A note of clarification... I agree and disagree with Jed at the same time. With wigle.net, it is true that the data can be very inaccurate because they will access all sorts of data collected with various hardware. They even access manually generated data which can create big inaccuracies. Microsoft's data is based on wigle's database so what applies to one applies to the other.
With Navizon in contrary, as it only uses data that has been collected by its proprietary software so it controls how it is being calculated. Navizon also has a calibrating method that makes the data look the same on all devices. Hope that helps, Kris indoorLBS.com ________________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jed Rice Sent: Friday, August 18, 2006 10:05 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Geowanking] RE: TeleAtlas Car When Skyhook was in its infancy, we looked at user-contributed/open source Wi-Fi location data such as Wigle.net and peer-based collection models like Navizon but found that in both cases, you simply have no quality control. When you start with data that is collected using dozens of different methods by hundreds of different contributors who are left to randomnly define their own collection process you can't possibly build a reliable system or application on top of it. Organizations like PlaceLabs and Microsoft's LocateMe have discovered it the hard way - while it may work some of the times in some of the places and be 'good enough', you can't then expect commercial organizations who are relying on a solution for their own business/service/offering to use it. Fortune took kind of interesting spin on it a few weeks ago when they profiled one of our drivers - http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/07/24/8381745/. Its not easy being in the business of managing a fleet of 200+ people driving every street, road and highway but its an investment you have to make if you want to deliver a service that offers accuracy and availability that rivals - and in some cases beats - GPS. Even more so if you then expect large commercial enterprises to pay good money for that system. _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
