new jersey geographer

Kate was tracking my progress home tonight, as I was going to pick up Thai food along the way. I manually set my location to “Thailand” and found when I got home, Kate was very confused as to where I was. Setting my location to “Thailand” actually set me as being in “Nong Chaeng,” which I assume is the closest place name to Google’s center point for Thailand.

When will Google release an API for Latitude? It should also tie into OpenSocial, like how iGoogle and Orkut do now. Google has been really great in releasing new and innovative social networking components and applications, but they need to really follow through and support their creations. Offer up an API and the community will do the rest.

AppleInsider has a tip that the upcoming version of Mac OS X, dubbed “Snow Leopard” will incorporate the GPS and location-based services library from the iPhone into the laptop/desktop version of the operating service.

They postulate that “CoreLocation will utilize a Mac’s existing networking hardware to triangulate the system’s location in a manner similar to the way the original iPhone was able to use the technology to emulate a true global positioning signal.” Is the inclusion of GPS into future Apple laptops too foreign a concept? I’m holding out for the GPS-enabled Macbook Mini, a netbook running OS X smaller than the current offerings. With more and more location-based applications (BrightKite, Google Latitude) for mobile phones being released each day, why wouldn’t Apple start looking into including GPS into its computers?

via SlashGeo