How Does Google Maps Find Me Work In Pakistan?
Recently a few readers and friends have asked about the google maps feature on mobile phones called find me (aka blue dot). This is a feature from google maps for mobile phones which shows your approximiate location on a web enabled mobile phone. GPS is not required. People love it! See this official google page for details on how it works, including a video.
The question was: how does google know my location in Pakistan? There are 2 pieces of local information needed: the tower location data and other is the map data. There are companies which sell such kind of data so expect this feature to be available at more and more places. Rest of the algorithm uses the signal information and the application is able to locate you within a certain degree of accuracy, therefore the term blue dot.
So go ahead, use your web-enabled phone and download google maps in case you don’t have it. And if you use this feature often please share where and how or better yet, send us pictures.
Created by Babar Bhatti, TelecomPk.Net is a leading source of information and analysis about Pakistan Telecom industry.
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Google Maps with My Location is good for fun but not for actual use. I tried it on Islamabad airport and it was showing my location approx. 1Km away.
This is error of 1Km due to the algorithm used. It tries to approximate your position by sending you the position of intersection of three mobile towers (arround you) signals.
It may not be as accurate as GPS but it sure is fast and free. :)
Believe me … 1 km is really great. For users in US the main advantage is that you can do local search based on your location. I am not sure how important is that in Pakistan - is there a demand?
Babar, Allow my frustration at your question and take it with a grain of salt but I say, heck, you give ‘em good service and they’d come. Did you believe there was demand of Google-like Apps or Search Engines after Excite, Altavista and YAHOO!??? I didn’t think…
Ejaz, I intentionally posed the question that way. Search for local information is extremely valuable, no matter where you are. This is an area where a lot of work is being done. The challenge is to build out the content which is relevant and fresh. I don’t think there’s a shortcut to that so it will take its time.
Babar Bhatti Sahab,
Please start writing an other report on… PTCL is going to charge HELPLINE call as local call also i.e. Rs 2.00 taxes for 2 minutes from June 1st. Today they posted add in JANG NEWS that PTCL is going to change Helpline number from 17 to 1217 and in the end of this add…it was written in very small font that from June 1st… they will charge Helpline call as Local Call.
Its an eye opening for those who did Privatization of this company and those who supports privatization of National Assets… Specially when there is no substitute. PTCL is in foreign hands and they can do as they like. Firing Employees, Increasing call charges, applying helpline charges, sending bills even line is not working… After all its only FIXED LINE service in Pakistan and the upcoming competitor… Wateen Telecom is also cousin of PTCL. When you will sell PTCL, UFONE, VPhone, PTCL DSL, WARID TELECOM, WATEEN TELECOM in one hand ( UAE Emperors) then result is killing for Pakistani poor people.
Please write long report on it.
I’m using Google Mobile Map on Nokia WiFi mobile…. It even shows my location by blinking blue circle at same point where I’m using this WLAN service. It means that it takes data from Broad band company and shows my location also. great job.
I must say that Google has bringed lot of new services for its users. No comparison of Goolge with MSN or Yahoo etc.
Is it legitimate to get subscriber location info or sell such info? Have we allowed the operators to do so or if we have not can we take action against them???
Nash - operators have nothing to do with the google maps find me feature. And we are talking about location info for your phone, not for anyone else. Btw operators always have a lot of info about you (including location) which is subject to leaks and hacks. The telecom consumer protection law has not come into effect yet.
On my N958gb , Google Maps uses the internal GPS to show my exact location ( 10 meter approx) , till the time it catches GPS , it shows the tower location ( 1700 m approx) . However the satellite maps for Karachi in Gmaps are outdated , NOkia has recently launched their Maps 2.0 ( out of beta now) which shows rather updated maps of Karachi
I have done a snap comparison here
http://ourn958gb.blogspot.com/2008/03/nokia-maps-has-updated-karachi-maps.html
Now what we require is a street wise data , Trakker has it but selling it for 90000 with unit , I tried working on the street data by copying maps from Google earth , joining them , drawing streets using Photoshop , but it was too cumbersome and very time consuming
Maps data has limited market in Pakistan , in masses not many people use it , in US too , the map data is good if one is travelling to unfamiliar place / city and also good as it provided online traffic data ( Nokia Maps does that too but not for Pakistan ) In KArachi I think we all know where Shahra -e- Faisal is etc . Companies could us this data for sales call , territory planning but again they need the data not very often .
I have setup a carputer ( http://ourn958gb.blogspot.com/2008/04/s60v3-based-carputer.html ) with my Nokia phone which shows satellite maps on the 7″ screen while I’m driving it’s good now as WArid has switched to EDGE and is providing data faciltiites all over Super Highway . But it’s just for fun
I use my other phone , obselete E61 , with Bluetooth, solar powered GPS to get daily reports of my driver’s whereabouts in the evening I simply pickup the KMZ data from the phone and have the total visualzation of his speed , where he’s been etc all shown on google earth .
Here’s an interesting article about upcoming work from google on this:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/31/google-to-launch-large-scale-geo-services/
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