Mozilla Geode is a new development from the Mozilla Labs that implements the W3C Geolocation Specification in Firefox. In future versions Geode will actually become a part of Mozilla (in version 3.1), but for now it's just an extension. Now let me explain what it does.
The JavaScript, navigator.geolocation can be used to identify where you currently are - so for example a mobile device running Firefox might have built-in GPS and this would be made available to the browser so that Geode can use this to tell sites this information. It's best explained through the example Mozilla use:
You've arrived in a new city, a new continent, a new coffee shop. You don't really know where you are, and are looking for a good place to eat. You pull out your laptop, fire up Firefox, and go to your favourite review site. It automatically deduces your location, and serves up some delicious suggestions a couple blocks away and plots directions there.
It does seem like a brilliant concept - something I believe the iPhone is already doing with Safari. There are however still a few things to work out - such as the use of geolocation service providers. One thing they've already thought of is privacy concerns - if you don't want a website to know exactly where you are you can instead just send the neighbourhood, the city, or no location at all. Here is an example of retrieving the information on a site:
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(pos) {
alert( pos.latitude + ", " + pos.longitude );
})As you can see it is actually fairly straight forward. Now I just need an excuse to try it out!
