Filed under: Internet, Mozilla, Social Software, Browsers
On the cutting edge of geolocation with Mozilla Labs' Geode
If you've been waiting for a browser than natively supports location-based services, here's your first taste. Firefox 3.1 is all set to include geolocation based on a new WC3 standard, but you can test it out now with a Firefox add-on called Geode, from Mozilla Labs. Geode lets websites request your location the same way they request to install add-ons or open blocked popups. The possibilities for this technology are immense -- mobile devices are already taking advantage of it, so why not laptops?
The first services to be compatible with Geode are the social network Pownce, Yahoo!'s location-management product Fire Eagle, and a demo food finder from Mozilla. Geode gets your location via wifi, using Skyhook's Loki technology, and you can pass it to a website as a city, a neighborhood, or an exact location. I'm looking forward to seeing the other uses developers come up with for this technology before it goes mainstream in the next version of Firefox.
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tanel said 9:58AM on 10-12-2008
Installed Geode week back or so and FF just crashed when i pushed "My Location", Neighborhood or other those slide-down buttons, multiple times - maybe its just my million plugins conflicting with it but who knows :(
Reply
LeeH said 11:36AM on 10-12-2008
Are there privacy implications to this? Will this enable any website or web service I visit to pinpoint my location?
Reply
Josh said 10:45AM on 10-12-2008
They can do this pretty accurately already just by looking at your IP address...
Jay Hathaway said 11:40AM on 10-12-2008
LeeH,
Sites only get what you give them. When a site asks for your location, you can give it your city, neighborhood, exact location, or nothing at all.
Mysterius said 4:39PM on 10-12-2008
So is Geode is safe to use in public, as long as I stick to trusted sites?
Reply
Jay Hathaway said 4:42PM on 10-12-2008
I think so. I basically treat it like Core Location on the iPhone - if I don't think an app needs to be using it, I don't authorize. But for stuff like Google Maps? I say go for it.