Retrieving the latitude/longitude from Google Map Mobile 3.0's MyLocation feature

Question

I want to fetch my current latitude/longitude from Google Maps Mobile 3.0 with the help of some script, which I guess could be a Python one. Is this possible? And, more importantly: is the Google Maps Mobile API designed for such interaction? Any legal issues?

Basically i have a S60 phone that doesnt have GPS,and I have found that Google maintains its own database to link Cell IDs with lat/longs so that depending on what Cell ID I am nearest to, it can approximate my current location. So only Cel ID info from the operator won't tell me where i am on Earth until such a linking between Cell ID and latitude/longitude is available (for which I am thinking of seeking help of GMM; of course, if it provides for this...).

Secondly, the GMM 3.0 pushes my current latitude/longitude to the iGoogle Latitude gadget... so there should be some way by which I can fetch the same info by my custom gadget/script, right?

Answer 1

You don't have to do this through Google Maps. The mapping for Cell ID to latitude and longitude is available from http://www.opencellid.org.

You can get the raw data file and then sample part of the data to the accuracy you need. Then, using the pys60 elocation api, you can grab the current Cell ID (you need to have the DevCert in order to do this).

For more details take a look at this: http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=112964

Answer 2

No, you can't access it from a Python script or another S60 application because of platform security features of S60 3rd ed. Even if Google Maps application would write information to disk, your app is not able to access application specific files of other apps.

Google Maps use cell-based locationing in addition to GPS or when GPS is not available. Google hasn't released any 3rd party API to do these cell-tower to lat-long conversions.

Answer 3

About reading any file from the disk:

Only when you have an R&D (Research and Development) certificate that grants you the AllFiles capability, can you access nearly any file.