Wikinear Is Location-Based Knowledge

22 March 2008, 2:19pm

March 22, 2008 - Ever wished you knew more about a historical building you walked by? Now you can, by taking out your mobile phone and using a new service named Wikinear. Using the recently launched Yahoo service Fire Eagle, a set of APIs that determine your geographic location, Wikinear figures out where you are, and displays the five nearest points of interest from Wikipedia on a Google map.

All told the service uses five APIs to deliver the information to you: Fire Eagle, OAuth, Wikipedia, GeoNames and Google Static Maps, and it does all of this in just 200 lines of code. OAuth is for secure, but private, access across networks, and GeoNames submits queries to Wikipedia base on geographic location. It’s a slick little setup that would be great for when you’ve just moved to a new location or are on vacation. Why ever pay for a tour guide again?

You will need a Fire Eagle account to use the service, which, as the service is still in private beta stage, unfortunately means a very limited number of people will be able to use Wikinear. As more people join with Fire Eagle, it will help increase the usability of Wikinear by adding more location information, so by the time the site goes public, there should be a ton of data for you to enjoy.

Item by Sean P. Aune, 22 March 2008, in Mashable.com online news.

To visit Simon Wilson's Wikinear site, go to:

http://simonwillison.net/2008/Mar/22/wikinear/

http://mashable.com/2008/03/22/wikinear/

Geo: International