Geolocation finds its way to Opera

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 27 Mar 2009 at 10:42

Opera has signed a deal with Skyhook Wireless to bring geolocation to its browser, allowing the browser to share a user's location with any site that supports the technology.

Skyhook triangulates an application's location by working out its position relative to nearby Wi-Fi masts. The technology means that any device with a wireless adapter can take advantage of the service.

The technology was initially used by the first generation iPhone, before Apple made the move to GPS.

Opera is envisioning a range of applications for the technology, from updates on social-networking pages that list location alongside status, to automatically geotagging photos when they are uploaded to sites.

In order to spur creation of applications that use geolocation, Opera has also released an API allowing web developers to add the Skyhook location platform to their site.

Chrome offers a similar service through its Google Gears Geolocation API, while Mozilla plans to offer support in Firefox 3.5, though the group has yet to decide how it will be implemented.