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Drum roll please....
After many months of hard work, we would to introduce the people of Southeast Asia to our "WhereAmI" project (http://locationpinpoint.com). The goal of the project is to help facilitate location based services through FREE location-ing information. Think of it as a GPS device that works off of WiFi and/or cell tower data and doesn't need to be outdoors.
I won't go into too much technical details but essentially:
- Input = WiFi access points you hear around you AND/OR the cell towers you hear around you
- Output = an estimated longitude and latitude of where we think you are
Doesn't sound like much but this is currently the key "missing link" to build much cooler (and useful) services to service scenarios such as:
- Are my friends around me? If so, I'll give them a shout.
- I lost my phone but my phone will tell me where I left it.
- I want to find all the top rated restaurants around me but I'm not exactly sure where I am (or I don't know my exact address).
- I want to go home, which is the next bus that can take me there and where is the bus stop.
There are services like this here and there but they are all commercially executed (fees). We intended to provide this service to the people of Southeast Asia (SEA) FOR FREE!
Built by the people of Southeast Asia... for use by the people of Southeast Asia.
No, this service isn't a Microsoft offering but rather... something fun that we built on the weekends BY MANY OF YOU in the community (we have a few uni and poly students, a Singapore scholar and a few people at Microsoft).
The project has a few pieces:
- WhereAmI Service (the service you would use to query your location)
- Infrastructure (the gooey-goodness in the middle)
- Survey (the tools we use to survey the information which gets sent back to you when you use the service)
Here's a quick 2 min video on how it works and how it all comes together.
http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=85238949-6807-47a9-b66b-c78427d41eb6
We're in the middle of an update from our test servers to something more robust to handle the public's load. Will put an announcement when the service is up (in about a week).
Coverage is currently Singapore but we're keen to grow the service. If you're in SEA and interested in offering this service to your region for free, we'll provide all the tools, equipment and infrastructure... all we need you to do is to help with the survey. Feel free to drop me a note. :)
More exciting stuff to share shortly. I'll also introduce the people who's hard-work is making this all possible.
Chewy (chewyc at microsoft dot com)
Head of Search - SEA
