35 ways to find your location. GPS has not proved to be the panacea for finding your location. Urban canyons, price, speed, power, reliability, differing datums, and even the trustfulness of the data all contribute to a high-tech system that will not satisfy many situations when you really, really want to know your location. This talk will explore many different ways to find a location, from using the latest technologies to low-tech hacks. These often work best when used together, to refine the accuracy or usefulness of the location data. Measures for evaluating the different techniques will be shown, matching user needs for different scenarios to data collection types. Contexts and constraints, such as screen size and input mechanisms, will be introduced, and their effect on the various locative methods shown. In addition to HCI issues, computers and humans require very different information to understand their locations and orient themselves. This talk will give an introduction into how people convert data into locations into psychogeography -- places, mental maps, and invisible cities.

1. 35 ways to find your location Chris Heathcote Product experience manager Orange SA O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference February 9-12, 2004

19. geolocation technology

24. street furniture

34. emerging technology

39. location advertising

43. a social future