If you’ve used Google Maps on a mobile, you’ll be familiar with the blue dot marking your location and helping you make sure your bus stop doesn’t sail on by. Well, Google’s gone and slapped it on your browser too, bringing My Location to any laptop, even without GPS!
You’ve been able to use My Location for Google Maps from within the Internet Explorer toolbar for some time, but now the service is headed to browsers with geolocation baked in – that’s Google Chrome, and the newly released Firefox 3.5, and any browser with Google Gears installed.
Ten ways Google Chrome OS can kill off Windows
Head on over to Google Maps and look in the top left hand corner: you should be able to see a small white button. Click it so it turns blue, and Google Maps will use Wi-Fi access points around you to locate you, or failing that, your IP address. We’ve had a try, and while it takes a minute or so at first, it located us to within about 15 metres in London.
What’s interesting is the potential this service within Google Maps has on the forthcoming Google Chrome OS. Since it’ll be browser based, you can expect Google Maps to be one of the applications you can quickly and easily launch almost immediately after turning on, potentially similar to how Prism works on Mac and PC right now. If you had a netbook to hand, you might not even need a dedicated satnav, so companies likes CoPilot had better watch out – they could find Google Maps is a big competitor.
My Location for Google Maps is ready to try out right now.
Out Now | £free | Google
