While most of us were were watching the Olympics last week, Yahoo slipped in new location-based technology – dubbed FireEagle (http://fireeagle.yahoo.net). It lets users enter and control information about their location for use by other applications.
FireEagle is an “open platform” for storing and managing information about your location on line. The protocols and methods for allowing developers to access the information in order to build location-awareness into their own applications are “open”. Yahoo has set up a developer program for FireEagle at http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/developer. Telephony Magazine reviews some of its features.
More than fifty software developers have built Fire Eagle functionality into their applications, including social networks Brightkite and Loki; GPS and location services Dash and Navizon; blogging platform Movable Type; and Web applications including Dipity, Dopplr, Lightpole and Pownce said they have added location-based features enabled by Yahoo’s FireEagle service.
FireEagle takes the location-awareness of technologies like GPS or cell-tower triangulation and adds a “user-generated” element to it. It also provides user with a greater measure of control over how their location is delivered and shared with others while allowing individuals to add context to their location broadcasts – essentially sharing not only where they are but what they are doing in that moment.
The Fire Eagle mobile site, which you can find at m.fireeagle.com, has been optimized for updating your location through your mobile phone. It brings Fire Eagle’s “Hide me” functionality right where you need it.
FireEagle lets users update location automatically or manually. Users can also decide how much information to share with others – including people and applications.
For developers and service-creators, FireEagle provides a potentially large source of location- and geo-based information about individual users, explains Telephony. It becomes more valuable the more people use it. With popular Yahoo portals and services like Flickr photo sharing, Yahoo Mail and Instant Messaging, it’s already got a head start.
One thing that’s still absent from Apple’s online App Store is a navigation program with voice-based, turn-by-turn directions that utilizes the iPhone 3G’s new GPS receiver. But several of the “bigs” in the business — TomTom, Garmin and Magellan — are interested, says MSNBC. Tom Tom recently completed the purchase of digital mapmaker Tele Atlas, which supplies Google Maps while Nokia recently purchased the other large map maker, Navteq.
In related news, Skyhook Wireless, maker of the Wi-Fi Positioning System and XPS 2.0, a hybrid positioning system, today announced it is integrating neighborhood boundary data from Urban Mapping’s database of more than 60,000 U.S. neighborhoods represented in over 2,400 cities and towns. With Urban Mapping’s neighborhood data, Skyhook Wireless can deliver eMyLoki location sharing servic with contextually appropriate and socially accepted neighborhood information.
