Indeed - According to a NYT article on this new Google service:
"Google figures out which cell towers are where by enlisting the help of a million of its mobile map users who happen to have phones with built-in G.P.S. devices that are not locked by the carriers (that means no one who uses Verizon). The payoff for Google from building out its mapping service is in associating your searches - say, for a Starbuck - to your phone's unique ID." - Mark On Dec 3, 2007 6:05 PM, Jason Birch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ian White wrote: > > I for one want to know where g got the cell tower info from. Carriers? > > Doubt it. Did they aggregate a bunch of open initiatives? > > I would guess that having the tower locations would help initial > population, but location based solely on these would never be great. > > My read of the articles was that they use data from gmm users that had > GPS capabilities (15% of total) to derive/enhance cell tower > locations... and this is what allows them to say that the positional > accuracy of the system will improve over time. I'm just waiting for the > annoucement that they are storing positional information on wifi signal > strength / mac addresses as well :) > > Among other things, I act as system administrator for a fire dispatch > call centre. My experience is that it can be difficult to get tower > location and vector information from cell companies here in Canada, even > when you need it for public safety. _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
