Search This Blog

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Mozilla Starts Crowdsourcing Data to Help Devices Find Your Location Without GPS

As reported by EngadgetMozilla's got a full plate between browsersFirefox OS and a mess of other projects, but that hasn't stopped it from starting a new initiative. The software community has set up the experimental Mozilla Location Service to collect crowdsourced geolocation data from public WiFi networks and cellular towers. According to the outfit, devices with weak or non-existent GPS capabilities will be able to determine where they're at with the help of the service. Anyone interested in contributing will need to download the MozStumbler app for Android, walk around and upload data. Mozilla's aware you'd be handing over personal location info by using the application, so it's vowed to improve privacy all around. There's no word of an iOS counterpart just yet, so contributors will be limited to Mountain View's OS for the time being.

No comments:

Post a Comment