[whatwg] Geolocation in the browser

[Robert Accettura]

Ryan Sarver wrote:
>
> Steve, good points…
>
>  
>
> It’s also important to remember that this functionality would be an
> opt-in system – unlike your cell phone :) The prototype that we are
> working on would allow the browser to point to a COM port where it
> could find a GPS device or any NMEA-compatible device or software. It
> would then read the NMEA stream over the COM port and use that to
> deliver the user’s location to the website via the DOM.
>
>  
>
> Our software positions you based on WiFi triangulation and can emulate
> a GPS device by streaming NMEA over  a virtual COM port so that the
> user wouldn’t need to have a dedicated GPS antennae.
>
I'd think a more practical approach would be to allow for a user-entered
location, and let GPS override should the user have a GPS capable
device.  There are many good reasons to to have geolocation
(statistical, custom content, etc.), but few GPS capable devices.  I
think more content providers would consider this to be a usable source
of data if the UA had fallbacks (GPS, OS, preference in UA). 

-- 
Robert Accettura
robert at accettura.com

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