I want to know if it is possible to get the current location of mobile phone using mobile number . Can you suggest me any algorithm. I want to create a web service and integrate it with Google maps.
No, this isn't possible. Even for the carriers, it isn't possible to get GPS-based coordinates for an arbitrary device referenced by phone number, for obvious privacy reasons.
You need software on the device to report the location. At that point, you might as well use some pre-existing software, such as Google Latitude (for Android). There are many solutions out there.
Related
I'm looking for a GeoCoding provider for two purposes:
Address parsing (convert a long String into address components)
Address validation (make sure the address really exists)
I need to support North America addresses first, but keep the door open for international addresses as well.
I won't be displaying this information on a map or in a webapp, which puts me in a bit of a bind because services like Google Maps and Yahoo Maps require you to display any information you look up on their services.
Wikipedia contains a nice list of available geocoding providers here. My question is:
Is there a reliable/easy way to parse an address into component? I'd prefer embedding this logic into my application instead of having to depend on a 3rd-party provider.
Eventually I'll need to add address validation (with a map but not in a webapp). At that point, what do you recommend I do?
Is there a reliable/easy way to parse an address into component? I'd
prefer embedding this logic into my application instead of having to
depend on a 3rd-party provider.
No. You can always try to do it, but it will eventually fail. There is no universal planetary standard for addresses and not every country uses English addresses which add to the complexity of the task. There are 311 millions peoples in the USA and nearly 7 billion people in the world, now think of the different addresses it can represent.
Eventually I'll need to add address validation (with a map but not in
a webapp). At that point, what do you recommend I do?
I would use Google Maps API V3 but since it's against the rules in your case, I would try one of the paid service available out there for address parsing/validation (there are even free ones but they are less reliable). I think it's the best you can do.
In your case the only way to be 100% sure if the address exists and is valid would be to check it manually and then go there physically ;)
Gili, good for you for heeding license restrictions and other important "fine print".
I know you would rather embed the logic/functionality into your application without using an external service, but if you can figure out how to do that without jumping through a bunch of USPS hoopla to do it, kudos.
I work for SmartyStreets where we do both of those things. There's a really easy API called LiveAddress which does what you need... and it performs such that it doesn't seem like you're using a third-party service. I might add also, that usually it is smart business practice to dissociate non-core operations from your internal system, leaving the "black box" aspect of other stuff up to experts in those fields.
Here's some more information about converting a string into address components using LiveAddress.
I am looking for a geocoding service where I can make a request with an address or intersection, not necessarily separated into separate fields (street, city, state, etc.) and get the latitude and longitude, along with suggestions and corrections for misspelled or ambiguous queries.
I really like the Google Geocoding API, but the terms of use say that I am not allowed to store the responses or use the service for any purpose other than showing the result on one of their maps. I am planning to use it for a lightweight, mobile-friendly website that may have the option of displaying results with text only, so this would not work, assuming I am interpreting their terms correctly.
The Yahoo PlaceFinder API looks nice but it comes with similar restrictions.
I am trying to decide what would be a good choice. The Bing API looks good. I don't see any sort of restriction in their terms but am I missing something?
Does anyone know what would be a good choice? I have very limited funding, so I would prefer something that is free or cheap, at least for the near future.
You could try Nominatim, it's a tool to search OpenStreetMap data by name and address.
MapQuest provide a free API as long as you give the appropriate credit
I'm not sure how well it handles misspellings or ambiguous queries though!
I have a nokia 5500 sport mobile phone, and I found after i installed google map, it can automatically locate to my current position.
and I want to know how google map get my position and mark it on the map ?
How can I programming implement this feature with symbian C++(nokia 5500 's operate system is Symbian 3rd).
This is one of those questions where you need to know the jargon in order to find the answer. The magic word is "Location API".
Using it, I found this: http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Google_Maps_using_Location_Api_in_Symbian
For mobile devices, a location API sometimes more or less hides the details of how the location is actually discovered, and just tells the app where you are. If the phone has GPS, it will use that. Otherwise, the phone network will help it out - it might calculate based on distance and/or direction to one or more base stations, or it might just say "sorry, I can't be very accurate, but I know you're in this cell, so you must be with a few hundred yards of the base station (city cells), or a few of miles of it (rural cells)".
The API used on the page I link to seems to be specifically GPS. Not sure whether it exists on non-GPS handsets, but if you poke around the Symbian docs long enough you can probably find an alternate location API.
The Nokia 5500 does not have GPS, and the location API does not support network positioning on S60 3rd edition fp1 (at least I'm pretty certain of that - and I should be as I was working with LBS applications on Symbian when the 5500 was released.) Also network positioning require operator/carrier support and very few operators have that enabled in their network.
What Google maps does on every device without GPS is that it sends the ID of the current cell tower to a server that knows where all(?) cell towers are, and does and educated guess at how far from that tower you are. This is both on Symbian and on Java ME devices.
Better positioning in google maps is possible with a built in GPS. The Nokia Location API also supports external BT GPSes which was all that was available when the API was released.
It doesn't have GPS, so my guess is it communicates with different antennas of your GSM provider and triangulates its position using the coordinates of these antennas.
It's possible your phone has GPS - even if it doesn't, it can triangulate based upon cell towers. Programmatically, you'll have to register # Nokia (free, IIRC), get the symbian docs and have at it.
Good luck, GPS is fun (and maddening)
See this post for symbian queries, answers and complaints Should I learn how to develop on Symbian OS?
The W3C have a draft standard for geolocation in JavaScript, which would mean one piece of geolocation code would make your website geolocation work with all mobiles. So far it's supported by Safari on iPhone and Google Android phones. We should all petition Nokia to support it in Symbian phones.
I'm really hoping there's an existing service for something like this. I have a location (could be GPS coordinates or a street address, I can use geocoding or reverse geocoding services to switch between them) and I want to find a business that's listed as being approximately at that place.
If this service doesn't already exist, I'm thinking the best way to do what I want is to get a list of businesses close to a location, go through those and single out the closest one to the point I want, and say I'm "in" it if the distance is less than such and such.
If you have some pointers for which services I should look into (for either pinpointing one business or getting a list proximate to a location) or you think my methodology is stupid, please let me know!
edit: it's looking like the yahoo local search thing can pretty much do what I want. I'm going to start tinkering with that
Google Maps doesn't offer this yet. They do reverse geocoding from a lat/long to an address but not a business or interest.
I'm looking this up myself to see who offers this but the two I know of so far are GeoAPI (recently purchased by twitter) and SimpleGeo.
What you're looking for is Google Places which also allows you to specify the business type as well.
This is just a hunch, but have you checked out the Google Maps API?
I'm currently building a web app for a UK company with many outlets in the UK. I want to implement a 'find my nearest' based on the following.
Postcode
Landmarks
So the user could enter either to get a list of their nearest. I've done this before using postcode data in a database and then using Pythagoras to figure out the nearest ones.
Ideally I would like to use a web service to do this but I cant seem to find any at all.
My question would be - What would be the best way to implement such a service ? 3rd party app or do it myself. ?
There are various options listed very sanely and even with UK specific notes here
You should externalize the reverse geocoding (from postcode to coordinates) and then intersect the stores location with the coordinates of the postcode or location to get the nearest one. There is another example here.
The reason to externalize the geocoding is to relieve you from the need to update such a database continuously which might not even be feasible given your constraints.
Take a look at the Geokit gem, for ideas if not for implementation.
Also, in the UK you can get quite markedly incorrect answers if you use Pythagoras. You really want Haversine, and someone else has almost certainly done the hard work no matter what platform you're on.