Boston-based Skyhook Wireless and Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Centrix.ca announced today that Skyhook’s Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS), which allows wireless devices to determine their geographic location based on the identities of nearby Wi-Fi networks, has been incorporated into the latest version of Centrix’s popular NetworkLocation software. The program automatically adjusts user settings on a Macintosh computer—for instance, which programs to open upon startup, which desktop pictures to show, which screen-saver settings to activate, and which printers to connect to—based on the user’s location. The new “3.0” version of NetworkLocation will use WPS in addition to other cues, such as the network addresses of Wi-Fi networks or wired local area networks to which a computer is connected, to determine a machine’s location.
Author: Wade Roush
Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco.
Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.)
I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia.
I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats.
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