Mabey A Stupid "?"

[dinglebery]

ive been working on some new database stuff for work and was just floping an idea around in my head for a little time wasteing toy on the Pandora but wasnt sure if its even posible so i wanted to ask

now to the point

i dont know much of how wifi networking works but without adding any new hardware to the Pandora (ie gps ect) is it possible to narrow down someones geographic location to a certain degree when they log in through an open network like their local starbucks or something ? if so anyone know any info they could point me to about niffty ways to acomplish this, and to what level would one be talking ? (ie country state city ect ect )

peace just was currious if something like that is even possible without gps , thank you in advance

 

[sinoth]

I'm not an expert on this, but googling something like "ip geolocation" will bring up quite a few sites on the issue. It seems to be extremely hit-or-miss... some sites can narrow my location to the correct city, while others give me a completely wrong state. I think the bottom line is that you can't reliably find your location this way.

 

[lardman]

Look at GeoClue (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/GeoClue) for an infrastructure that can use different location providers (from manual input, actual GPS, to IP based services, e.g. Plazes, HostIP): http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/GeoClue/Providers

Another one which uses the local wifi ids is SkyHook (which the iPhone uses), not free though I don't think.

Also note that BlueTooth GPSes are pretty cheap these days.