Place Lab offers an affordable and user-friendly solution for device positioning in location-based computing.
What sets Place Lab apart from GPS is that it can provide positioning worldwide, whereas GPS only works well outside. This software allows its clients to determine their location in private without the need for constant interaction with a central service. Unlike other location tracking software like badge tracking or mobile phone location services, Place Lab clients remain in control of their location information.
Using Place Lab is easy: this software lets devices like notebooks, PDAs, and cell phones locate themselves by listening for radio beacons such as 802.11 access points, GSM cell phone towers, and fixed Bluetooth devices that already exist in large numbers around us in the environment. These beacons all have unique or semi-unique IDs, like a MAC address. Clients compute their own location by hearing one or more IDs, looking up the associated beacons' positions in a locally cached map, and estimating their position to that of the beacons' positions.
Considering the impressive positioning solutions and the level of privacy offered by Place Lab, this software is worth considering for anyone in need of location-enhanced computing applications.
Version 2.1: N/A