."
I see plenty of "cool possibilities" to having a single warehouse and API for that kind of data, so I'll be trying to get myself in the alpha-testing along with many others I'm sure.
Related Stories
Technology: Google Cell Phone Geocoding
[+]
Update : The news is now on SlashDot as well.
Yahoo News is currently running an article about Google's new endeavor. From their summary, "Internet search leader Google Inc said on Wednesday it is introducing a novel mapping system that uses cell phone towers to let mobile phone users locate nearby services without typing in addresses.
Google's new My Location service is being offered in test mode to U.S. users and is designed to expand the percentage of cellphone users of location-aware services, whether or not their phones come equipped with satellite-locating chips.". Head on over there for the full scoop.
Yahoo News is currently running an article about Google's new endeavor. From their summary, "Internet search leader Google Inc said on Wednesday it is introducing a novel mapping system that uses cell phone towers to let mobile phone users locate nearby services without typing in addresses.
Google's new My Location service is being offered in test mode to U.S. users and is designed to expand the percentage of cellphone users of location-aware services, whether or not their phones come equipped with satellite-locating chips.". Head on over there for the full scoop.
Technology: WikiNear - Using Fire Eagle + Google maps API
[+]
The AnyGeo Blog has an article about this. From their summary : "WikiNear, the location-sensitive WiKi... this cool app. uses Yahoo's FireEagle - you'll need an invitation from Yahoo! to use this - the skinny of it is that the app. uses your location to locate Wiki pages that are closest to your current location and displays them on a Google map (not sure if this is tied to your Yahoo! account setup or ?)"
For more information and relative links, visit the AnyGeo blog.
For more information and relative links, visit the AnyGeo blog.
Industry: Yahoo! Internet Location Platform Announced
[+]
Announced earlier this week, the Yahoo! Internet Location Platform has been discussed by many geoblogs, including Yahoo's Dan Catt and CNET.
Yahoo! has been very active regarding geospatial development in the last few years despite the attention towards Google and Microsoft.
From the official page: "The Yahoo! Internet Location Platform provides a resource for managing all geo-permanent named places on Earth. Our purpose in creating the Internet Location Platform is to provide the Yahoo! Geographic Developer Community with the vocabulary and grammar to describe the world's geography in an unequivocal, permanent, and language-neutral manner.
The Internet Location Platform is designed to facilitate spatial interoperability and geographic discovery; users can traverse the spatial hierarchy, identify the geography relevant to their users and their business, and in turn, unambiguously geotag, geotarget, and geolocate data across the Web. [...] In simple terms, the Service allows you to look up the unique identifier - called the Where on Earth ID, or WOEID - for almost any named place on the Earth; it also allows you to resolve a WOEID you have received from a third party - such as Fire Eagle or Upcoming - to the place it represents."
Industry: Yahoo's Fire Eagle Out of Beta
[+]
This is a 1-month old news item (still catching up this summer's valuable geonews to share). Introduced late last year, Yahoo's service for geolocation named Fire Eagle is not out of beta. The best coverage I found is on the GEB and APB. Read their entries to learn more.
From the APB entry: "I personally think most people don't understand that Fire Eagle alone does nothing. To use it, you need to hook up apps that determine your location (like those on your phone/laptop/etc. - and pay attention to how they use your location data) and then to apps that you want to use your location data (like for finding local restaurants, etc. - and pay attention to how they use your location data). Yahoo sits in between and brokers the information. I think it's a great way to manage location information and privacy as you can turn off or fuzz up data from the collection side before its passed on the use the data side."
See also the Yahoo! Internet Location Platform announced last May.
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FireEagle - Yahoo's Service for Geo Information
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