[whatwg] Geolocation in the browser

[Michael(tm) Smith]

Ryan Sarver <rsarver at skyhookwireless.com>, 2007-02-21 15:31 -0500:

> I am the Dir of Product Development at Skyhook Wireless where we have a
> Wi-Fi Positioning System - think GPS, but software-only and uses
> Wireless APs instead of satellites. We have been working on developing a
> plugin for Firefox that gives a website access to the user's location
> via javascript. User's can control access to this information at the
> domain level in much the same way they control cookies and popups.
> 
> We have been successful in exposing it through the Javascript DOM and
> wanted to start talking with standards bodies about coming up with a
> standard implementation to make location-aware browsing common
> functionality at the browser level.

The W3C has some ongoing and planned work related to this. One of
the stated aims of the W3C work is:

  Develop proposals for remote eventing, device coordination, and
  safe and secure access to device capabilities, including
  physical sensors and effectors

Specific upcoming events related to that work include:

  - Ubiquitous Web Day at XTech (mentioned in my previous message),
    to take place at XTech in Paris on May 15th. Open to anybody
    attending XTech

  - Workshop on Declarative Models of Distributed Web Applications,
    to take place in the first week of June in Dublin. The Call
    for Participation for that will go out some time next month.

In the mean time, there are a couple of documents at the W3C site
you might want to look at.

The first document is a proposed activity statement for a new
"Ubiquitous Web Applications" W3C Activity:

  http://www.w3.org/2006/10/uwa-activity-proposal.html

And the other document is a proposed charter for a new Working Group:

  http://www.w3.org/2006/10/uwa-charter.html

Especially you might want to look at the "Leverage the DCI for
work on enabling use of device capabilities, remote eventing and
device coordination" section of the charter:

  http://www.w3.org/2006/10/uwa-charter.html#dci

And within that, the following:

  Enabling use of Device Capabilities
  http://www.w3.org/2006/10/uwa-charter.html#device-capabilities

The section of the charter outlines this new work can make use of
previous work that was done at the W3C on the "DCI", which is
documented in the following W3C Candidate Recommendation:

  Delivery Context: Interfaces (DCI) Accessing Static and Dynamic Properties
  http://www.w3.org/TR/DPF/

:wq

  --Mike

-- 
Michael(tm) Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike/