XML News from Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The W3C Geolocation Working Group has posted the first working draft of the Geolocation API Specification, a JavaScript API for exposing location information available from mobile devices like smart phones.

The Geolocation API defines a high-level interface to location information associated with the hosting device, such as latitude and longitude. The API itself is agnostic of the underlying location information sources. Common sources of location information include Global Positioning System (GPS) and location inferred from network signals such as IP address, RFID, WiFi and Bluetooth MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs.

The API is designed to enable both "one-shot" position requests and repeated position updates, as well as the ability to explicitly query the cached positions. Location information is represented by latitude and longitude coordinates. The Geolocation API in this specification builds upon earlier work in the industry, including [AZALOC], [GEARSLOC], and [LOCATIONAWARE].

The following code extract illustrates how to obtain basic location information:

Example of a "one-shot" position request.

    function showMap(position) {
      // Show a map centered at (position.coords.latitude, position.coords.longitude).
    }

    // One-shot position request.
    navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(showMap);
    

Example of requesting repeated position updates.

    function scrollMap(position) {
      // Scrolls the map so that it is centered at (position.coords.latitude, position.coords.longitude).
    }

    // Request repeated updates.
    var watchId = navigator.geolocation.watchPosition(scrollMap);

    function buttonClickHandler() {
      // Cancel the updates when the user clicks a button.
      navigator.geolocation.clearWatch(watchId);
    }