Google Indoor maps WiFi geo location

A few days ago I was on the third floor of my campus library, I was passing time until the first class meeting for one of my classes this semester. I knew that the maps app on my Android had most of my campus mapped out. (IE: I can zoom in and find the exact location of room #1599 on my campus.) When I fired up the maps app, much to my surprise the map zoomed right into the third floor, and pinpointed me exactly at the table I was sitting near in the library. My friend sitting next to me was simply speechless.

 I know for a fact that any GPS signal has no chance of making it into this brick building, hell, most Cellphones loose signal inside this building. But, this building itself has a WiFi mesh, easily consisting of over 50 WiFi APs.

It was immediately obvious to me that Google had began indexing wifi APs and their locations inside of large buildings. This library is open to the public, so someone hired by Google with a WiFi sniffer must have walked around and indexed the location of each AP within this building.

My local HomeDepot shows an indoor map when I zoom in near its location in my Google maps app. I actually used it to find the Lighting and Electrical section so I could purchase a new bathroom light fixture.

As it stands right now indoor maps are a look don't touch experience. If you attempt to do a local search for "Bathroom lighting" Google zooms out and shows all light stores in a 30 mile radius for me, instead of searching inside of the building I am standing. I know this is quite a bit to ask, but I expect Google's mapping an Indexing to achieve this level of detail in the next few years. I can't wait until all major brick and mortar stores are mapped out and indexed. Imagine how fast and pleasant shopping could be if your phone knew the exact aisle of ever item you plan to purchase.

As you can see the possibilities are quite limitless for indoor mapping applications, I have not even mentioned large venues or large office buildings.

This is a big effort Google is undertaking, but I have no doubt given Googles track record with similar projects. Mapping the surface of the earth, its seas, our sky, mars and now large building layouts.

 

 

So whats the point of this blog?

  I work with computers every day during my part time job as an onsite technician for small business and residential. By no means am I high on the tech totem pole officially. My Studies as a full time college student for Civil Engineering also keep me busy.
  I have a huge obsession with the latest gadgets and tech news. I love to know what is on the market, and what products consumers actually use. When a client approaches me with a usage case, I love to be the guy who knows the exact product they will need and love.
I am a realist, yet I try to be ahead of the curve in terms of adoption and uptake of new gadgets. I try to avoid gadgets that I know will never take off or have any light of day in the general consumer world.
 By no stretch of the imagination am I a professional blogger or writer. If you see a typo, let me know kindly. But I do have a passion to explain and talk about anything tech related that may be on my mind for that day.

 I may be random, from custom gaming rigs to computer animated Christmas light shows, my interests in the world of electronics have touched every imaginable corner this industry. Cellphones, flash drives, gaming peripherals, speakers & headphones, hard drives/ssds, mmo gaming, routers/networking, fitness trackers, office chairs, and digital wallets are all things that get my nerd senses tingling. (And will be some of the things I will be talking about in the near future.)
 This blog will also cover my rants about computer issues in general, and certain companies and manufactures I particularly despise.

.com is for Comcast right? Comical tech assumtions by my mother #1

In my everyday life I get asked certain things that make me want to rage, but I have to stop and collect my thoughts. Things we take for granted in the tech world are foreign to others. My mother is extremely smart, and has taken to the internet well. But at times her assumptions about how certain things work amuse me. We recently swapped from Uverse to Comcast, so she assumed the new place to check her email would be found at Comcast.com, whereas we all know your Comcast webmail is to be found at Comcast.net. She replied "but .net is for Yahoo & .com is for Comcast" She had assumed .com quite literally stood for the first three letters in Comcast. Her logic system failed her when I asked her why .net stood for Yahoo... nonetheless, I tried to explain that the .com domain is not part of Comcast, but rather the greater common wealth of the interwebz.