It’s not just the gear, it’s what it can do. I’ve always liked gear that can tell me where I am. In my formative years, that was maps, charts, compasses, and when I could get my hands on it, my dad’s Magellan NAV 1000. Now I’ve got two devices within arm’s reach that can tell me exactly where I am, and display it in a thousand different ways. The weird thing is, my iPad doesn’t even have a GPS receiver. How does that work exactly?
I re-watched this video and thought I sounded kind of…uninformed. So here’s the long version of “I think it uses wifi.”
Skyhook Wireless is a really interesting company. With considerably less fanfare than Google’s much-talked-about Streetview, they’ve managed to accomplish a feat of similar scope. They wardrove 70% of of the population centers in the US and Canada (and continue to do so, to update their database). Now they have a database of over a hundred million wifi access points (identified by their MAC address), and their associated geographic location.
