With Windows 7, Microsoft has introduced the possibility of exploiting the position sensor in order to automatically detect the geographical position of the computer . This, theoretically, would allow to exploit applications based on position detection and to use a Windows 7 laptop as if it were a mobile phone, perhaps even with a GPS navigator.
Even if the computer does not have GPS, the position can be determined by the IP address or by the triangulation of the wifi signal or the cell to which you connect to surf the internet.
Geosense is the name of the program to enable the position sensor which can be downloaded free of charge for Windows 7 32 and 64 bit computers .
After installing the sensor, you need to enable Geosense: from the Windows Start menu, search for the word position and click on Position sensor and other sensors whose icon is also found in the Control Panel .
Then select the box next to " activated " for the Geosense Location Sensor and click Apply .
To view more information, double click on the Geosense position sensor icon, and change its description or change who can access the sensor or uninstall Geosense.
Now that the sensor is activated, it is possible to use it with programs that support position detection which, however, are very few today (I don't know any of them).
To demonstrate the functionality of Geosense, however, you can use a demo client of Google Maps, downloadable from the Geosense home page.
The small program reveals the current position of the computer on the Google map.
For some, this position can be accurate to the meter, for others, the right city can be indicated even if not in the actual position.
This Google Maps client, which opens the complete Google maps site, can be very useful for those traveling to foreign cities to know where it is, always if you do not have a smartphone with a navigator and you can use the Windows computer connected to a free wifi hotspot.
You can then use Google Maps to search nearby restaurants, bars or other useful facilities in the area.
The Geosense sensor can also be used to correctly receive weather forecasts on the PC, using the default Windows 7 Weather Gadget (see the best Windows 7 gadgets)
The weather gadget is found by right-clicking on the desktop, in the Gadget section.
Just double-click on Weather to add the gadget to your desktop and activate it.
If it works and if the Geosense sensor is installed, you will see a small blue WiFi symbol, next to the detected position, which indicates the use of the sensor.
Without activating the Windows location, this small icon does not appear and you must manually set the city whose weather you want to see.
For the moment, even if this technology is interesting enough although hidden, I don't know other practical and useful applications, however it can be interesting to at least check how your pc detects the position.
If you have other suggestions on how to use this sensor, let us know in the comments, otherwise, at least for now, it is a test that, although useless in practice, remains to be tried.
I take this opportunity to remember other articles on the subject:
- Use Google Latitude to track your location and movements at all times
- Locate and find the geographical position of a mobile phone, PC or Facebook
- Disable geographic location on IE, Chrome and Firefox or falsify it
