Loki- WiFi locations

Business 2.0 blog has a decent over view of Loki- which triangulates your position using known wireless access point locations. Apparently they have trucks driving around collecting the location of wireless access points. Nifty. Of course, there is a bit of error handling that has to be done when people move their APs.

It's gettting a lot easier to know where you are- GPS, Cell Tower locations, TV signals, compass/sextant, etc., albeit with varying degrees of accuracy. Now what do we do with that information? I am really tired about hearing about "directed advertising" based on location. Location based search (a spatial query with results ordered by distance from your current location) where you don't have to type in your current location is just a usability advance from typing in your current address. Presence applications, where others can see where you are seem to have some problems when you don't want people to know where you are, but are interesting.