Qualcomm has announced in a press release that it will implement technology developer Skyhook’s Wi-Fi GPS positioning software as a part of its gpsOne platform to augment LBS services in the absence of cellular coverage.
The intention behind the integration is to take advantage of Skyhook’s software-based GPS implementation and database of known geolocated Wi-Fi hotspots in order to improve and provide LBS services without having to rely on expensive external transceivers or cellular coverage which may not exist in a particular area.
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I normally don’t kick off comments, but…
I think this is the single dumbest thing Qualcomm has done all year long. Don’t get me wrong, I think Skyhook is great. It’s an excellent consumer platform for not-mission-critical data.
Poisoning the gpsOne pool with this information is foolish at best. There’s no need for it, gpsOne is extremely fast. Any integrated device that wants to use Skyhook in addition to gpsOne, can do so on their own.
Either this is marketing hype (via some cash infusion in Skyhook from Qualcomm), or it’s the second dumbest engineering move of the year (Verizon’s Skynet-style FOTA being the first).
gpsOne works fine in the temporary absense of a phone signal. That’s the point of Mobile Assisted gpsOne. Anyone can feed Skyhook a fake set of coordinates for their Wi-Fi base station, and throw a massive wrench in this new process.
Kudos, Qualcomm.
It’s pretty funny that manual coordinate feeding is mentioned for Skyhook. The software doesn’t even triangulate the correct location based on the AP, but it uses what I would call a “rough estimation” based on IP address and backbone location. “Geolocation” is turning into a meaningless buzzword in the same vein as “Web 2.0″.
Don’t believe the hype.