#Qaiku

• You can enable location features in Privacy Settings
• You can also specify how to share your location to different groups (your contacts, Qaiku users, Internet) on three different levels: Accurate location, approximate location and no location
• Once you enable them, Qaiku starts tracking your location
• If you have a geolocation-capable browser (Firefox 3.5, Mobile Safari, Fennec), Qaiku will automatically update location from it
• Otherwise you can type a city name in the location field and we will geocode it based on GeoNames database
• Once you type a manual location we will stop automatic location tracking until you re-enable it by clicking the Update location link under the map in your profile page
• Location is also available through API, following exactly same conventions as Twitter location API

Accuracy of the automatic location updates is up to whatever the browser is able to provide. On iPhone this might use GPS, while Firefox uses the WiFi base stations your computer sees.

We're considering to add more location sources like Fireeagle and Latitude a bit later.

Please note: if something doesn't work as specified above, feel free to send bug reports to me and @reisba

@bergie And how in m.qaiku and gps enabled smartphones?

@jal location tracking should work with smartphones capable of it (iPhone, N900 with Mobile Firefox) also on mdot, but seems to be disabled there at the moment. Ping @tomis

I typicall use Qaiku on my mobile phone (N95), or with my netbook that is connected to the net via bluetooth to the same N95, so there's hardly a chance my presense could be known by Qaiku.

If you're using the location features you can specify how the map looks like in your theme by choosing or creating a CloudMade skin. For example, I'm using map 998 "Pale Dawn".

The maps are coming from OpenStreetMap so their content is also editable.

@mace yes, that is a limitation on how Firefox does geolocation. They could get better location by using GeoClue instead of just depending on a proprietary WiFi location database.

But anyway, this is the reason why we'd like to support other location sources too. Firefox location is convenient but doesn't work in every situation.

@bergie When looking your profile I see my own location (or actually grey map and written "location"). Not your location.

ping to self

@jal yep, known issue. @reisba will hopefully fix it soon.

@bergie but hardly my netbook browser can ask my phone where it thinks it is... This is quite interesting rly.

The following geo features are in Qaiku API:

• When POSTing new Qaikus you can specify lat and long for coordinates and/or location for textual location
• Qaikus read through the API have a georss:point in XML or GeoJSON if you can see their location
• You can limit searches to an area with &geocode=lat,long,20km, see for example Qaikus about Midgard 5km from my home