Location-Based WiFi Services

Herecast provides location-based services on a WiFi device. At its simplest level, it can tell you where you are. More advanced services can use your location to enhance information lookups, publish presence information, and create unique games -- all while preserving privacy.

Who is This For?

Right now, we're at a relatively early stage. The Herecast software is in testing, and some of the earliest users are already contributing information. We're mainly interested in attracting "early adopters" and developers who want to create the first location-based services (and we'll work on our own services at the same time.) There are a few simple demo services available, such as Friend Finder and Heresay (a location-based message board.) If reading these pages leaves you scratching you head, come back later and see how we've progressed!

What Makes Herecast Different?

Herecast is not a hotspot directory. It's not designed to help you find internet access. It's not based on GPS or wardriving. Herecast uses a symbolic naming system -- instead of using coordinates such as "43.00584, -81.27314", it expresses your location in terms an ordinary person would use -- for example, the name of the building.

The Basic Idea

Every wireless access point broadcasts a unique ID, which can be used to tell it apart from other access points. This identifier is pretty useless to most of us; however, it can also be used as a "landmark" to identify a particular location. All your computer needs is a sort of "address book", so when it sees access point A, it will be able to say, "ah, I recognise this -- we must be in London, at the Middlesex College building, room 110."

Community-Built Database

So, who makes this "address book" of access points? Everyone! The Herecast database stores information for every access point anyone has ever discovered. Once one person enters information about an access point, that information becomes available to everyone else.

Services

Once your mobile device knows where it is, it can provide all sorts of interesting location-aware services. For example, you could:

• Bring up a map of your location with a single click.
• Access a web site relevant to your location.
• Publish your location to your friends.
• Leave messages at a point in space, for other people to discover.
• Chat with anyone else who happens to be in the area -- meet people you wouldn't have gotten to know otherwise.
• Play new types of games where you progress as you hunt around the city.

Only a few of these have been implemented on Herecast so far, but anyone with an imagination can create their own services that work with Herecast. Location-aware services are a relatively new area of innovation. It simply hasn't been possible to do this sort of thing until recently, so I'm sure the best ideas haven't even been thought of yet!

Preserving Privacy

One strength of the Herecast infrastructure is that all of the calculations are done on your device. Your device knows where it is, but isn't being tracked by some central server. This means you are always in control of how much information is revealed about your location. There is no "Big Brother" here.

Resolution

Herecast is only accurate down to the level of a single access point -- usually an area the size of a large room, or several rooms. That's not as detailed as something like GPS, but it's good enough for many practical purposes.

The downside of GPS is that it doesn't function well indoors, which is exactly where Herecast works best. And with WiFi networks becoming ubiquitous while GPS devices remain relatively expensive, the Herecast positioning system fills an important void.

Open Infrastructure - Developers Wanted!

The best part about Herecast is that is designed to be accessible to other developers. If you want to create a service that makes use of location information, it's easy. (Some of the sample services listed on the right were implemented in only an hour or two.) If you know how to make a web page, you can make a Herecast service. You can also create services that users can "subscribe" to, continually updating your service with their position. More advanced developers can communicate with the main Herecast database using an XML-RPC interface.

Now, check out the software