Application Engineering and Development

Topic: Geolocation

Topic Number: 6

Key topics / learning outcomes of this lecture

• Learn about Geolocation and how useful it is for application design.

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What is Geolocation?

• Geolocation is the identification of the real-world geographic location of an object. It provides:

• Location awareness• Location tracking• Geofencing

– a predefined set of boundaries;

• Activity recognition– walking, running;

Geolocation originates from the words “geographic location”.

Geolocation Uses

• Applications– banking, ecommerce, media, telecommunications,online gaming;

• Criminal investigations– money laundering, trafficking, terrorism detection;

• Fraud detection– Bank payment location mismatch;

• Geo marketing– advertisements relevant to that location;

• Regional licensing– online casinos must know where there customers are by law;– online broadcasters can stream content in certain locations so as to comply

with geographic licensing regulations;

• Content Targetting– local weather;– advertising;

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Systems for Finding Device Location

• Global Position System (GPS)– hardware: satellite;

• accurate to 5 – 100 meters approx;

• Nearest cell tower– hardware: cell tower;

• urban areas – accurate to 500 – 1000 meters approx;

• suburban areas – accurate to 1000 – 2000 meters approx;

• Nearest Wi-Fi hot spot– hardware: Wi-Fi hot spot equipment;

• accurate to 20 – 50 meters approx;

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Internet Geolocation Use

• Internet Protocol (IP) address;– data provided includes country, region, city, postcode, latitude,

longitude and timezone;• Geolocation uses a WHOIS lookup service and retrieves registrant’s

physical address for this data;

• MAC address;– geolocation can be associated with a MAC address;

• RFID;– geolocation can be associated with RFID;

• Wi-Fi positioning;– geolocation can be associated with Wi-Fi equipment;

• Device GPS co-ordinates;– geolocation can be associated with GPS systems;

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Google Servers

• The data collected is sent to Google servers

• Google return the location information

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Latitude and Longitude

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Geolocation for AndroidTools Required

Install the latest version of Google Play

and

• an AVD that runs Android 4.2.2 or higher

or

• a compatible Android device

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Reference data source

• NETWORK_PROVIDER;

– access Wi-Fi and cell towers;

• GPS_PROVIDER;

– access GPS;

• PASSIVE_PROVIDER;

– access any current provider; (not recommended except for quick reference when an app is first started).

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Obtain Device Location

• Set permissions in the Android manifest file

– ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION;

• access the network provider;

– ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION;

• access GPS or the network provider;

– INTERNET;

• add this if you want the network provider to include the Wi-Fi information;

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Seminar

• In the Seminar to this tutorial, we will be working through a video tutorial to set up a functioning location app that will provide the latitude and longitude co-ordinates of the device.

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Essential work for next week

• Please consult the OLE for details of:– Essential readings*

– Seminar/workshop preparation work*

– Recommended further readings

– Any additional learning

* Essential readings and preparation work must always be completed in time for the next session

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End of presentation

© Pearson College 2013