Database Users

Navizon (fake GPS)

Anyone else checked out Navizon on their device? I am running it on my 8525, and it is pretty cool (though I wouldn't spend any real money for it, since I am saving up for my Tilt). The software figures out where you are using cell towers and wifi links (note, to have it work well, be sure your wifi is turned on), and then places you on a map.
Sitting in my office it keeps jumping me around in a two block radius from my actual location .. so it clearly is not as precise as GPS and would not really help for real time driving directions .. but it is a nice tool to quickly pull up a map of your surrounding area (if you get lost) and relatively quickly figure out where you are.
Also gives you insight as to how the cell providers can track your location when you have your phone turned on. Creepy.

Did not work tooooo well in OKC put me atleast 10 miles off and with out a real GPS the Fax Q said that is the best it will do

I've been using it for about a day, it was only accurate twice, but I'm still given it a chance.

It's about 5-10 miles off for me as well.
This seems quite odd as the tower I'm using is certainly a lot closer than where this software thinks I am.

Navizon uses its own database to do cell tower - lat/long triangulation. If you read through the site, you'll see that in order for their database to expand to better coverage, they allow anyone using a GPS in addition to Navizon to use the software for free. This way the database is constantly growing as more users use it. It seems a good idea to me, and the only possible solution really. That being said, Navizon has already thoroughly mapped NYC and San Francisco. In manhattan where I live I find Navizon is always accurate to within 100 feet! Not bad considering there aint a chance in hell of getting a GPS signal on these streets!
If you wish to make it more accurate in your own area, run it one day with a GPS attached and drive around town. The coordinates and cell tower info will be added to their db and Navizon will always thereafter be accurate in your area. Won't need the GPS again.
Navizon is one of my favorite apps. I pull it out and turn it on and I get my location on the integrated google maps within 1 minute. Very nifty when trying to find a subway or bar or something.
fluxist

The just released 3.3.4.0 which placed me from across town to right where I should be.

GPS Showing me in the wrong location

The other day the GPS had the weirdest issue. I was stuck in traffic and decided to turn on Google Maps to find out how long the traffic is going to be. To my disbelief, the GPS showed me in a different town and MOVING on the street and then onto some freeway about 50 miles from my location. I thought the GPS satellites are screwed up but my car was showing me in the right place (and never has made such a stupid error).
Makes me wonder if the GPS info is actually going to Google servers and coming back to the phone as I guess I was getting someone else's GPS data and the lines were crossed somehow. This continued to about 30 minutes as I was enjoying the error and wondering at the same time. Holding the phone out of the window and stuff did not work. Eventually I reboot (oops! I meant I took the battery out because HTC apparently thinks we never need to reboot te G1 so there is no PIN hole for reboot like most other phones).
has anyone else experienced the same issue?

brooklynite said:
The other day the GPS had the weirdest issue. I was stuck in traffic and decided to turn on Google Maps to find out how long the traffic is going to be. To my disbelief, the GPS showed me in a different town and MOVING on the street and then onto some freeway about 50 miles from my location. I thought the GPS satellites are screwed up but my car was showing me in the right place (and never has made such a stupid error).
Makes me wonder if the GPS info is actually going to Google servers and coming back to the phone as I guess I was getting someone else's GPS data and the lines were crossed somehow. This continued to about 30 minutes as I was enjoying the error and wondering at the same time. Holding the phone out of the window and stuff did not work. Eventually I reboot (oops! I meant I took the battery out because HTC apparently thinks we never need to reboot te G1 so there is no PIN hole for reboot like most other phones).
has anyone else experienced the same issue?
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The GPS is not being relayed to google... but google maps may be the thing that is wrong here. You can't get your "lines crossed" when using google maps but the maps may be downloading the wrong set. I know I have seen it do some weird things but that is expected to happen when you have several countries you have to have maps for.
As for the reboot issue... is it really that hard to hold down the power button? You do realize that the pin hole on previous devices is for emergencies only. It could really screw up the phone. Similarly like using your computer and unpluging it while it is on... or just pressing its reset button.
Maybe this is the reason for your problems with your G1.

I was just browsing my location and found that the location was in my local Radio Shack that was 2 blocks away. I tried to refresh but wouldn't allow me to.

G1 uses assisted GPS, which performs some calculations away from your phone. Could have been your A-GPS server was sending back some faulty data.

Some Application in G1 read Location info from Proprietary GPS Chip and also relies on Cell Tower GPS Coordination if GPS Signals is not available, in India my Airtel Company have Bad GPS Coordination in my Cell Tower, I Personally know which Cell Tower i am hooked to while i am at home but the Cell GPS Coordination is 8 Miles away from my Cell Tower.
Check that your GPS Signal were Strong and you have not just started seeing maps when that error occured.

I think it was stong. I had all my bars full and the 3g logo on it. Oh well I'll probably fiddle with it a little more tomorrow after I try to get a screen protector for the phone

I thought the problem had gone away until last night it happened again, with one difference. I still had me being shown 20-30 miles away (interestingly not across the globe but simply 30 miles away) the problem corrected itself after about 5 minutes.
I have a car GPS and a portable GPS and I have never seen this happen before. The issue is definately the A-GPS. I always thought during WAR the military may scramble the GPS data to confuse the enemy, I guess that is what promted Europeans to install their own GPS that is much more accurate than ours.
And there are controversies over this as well. Google is recording my location and my cell towers and IP addresses and URLs according to its NO privacy policy. This is definitely not fun.
Sending my GPS info to Google servers (which is in fact the case) without me knowing it and sending it back to my phone through internet channels it not something I am comfortable with. Especially if Google releases information to law enforcement one day that may be incorrect showing me somewhere I really was not at!

CORRECTION: A-GPS is for phones without GPS. It does not apply to this thread.

brooklynite said:
CORRECTION: A-GPS is for phones without GPS. It does not apply to this thread.
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Where do you get your information? aGPS is for phones with GPS... it uses a data connection to locate you within so many meters than uses the GPS signal to pinpoint so you are located faster.

brooklynite said:
CORRECTION: A-GPS is for phones without GPS. It does not apply to this thread.
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Click to collapse
Wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_Phone
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/gps.html

I have the same dxmn problem with the gps f-ing up. It started with RC30...When I was on RC19...I had NO PROBLEMS with gps.
It would pinpoint my location in 5sec. Now it's take 10-15min to pinpoint me. Google need to fix this fast.

whether it is related to this thread or not...A-GPS....
, generally abbreviated as A-GPS, enhances the startup performance of a GPS satellite-based positioning system. It is used extensively with GPS-capable cellular phones
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same problem here. i also think it started with the update.

Guys, I am not wrong.
A-GPS as Google calls it (and there are other versions of it), is for phones without a GPS chip (thats how Google Maps find you on a T-Mobile WING), it started after an fcc mandate to be able to locate 911 callers from cell phone. It finds your location using a triangulation of the cell towers you are connected to and this particular technology and the extensive data that is required is owned by Google however Google may not call it AGPS.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/28/google-mobile-maps-pinpoints-your-location-without-gps/
Now it seems to me that Google is enhancing its data network of cell towers using our phones to collect location data. So it collects the cell towers we are connected to with the strength+ the GPS info from our phones and puts all this data in a server to that non-GPS phones using Google Maps can have a better triangulation as more data is gathered from across the country. Eventually the system could be perfected to locate any cell phone without a GPS chip or to locate a cellphone with the GPS feature turned off for privacy, and that is what concerns me.
When my phone shows me 20 miles from where I am, on the freeway, cruising at 55MPH while I am sitting in traffic on the other side of town, it concerns me.

brooklynite said:
Guys, I am not wrong.
A-GPS as Google calls it (and there are other versions of it), is for phones without a GPS chip (thats how Google Maps find you on a T-Mobile WING), it started after an fcc mandate to be able to locate 911 callers from cell phone. It finds your location using a triangulation of the cell towers you are connected to and this particular technology and the extensive data that is required is owned by Google however Google may not call it AGPS.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/28/google-mobile-maps-pinpoints-your-location-without-gps/
Now it seems to me that Google is enhancing its data network of cell towers using our phones to collect location data. So it collects the cell towers we are connected to with the strength+ the GPS info from our phones and puts all this data in a server to that non-GPS phones using Google Maps can have a better triangulation as more data is gathered from across the country. Eventually the system could be perfected to locate any cell phone without a GPS chip or to locate a cellphone with the GPS feature turned off for privacy, and that is what concerns me.
When my phone shows me 20 miles from where I am, on the freeway, cruising at 55MPH while I am sitting in traffic on the other side of town, it concerns me.
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Where are you getting your information? The link you provide just says they support phones without GPS but they never say it is only for phones without GPS. In fact it says that it will work on phones with GPS... that is what the whole article is about that phones in the future will have GPS and google maps will be able to pinpoint their location faster. Basically it says they are using A-GPS.
In the link above he links to http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/28/google-earth-heading-towards-extinction/ Which says people will be able to add their own commentary about places like a wiki. Nothing about using other peoples devices to send information for google to collect.
It also has this link http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/20071128_maps_mobile_my_location.html Which is googles official press link saying it will work with both GPS and non-GPS phones by using the Cell ID and a special formula that google developed to pinpoint your location within a certain amount of distance. Nothing says it uses other peoples GPS signals. In fact it says "This approximation is anonymous, as Google does not gather any personally identifiable information or associate any location data with personally identifiable information as part of the My Location feature."
All in all I think you are misreading and need to look over your data again.

neoobs said:
Where are you getting your information? The link you provide just says they support phones without GPS but they never say it is only for phones without GPS. In fact it says that it will work on phones with GPS... that is what the whole article is about that phones in the future will have GPS and google maps will be able to pinpoint their location faster. Basically it says they are using A-GPS.
In the link above he links to http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/28/google-earth-heading-towards-extinction/ Which says people will be able to add their own commentary about places like a wiki. Nothing about using other peoples devices to send information for google to collect.
It also has this link http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/20071128_maps_mobile_my_location.html Which is googles official press link saying it will work with both GPS and non-GPS phones by using the Cell ID and a special formula that google developed to pinpoint your location within a certain amount of distance. Nothing says it uses other peoples GPS signals. In fact it says "This approximation is anonymous, as Google does not gather any personally identifiable information or associate any location data with personally identifiable information as part of the My Location feature."
All in all I think you are misreading and need to look over your data again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Regardless of above, and you may be correct and I may be wrong, but the thread is getting distracted from the main subject. My main issue is this: Why is the GPS reporting me in the wrong location, and even MOVING which is weird. It was pretty obvious to me from what I saw that the Google Maps software in my phone was reading someone else's location data from someone else's GPS. I could see the person move through the streets and speed up and slow down. This makes me wonder if my locatio data is being sent to Google servers somewhere and then back to the phone (and in some cases crossed over with another persons data). This feels especially more true because Google MAPS has slowed down dramatically from finding "My Location" compared to "pre RC30" upgrade and even compared to the GPS-Chop-Free WING and even my ancient car's GPS system.

Have you talked to Google about this? I think you are just speculating what you want and have a hidden agenda. Did it locate you within so many feet? or was it a real location? If it was a real location than it couldn't be Google as it only pulls the map the actual lat, long is coming straight from the sats... possibly it pulled the wrong location for that tower while using A-GPS and then this calculated the wrong GPS coordinates.
Since you don't know what or how A-GPS works this may be hard to understand. A-GPS works by using that method you described for non-GPS cellphones to narrow the search for satalites. This doesn't find your location it only finds the vicinity. You can see the A part of A-GPS work when it says your location within so many meters. This is what works on your wing. The actual pinpoint location is based only off the GPS and isn't sent to google. Google only needs the map coordinates to download. Your GPS is what tracks you on the map. This is why google maps always load in blocks.
To fully understand a map system you must learn how maps work and be educated in the art of cairegraphy

I think the real concern is that brooklynite was seeing himself moving through traffic while he was actually stationary. I can understand that perhaps the GPS got the wrong co-ords and the incorrect map was loaded showing him in another location, but you would still expect him to be shown stationary in the wrong location. So why would it show him moving when he was stationary?
The fact that he was moving on the map means the data must have been coming from another device doesn't it? How else could you explain it?
I would be concerned too.

neoobs said:
.... Did it locate you within so many feet? or was it a real location?...
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Click to collapse
A real location about 50 miles away from my location. Somewhere I have never been since I have had this phone so it cannot be using the old data in my phone as sometimes it shows my locations from "last night".
...possibly it pulled the wrong location for that tower while using A-GPS and then this calculated the wrong GPS coordinates...
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I always have the "use wireless networks" off, afterall, the GPS chip is one of the main reasons I switched to the G1 from my older WING.
....
I have to add that I am amazed by the GPS accuracy, it even notices when I cross the stree, turn into a driveway or the side of the street I am standing on. When I switch to Sat. view, it literally shows my exact spot on the sidewalk, not in the middle of the street like a car GPS does.

Probably getting too far off topic but car GPS units are just as accurate, it's just that most of them have a correction feature to fudge your position onto the nearest road on the map if for some reason it is not. For the most part a driver doesn't care where he is on the road in relation to the curb....only that he is on the road he thinks he should be on.

WiFi based locations

I searched through ten pages of returns on google looking for anything related to this and couldn't find it here, so I don't think it has been discussed here before. So here goes...
Does anyone think the wifi based location determination actually works on the G1? I guess I imagine that it would work like this. In the office where I work, there are a couple of 802.11 wireless networks. And once I go inside the building with my phone,the GPS quality goes to crap since it is indoors--no surprise there. It can literally be off by BLOCKS, perhaps a half mile or more after I've been inside for a while. I would like to think that the phone would somehow know that, OK, I don't have a decent GPS signal, so let's see if I can get a decent wifi location. Sure, it's not going to tell me what room in the building I am in, which GPS would be able to do if there wasn't a roof on the building, but I am OK with that. I just want the locale app to know what building I am in. So now I have to make circles of about a half mile in radius (a mile in diameter) to be sure my location in locale doesn't look like I've left and gone to the default profile since the GPS accuracy decreases once you go inside a building and it starts looking like you are hopping all over the place.
So, where does the Wifi database live? On a google server or is it a third party? How can I test it to see how accurate it is--both in terms of feet and inches and in terms of completeness of the database? Can I add new wifi access points to the database? How can I see, for instance, if my home access point is in the database? What happens if I move and take my access point with me? How do I update the database?

The phone uses two methods to determine geolocation-- a-gps and cell tower triangulation. No wifi-based methods are used.

That's interesting because when you go to Settings-->Security & location, you can see the setting for "Use wireless networks" under "My location sources". The secondary text says "Location determined by wi-fi and/or mobile networks", so it sure does look like it uses WiFi for positioning. Not that I doubt you, but you have to admit, the setting in the phone sure is misleading then.

I hate it when I do this. Look what I just found:
http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/01/skyhook-location-sdk-for-android.ars
Definitely makes one think it isn't wifi positioning isn't built into the phone.

The description text is a little misleading yes. Perhaps it's general all-encompassing text. I imagine at some point there will be Android devices without cellular radios that could benefit from wifi positioning. As it stands however wifi positioning is just not very robust. It only works in areas with wifi networks (great if you're lost in a suburb, bad if you're lost in an industrial complex).
Anyway out-of-box, Dream only uses cellular positioning (which is surprisingly accurate) and A-GPS.

I'm not in OLDHAM!!!!!! (Weather tab question)

Hi all,
I was just wondering if anyone knew why my Weather tab has suddenly started mis-reporting my location as Oldham. I'm actually a few miles away. Up until recently it always found and reported the location of my fairly small home town accurately, and worked great elsewhere too.
Now however, it keeps defaulting to Oldham. It also sometimes says Rochdale, or occasionally Manchester. These are inaccurate too. Just a couple of weeks ago it always got my location right, but now it hardly ever does. It seems to have suddenly lost its ability to pinpoint my location, so simply defaults to a nearby large town or city, despite the fact I'm miles away from them.
Incidentally, the four dots around the GPS logo (next to the name of My Location) no longer 'gyrate' while updating. They used to rotate in a 'wobbly' orbit around the globe logo in the centre, presumably to indicate GPS activity. Now they just spin in a fixed orbit around the central point (GPS still works fine in TomTom7 and Google Maps etc).
I have Location Service enabled, and allow it to gather data on my location at any time. The problem remains the same whether I'm connected via WiFi or HSDPA, or both.
Does My Location actually use GPS, or just cell towers? Like I said, it worked fine up until recently. I know people have had various problems with the Weather tab, but I can't find anyone with this exact problem on here. Any advice would be gratefully received.
Thanks,
Rob.

Mate, the GPS is the least of your worries. If Oldham is the nearest place of interest to you, you should move home!

elyl said:
Mate, the GPS is the least of your worries. If Oldham is the nearest place of interest to you, you should move home!
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Click to collapse
lol
But on a serious note, weather worked fine for me, until one day I did a hard reset.
Now I have not once had the correct location at home.
Weird ay?

I suspect that your weather location is tied to your local cell.
GF is on t-mob and I'm on O2, our HD2s regularly report our local weather location as being in different places even though we're both on the same sofa, my guess is that it depends on which cell signal is strongest, maybe your local one is temporarily down?

elyl said:
Mate, the GPS is the least of your worries. If Oldham is the nearest place of interest to you, you should move home!
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Click to collapse
That's my point; Oldham ISN'T my nearest town, but the damn phone keeps sticking it on my Weather tab anyway. My phone has never even been to Oldham!

My Desk in work officially sits between Brockworth and Hucclecoat. I get different locations at each side of my desk. It does sound like its a cell tower problem to me.

Yup depending where i am in town i get either north lincolnshire or appleby its very annoying

it doesn't use gps...uses information from the cell tower your phone is currently using. If that cell tower is labelled Oldham, then that's what you'll get.

I get saddleworth most of the time. I got tameside once which would be better

if i am getting hsdpa signal it's correct if i get 3g signal it reports wrong location.

Same here. I often get Poplar when I'm travelling through Hackney.

I experienced the same problem. It's weird that when I use Wifi, the location is about 30 miles away from where I am. But using 3g, it points to a couple miles away which is acceptable

here is one for you.. lmao
If I am upstairs at my computer I get Richmond, if I am in the guest room dirrectly below my desk down stairs, im in Preston. now if I force it to update, im in Smithfield until I get back to my computer and wait 15 minutes were I am once again, back in Richmond...

at leasts yours works, my location hasnt worked in the 2 months i had the hd2 works fine on my hero lolol

nokiaman1978 said:
if i am getting hsdpa signal it's correct if i get 3g signal it reports wrong location.
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Funny, it's the other way round for me - it's generally accurate if I'm getting a 3G connection, but when it's HSDPA (most of the time) it usually shows up wrong (I'm on T-Mobile).
Anyway, thanks all for the replies. Nice to know it isn't a fault on my handset at least. Doesn't sound like there's much we can do about it though.
Cheers,
Rob.

RH Photography said:
Funny, it's the other way round for me - it's generally accurate if I'm getting a 3G connection, but when it's HSDPA (most of the time) it usually shows up wrong (I'm on T-Mobile).
Anyway, thanks all for the replies. Nice to know it isn't a fault on my handset at least. Doesn't sound like there's much we can do about it though.
Cheers,
Rob.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It'll depend on which cell it's connecting to then. It's probably connecting to an H-enabled tower which is in Glamorous Oldham, and the fallback cell is just 3G/GPRS and closer to home.

i have the same issue, somethings its ok and recognises my location as swindon but in my house it says im in wroughton which is a small village about 5 miles away.

I had a problem like this, but mine was 100 or so miles out.
I found out it was to do with where my time settings were.
I chose manchester (closest major city [and home city for me]) for my time.
So it made the weather show manchester as my location.
now i've changed the time to my location, its the same in weather.
dont know how much use that is to you, worked for me though.

[Q] Clock Auto-Update and GPS

Clock Updates
I recently traveled to Los Angeles with my TF. When I turned on my TF and connected to WiFi, I expected it to update the time based on the GPS location. It did not.
So I checked the clock settings, and it is set to auto-update the time (Network time I think it's called). Curiously, it's set to -5 Central Time (which -6 is Central, -5 is Eastern). Not sure why, but this was a pretty odd setting to me.
GPS
This is more of a curiosity question. In the air, I decided to see where I was. I figured, "I have a GPS in my tablet, it should be able to tell me where I am." I was wrong! It was not able to grab a satellite while in the air, which seems silly to me.
Is it a true GPS or does it get location data from somewhere else? Seems to me like it SHOULD work in an airplane, but I might not understand the technology appropriately.

It is typically rather difficult to get a workable GPS signal on an aircraft. You generally need to be right up against a south facing window.

EtherBoo said:
Clock Updates
I recently traveled to Los Angeles with my TF. When I turned on my TF and connected to WiFi, I expected it to update the time based on the GPS location. It did not.
So I checked the clock settings, and it is set to auto-update the time (Network time I think it's called). Curiously, it's set to -5 Central Time (which -6 is Central, -5 is Eastern). Not sure why, but this was a pretty odd setting to me.
GPS
This is more of a curiosity question. In the air, I decided to see where I was. I figured, "I have a GPS in my tablet, it should be able to tell me where I am." I was wrong! It was not able to grab a satellite while in the air, which seems silly to me.
Is it a true GPS or does it get location data from somewhere else? Seems to me like it SHOULD work in an airplane, but I might not understand the technology appropriately.
Click to expand...
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Ive also noticed that if your moving it doesnt grab the signal as good as if your connected Via a mobile hotspot or your cell. The only way it works flawlessly, is if you turn the map on standing still to see the area where your at.
Like the commercial where they get stranded and the guy holding the Transformer gets out of the car and turns on GPS and it locks on. if i do that , it works perfectly but moving in a car it fails to update on time as i move

Other thing to keep in mind is that the system uses A-GPS where it uses the data connection to download info on the current locations of the GPS satellites therefore equaling a much faster lock on. If you don't have a data connection, naturally you'd find it take longer to lock on. I've tried the GPS sitting in my room, a good 15 feet from a shaded window and I can lock on 9 or so satellites relatively quickly. I imagine that your movement speed also affects the lock speed and a plane is usually moving a little bit.

Good to know about the GPS, thank you.
So what's up with the Clock not updating and claiming CST is -5 GMT?

Many commercial gps chips have a relatively low max speed limit. They are ok for normal vehicle travel, but will not work in aircraft or other high speed vehicles. This is by design. Prevents them from being used for military purposes

Only 1 time have I been able to successfully get a GPS lock while in the air, using my old WinMo phone + a BT GPS receiver, while on a flight to HI.
The GPS chip was accurately measuring the speed at ~600 MPH. I don't think there are limits until you get into the supersonic (missile speed) range.

So what's with the clock since the GPS question has been answered?

Sorry, I know this is slightly old, but as far as I know it's because of DST.

was daylight saving time set. Also remember some locations in the US do not use DST. Check your settings. It does not read actual local, time, but rather reads GMT and does the math. If you give it the wrong inputs, it will give you the wrong answer.