Geolocation in urban areas using WiFi

Although there have been previous and successful experiences using WiFi signals from the different access points detected by a mobile device, as Fraunhofer showed in the last IADIS Wireless Applications and Computing in Amsterdam (to which I attended and presented some work that I will talk about someday), Google includes this in its My Location service in its Google Maps mobile app, as they announced in their blog.

The greatest thing is that they provide support for this technology in their Google Gears Geolocation API. Awesome!

I am wondering if Fraunhofer holds some IP and how it might affect the deployment of services based on this technology O:-)

By the one, the news is that someone offers WiFi geo-location, Google is not the only one exploiting this technology.

WiFi antennas in laptops

I've complained long ago about the WiFi antenna of the Lenovo X60s that I use at work, compared to other devices. Even a Nokia N810 proves to detect more networks with more signal power in medium and long distances, but you could not say that an N810 is a cheap device.

But I really checked it out now that I am trying my wife's Acer Aspire One in some sort of hard conditions. I live in the 5th floor of a block and my parents live in the 2nd. I usually get to their place to work with the needed peace of mind (wife+baby+puppy dog do not help much to focus on work) but I have always had the problem of WiFi, as my AP is not in the vertical to the room at my parents', where I am now staying. That means more walls to be crossed by WiFi transmission.

The fact is that I brought both the X60s and the Acer Aspire one and former cannot see my AP three floors upstairs while the wonderful Aspire One gets the signal with a 75%. And the Aspire One is one of the cheapest notebooks out there so it supports my idea of Lenovo using WiFi antennas of unacceptable quality for a machine that is meant to be used for work purposes on-the-go.

WiFi on the N810 (or size does not always matter)

I still go on testing the N810 I have recently been given. Sometimes (more often than what is desirable) I need a time to work at home along the weekend. Sara is getting older (19 months soon) and she is a non-stop baby. So I went to my parents' home (just 3 floors below my flat, in the same building) in order to work a little. I wanted to be connected to my WiFi but, as expected, 802.11g did not get there in the proper way.

Luckily, my sister lives in a flat in the middle of my parents' place and mine :-) Another AP available so I tried to make use of it. Low-power signal. The Thinkpad X60s sees the 2 APs I have at home and my sister's, but it refuses to connect to any of them. Not only that, I already commented in another post that, in low signal environments, the drivers go crazy and the WiFi interface dies. In a way that, sometimes, it makes me have to reboot the laptop.

Incredibly, the N810 sees the 3 APs and it is even able to connect without any problems to the closest one (my sister's). Sometimes (very seldom), the connection drops but it gets connected once again some seconds later. No driver dies, no software mystery.

If you read the comment sent by Frade to the previous post, now you can have an idea of what he means by "don't forget to fill bugs with your suggestions, ideas or bugs (if you find them! :D )". He is not being pretentious at all. The machine is damn good and, what is more important, the software too. What many IBM, Lenovo or Intel engineers don't seem to able to make, the open software community can achieve it.

Thanks, Linux. Thanks, maemo.

Drivers matter

I have always complained about the poor quality of the WiFi interface in ThinkPad laptops. I like the good work of IBM and Lenovo about them, but WiFi simply stinks.

I always disable their tool to manage network connections as Windows software is more basic but works much better. What I cannot change is the drivers: I get disconnected a lot with poor quality APs (Belkin, US Robotics, ...) and once in a while with better ones (Linksys, for example -special mention of the WRT45GL, which is cheap and works best-).

The problem is not only the disconnection itself. Sometimes the interface drops and I have to repair it via Windows option for network connections. Some other times I have to use the Thinkpad menu to reactivate the wireless interface. And it also happens that I have to use the physical switch for wireless interfaces (including bluetooth) and switch it off and then on to make it work. It has also happenned to me that I had to reboot the computer.

This is not acceptable at all.

And then comes Linux to fix the situation. I have recently installed Ubuntu in 4 GBs of space that were occupied by a hidden partition used for back-ups (which I do not use, because I prefer to back-up onto a different physical disk). The fact is that I get more WiFI signal in similar conditions, the driver never crashes and, at most, I only have to reconnect (and the only reason for this is that I -have to confess that I- am really far away from the AP and signal level is poor.

An important issue that Lenovo should fix soon, as new generations of Thinkpad come and they all suffer the same problem in Windows.