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To find a GeoLocation you don't need to have the latest
Smartphone. You can get location aware even by using your PC by using a
browser. The question may arise in your mind: "How would a browser be able
to determine its location if it's not using any GPS or any other sophisticated
location technologies". Well, while using HTML5 GeoLocation API all
browsers are using various ways for finding the current location of the user.
We will have a look at them in detail in this blog.
Global Positioning System:
GPS is supported by many smart and mobile devices. It provides
high rate of accuracy in finding location information based on satellite.
Location information includes altitude, heading and speed. The main requirement
of the system is that to get location information using GPS the user must be
able to see the sky. It usually takes longer time to find location information.
One of the bad things about GPS is that it can be costly in terms of device
battery (the power).
IP Address:
The IP address can also be mapped to get location based
information. In this method IP address is resolved to Physical address of the
user. The advantage of this approach is that it can work anywhere and does not
need any special devices or services to be enabled. Often IP address is converted
to locations such as your ISP local office, so this is not very much accurate.
It is reliable to the level of city of state.
Cell Phone:
The Cell phone triangulation finds out your location based on the
distance from cell phone tower. The accuracy of this method is very good and
gets higher with the number of the towers in users range. If you are receiving
signal only from a single tower thus not making a complete triangle, the
accuracy will suffer. Also unlike GPS the user must not be able to see sky. It
can be used indoor. The speed of finding location information is also high i.e.
it can find your location information very quickly.
WiFi:
It works just like Cell Phone Triangle by replacing cell phone
tower with WIFI access points. The location is find out by WIFI access point
triangle. This method is very accurate, fast and works indoors. But to get the
location based information the device must be stationery at least for a while
to get the accurate information.
Now the question is: While using HTML5 to get GeoLocation
information which of the above techniques is used?
The answer is: It's not you to decide. It's the browser. Brower
may choose to use any of the above techniques to get the location information
and present it to you. It usually checks for cell phone triangulation, if found
it's done. Otherwise it will select from other choices depending of the
availability and demands. So while marking up your web-page using HTML5, you
are only concerned: How to call GeoLocation methods. The rest is the job of the
browser how to render it.
About The Author :
Mohammad Roman is professionally a Web developer, working as a Lecturer in Kohat University of Science & Technology. His specialties are in ASP.Net using C# but he can also handle projects in PHP.He is a Gold Star Contributor at our Blog.
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