October 08, 2008, 11:43 AM — A new Firefox add-on can pinpoint your location using WiFi signals.
Geode has been developed by Mozilla and uses Skyhook's Loki technology to identify a user's location from local WiFi hotspots. Mozilla claims the technology can pinpoint the user's location, correct to within 10-20 meters, in less than a second.
The add-on has been designed to work with mapping and geo-tagging websites and is a trial version of a function that will appear in the forthcoming Firefox 3.1 web browser.
A demo application called Food Finder works with Geode to identify restaurants and cafés in the immediate vicinity on a Google Map.
The add-on has raised some privacy concerns but Mozilla claims users will be able to specify whether they want their location revealed.
"With Geode, when a website requests your location a notification bar will ask how much information you want to give that site: your exact location, your neighborhood, your city or nothing at all," the company said in a blog.
Mozilla also said it intends to refine the technology before the launch of Firefox 3.1.
