This is really cool. This guy wrote an app that essentially saves the signal strength at a given location and then collates the data points into a little map, giving an approximate location of the access point and the places where one finds the best average signal. This seems really practical to me; if it’s not too hard to do, IT departments around the globe might take it up and use it to plan office layouts or diagnose signal problems. I imagine there are already some tools to do this and I’ll look like a fool for drooling over this, but whatever, it’s awesome.
The program is written in Python with OpenGL and you can get the source at the site. Can you imagine this being built right into a wireless-aware phone with GPS, generating a constantly updated heatmap of wherever you are, and adding it to an online repository? [via a sharply critical Reddit]