Amazon’s Kindle Fire is currently the most popular Android-powered tablet, but it doesn’t feature a GPS chip. Given how important location-based services have become, that’s a bit of a drawback for many developers and quite a few apps that want to access location features on Amazon’s tablet actually crash. To avoid these issues, Kayak teamed up with Skyhook to provide location services for its updated Android app. Kayak, of course, relies heavily on location services to show its users information like nearby hotels and airport information.

Skyhook’s Android SDK allows developers to get location information across virtually all Android versions and forks like the Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s NOOK.

The service, which provided virtually all of the location features for iOS before Apple switched to its own solution in 2010, uses WiFi triangulation when it can’t use a GPS chip or cell tower triangulation to determine a device’s location.

On Android, it is worth noting, Skyhook is also enabled in a number of other popular apps, including Tweetcaster, HopStop, deCarta and OpenTable. WiFi triangulation, of course, is never quite as accurate as GPS (except for when you are indoors), but using a service like Skyhook greatly improves location accuracy in urban areas and speeds up GPS satellite acquisition times.

About a week and a half ago, I wrote a post defending Apple against the location FUD being spread. Due to some real, but minor issues (which have already been resolved) Apple was at the center of this. Then the focus immediately seemed to shift towards Google. If Apple is “watching you” with the iPhone, Google must be as well with Android devices, right? Sure — if you’re a paranoid looney who doesn’t really understand what the situation is.

Naturally, that group includes the United States government. In an effort for some lawmakers to attach their names to these highly publicized complaints and companies, they’ve called upon executives to testify before Congress. On Tuesday, those companies will head to a panel in Washington to answer questions. In other words, Congress will be getting a Location 101 briefing.

As I noted in the previous post, the press certainly isn’t helping with any of this FUD — and may actually be more than a bit to blame for it. After the Apple FUD started spreading, who else but The Wall Street Journal started digging into Google’s location approach as well. The shocking discovery? An email from a Google project manager to co-founder Larry Page stressing how important it is for Google to have their own location database for Android.

WHOA. Wait, you mean they’d like to maintain and control a technology that is vital for making location services work on their devices? Stop the damn presses.

Naturally, WSJ used the headline “Google Calls Location Data ‘Valuable’” which led to a thousand subsequent headlines in other publications who read it in the intended nefarious way. This just in: Google wants to know where you are at all times. And your kids. And your grandparents — that’s essentially how these stories are set up to read.

To flesh out their article a bit with a quote from an industry expert, WSJ brought in Ted Morgan, the CEO of Skyhook Wireless, who gave them a juicy (but not really juicy) quote about, again, how important owning a location system is to Google.

No. Shit.

The choice of Skyhook’s CEO to bolster the argument is questionable at best. Skyhook is currently suing Google for interfering with existing wireless contracts and patent claims (both of which are noted in the article). In fact, that lawsuit is the reason these internal Google emails came to light in the first place.

Just a couple days ago, this very same lawsuit was the basis of a ReadWriteWeb article questioning Google’s “openness” due to the Skyhook suit. Regular readers of TechCrunch will know that no one gives Google more shit for the “open” stuff than I do. At best, I view it as pure marketing nonsense. At worst, I view it as a way to empower the greedy carriers. But the claims made in RWW’s article are a joke.

It is absolutely true that Skyhook got a “win” in court last week when a Massachusetts Superior Court judge dismissed Google’s request for a summary judgment. But that only means that the discovery phase of the lawsuit will continue instead of being thrown out. And the only reason Google filed a request to have it thrown out is because of another ruling from this past December when Skyhook filed for a a preliminary injunction. That request was denied by the court and the judge had some less than favorable things to stay about Skyhook’s case in the process — hence, Google filing to have the suit thrown out.

We’ve embedded that document, which is public, below for your viewing pleasure.

The RWW argument is framed around Morgan’s argument that Skyhook is upset because they were led to believe that Android would be an “open” platform. Now they’re being squeezed out as Google pushes their own similar technology. All of this, naturally, is now being framed in a nefarious manner from the location collecting and entrapment perspective.

What’s left out in all of this is what the court found in December. Namely that while Google does want their partners seeking to be certified as “Android-compatible” to use their location services, they’re open to those partners using Skyhook’s as well — provided they work as advertised.

Further, according to the documents, it was Skyhook, and not Google, who were saying that they can be the only service collecting location data from Android devices. Not surprisingly, Motorola rejected this and terminated the contract (which they had the right to do because of a clause that locked them into Skyhook services unless it interfered with existing contracts — like the one they had with Google).

There’s a lot more along these lines in there (seriously, read it if you’re interested in this topic). And after looking the facts presented at the time over, the court stated that, “As the record stands thus far, in the Court’s view, the platiff’s showing is not strong.” Skyhook is suing Google for tampering with these deals, but in these documents it seems pretty clear that Google was willing to work alongside Skyhook, but Skyhook was not willing to do the same. And it was the partners that ended the deals as a result.

Again, discovery is ongoing and we’ll see where this eventually leads. But it’s simply unfair right now to twist this as a case against Google being “open” and as FUD for location in general.

The arguments with regard to location suggest that Google, like Apple, are out to get you by tricking you into sending them this data. That’s simply not the case. These companies need these location databases or half of the services you know and love on your smartphones would be crippled — or would not work at all. And future services that will alter our lives for the better would stop springing up. I’m sure that will be the case these companies make before Congress next week.

A granny tracker app is not hidden, running in the background on either the iPhone or Android phones.

As you’re undoubtedly aware, location is one of the hottest fields out there right now. Startups, services, devices, and advertisers are all hovering around it. As you’re also likely well aware, Apple likes to be in control of their own devices. So it should come as no surprise to hear that Apple is moving to be in complete control of their own location database.

Back in June, Apple changed its privacy policy to reflect some of the newer things they were doing with regard to location. This worried some people — including two U.S. Congressmen who sent a letter to Apple asking about the change. A couple weeks ago, Apple responded to that inquiry with a letter from Apple’s general counsel, Bruce Sewell. The overall main points of that letter have already been covered quite a bit (basically, none of the data Apple collects is linked to a specific user or device and no data is shared without consent). But buried on page 5 of the 13-page letter is a bit of information that’s rather interesting.

Here’s the passage (highlights are mine):

To provide the high quality products and services that its customers demand, Apple must have access to comprehensive location-based information. For devices running iPhone OS versions 1.1.3 to 3.1, Apple relied on (and still relies on) databases maintained by Google and Skyhook Wireless (“Skyhook”) to provide location-based services. Beginning with the iPhone OS version 3.2 released in April 2010, Apple relies on its own databases to provide location-based services and for diagnostic purposes. These databases must be updated continuously to account for, among other things, the ever-changing physical landscape, more innovative uses of mobile technology, and the increasing number of Apple’s customers. Apple has always taken great care to protect the privacy of its customers.

In other words, since iPhone OS 3.2 (since renamed “iOS”) which shipped on the iPad, and continuing with the new iOS 4, Apple is now in complete control of the location services on the iPhone (and iPad/iPod touch). Previously, Apple relied on the location information from Skyhook and Google. But now they have built their own databases to be able to drop those guys going forward (though, as they note, the older iOSes still use that outside data).

As I said, this continues Apple’s long tradition of wanting to have complete control over their products by developing everything they need in-house. They didn’t have the capabilities to do that with location services when the iPhone launched. Now, apparently, they do.

When reached for comment, Skyhook wouldn’t specifically talk about their relationship with Apple, but they did say that “everyone who has a platform wants to own as much of the location stack as possible. Location data is going the be huge and owning it is going to be the next big war in mobile.“

It has to be particularly nice for Apple to be able to ditch Google in this regard. While Google helped Apple build the Maps application on the iPhone, the relationship between the two has obviously changed over the years. With Apple now making its move into mobile advertising with iAds, clearly they didn’t want to be sending or receiving all the location information for all of their millions of devices from what is now a chief rival. And Google is making fast moves to beef up its mobile location-based ads, as well.

It will also be interesting to see what, if anything, this means for the Maps application on the iPhone and iPad. Earlier this month, Apple bought Poly9, makers of a 3D mapping software. And last year, they bought Placebase, another map-maker. Both of those purchases were likely for their talent, rather than the products — it would seem as if Apple is moving in the direction of having its own mapping products. If they do that, clearly they’re going to want their own location databases as well. And now they have just that.

One thing a lot of services such as Google have been working on recently is building up their place databases. It’s not clear if Apple will be building their own one of those as well — but I wouldn’t bet against it.

This also may signal Apple eventually baking in location to some of their other apps — like Contacts. While I suspect they wouldn’t do this in a way that would directly compete with all the third-party location startups out there, it could be something along the lines of being able to tell where family members are at all times (provided they opt-in, of course).

And, of course, Apple likes to tout their “Find My iPhone” feature, which is all about location. It’s perhaps the perfect example of how Apple is able to tell where any iPhone (or iPad) is at anytime, anywhere. It makes sense to try to fully control that information, and all the data surrounding it.

The San Francisco Marathon is this coming Sunday. To coincide with it, Skyhook Wireless has set up a new “Skyhook Experience” to track the event. On their page, you’ll be able to see geotagged tweets, Flickr photos, and Foursquare check-ins all around the event in realtime. You’ll also be able to go back in time (with a slider) to watch all of the aforementioned data evolve.

The idea is similar to the Vicarious.ly site SimpleGeo set up for SXSW. Like SimpleGeo, Skyhook is doing this to showcase their data. On the map you can not only see (and click on) individual data points, but you can see heat maps of particularly hot areas of geo data.

“On Race Day Sunday you’ll see hotspots activity – an actual application of geodata to a live event. And with the social context on top of location, we show a unique kind of view to what’s actually happening on the ground,” Skyhook’s VP of Marketing, Kate Imbach says.

She notes that they also did something similar for Country Music Festival in Nashville in June. “Turns out they love the crap out of their Keith Urban — the activity went off the charts the second he took the stage,” she humorously remarks. You can see that data here.

These data showcases do offer up a kind of neat visual way to follow events remotely. And this one saves you the hassle of running 26 miles.

I’m not gonna lie — most of the venues I check-in to on apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt are bars. Most of the time I’m not there to have dinner either. Instead, I’m there to enjoy an adult beverage. Or three. So why not cut out the middlemen, and instead use a location-based app that flips the equation and focuses on the drinks themselves? That’s exactly what iSwig is. It’s perfect.

Humorously, the app was built by Skyhook Wireless, the service that’s one of the largest providers of geolocation data in the world. They’re smart. They know that most end users couldn’t care less about this data, they just want fun apps that utilize it. And that’s exactly what iSwig is.

The iPhone app is simple. You load it up and pick out the drink you happen to be enjoying. There are thousands of drinks in the database, from vague (bourbon) to specific (Redheaded Slut). Drinks are broken up into five categories: Liquor, Mixed, Shot, Beer, and Wine. Once you pick the drink you have, the next page locates you on a map, and asks if you’d like to tie yourself (or more specifically, your drink) to a venue. These venues come from both Skyhook’s data and Foursquare’s venue data. You can then leave a comment if you wish, choose to post it to Facebook and/or Twitter, and you’re set.

The app doesn’t even require that you sign-in (or have an account) to use it. You can choose to use a nickname or not. But if you want to, you can also hook it up to Facebook via Connect or to Twitter. You can also hook it up to the aforementioned Foursquare so that you can check-in when you’re drinking. And you can hook it up to Flickr as well for any photos you take of the drink. All of this optional integration is actually quite impressive.

A Home stream allows you to see all the activity by other users on iSwig. But you can also narrow it down to see just what people around you are drinking. And you can easily alter time to see all the way back to the last year of drinks around you, or “just now.” Plus, you can see what the top drinks are at any given time. This works on a global level, and all the way down to a 5 mile radius of where you currently are (it’s a sliding scale). For example, globally, Dewar’s is the drink of choice this past month, followed by Absolut and margaritas.

You can also see data broken down by individual drinks. For example, you can see a timeline of all those drinking whiskey recently. And you can see a leader board of the top drinkers of each drink. Awesome. And you can add any drink to your “faves.”

Again, all of this is just a way to showcase some of Skyhook’s huge amount of data (as well as get them another layer — the alcohol layer). And it’s meant to show just how easy it is to build an app on top of their data. But it’s an ingenious way. Skyhook says it took them just a couple of days to build this with their Local Faves social location SDK.

I’ve complained before about check-in fatigue — that there are simply too many location-based apps out there right now. Unfortunately, that usually stops me from using most of them regularly. But iSwig is one I’m definitely going to be using. If nothing else, it will help me remember where I was and what I was drinking last night.

You can find iSwig in the App Store here. It’s a free download.

SpotRank gives developers access to hundreds of million of anonymous location entry points put into the Skyhook system. In fact, there are some 500 million points (100 meter “spots”) at the service’s launch. With this massive amount of data, developers can do things such as predict what locations will be hot on which nights, or predict traffic patterns. They have so much data because it’s not based around things like check-ins, which are hot right now on the consumer side of location, but rather everytime a device needs location for anything.

The first partner signing up to use SpotRank is SimpleGeo. It seems like a perfect partnership. SimpleGeo provides back-end location services for many startups, so the more data, the better. And Skyhook’s data goes back several years, a nice addition for the young SimpleGeo.

One thing SimpleGeo co-founder Matt Galligan is particularly excited about is that the SpotRank data is all time-coded. This will allow users of its service to do trending data. And SimpleGeo is working on making the data realtime.

Other partners interested in signing up for SpotRank include the hot location startup Gowalla, and ShopKick, the soon-to-launch retail location check-in service (makers of the CauseWorld app that we’ve covered a few times).

At some point tomorrow, the SpotRank data should be live on Skyhook’s site showing some SXSW data — which will no doubt be huge with the Location War going on.

[photo: flickr/flattop341]

It was only a matter of time before a location tracking app found its way into laptop security software. Laptop Cop, which lets you remotely control your computer and delete files if it is stolen, now has a geo-location feature based on WiFi-hotspot triangulation technology from Skyhook Wireless. It is the same technology that is used in the iPhone (along with GPS and cell-tower triangulation) to determine your location for geo-aware apps. Now you can tell the cops exactly what door to knock on, more or less.

Laptop Cop costs $50. It does come with those other features as well. But if you want the same Lojack service for your laptop without paying, you can download MyLoki for free. It is a browser add-on from Skyhook that broadcasts the location of your laptop. And anyone can always check your personal MyLoki page to see where your is laptop (which is supposed to be a proxy for you, but not when it’s been stolen).

It won’t be too long before all of your devices will tell you where they are.

Update: There’s another laptop recovery service from GadgetTrak for Macs that also uses Skyhook. In addition to the WiFi positioning, it also uses the Mac’s built-in camera to to take a picture of the perp and sends it to your Flickr account. So busted.

Some of the most compelling apps on the iPhone and upcoming Android phones take advantage of the GPS chips inside those devices to create services that filter information based on your location. While GPS chips are particularly good at pinpointing your location, other techniques are also used. For instance, the iPhone uses cell-tower triangulation and Wi-Fi positioning. No single technology works all the time, so having a couple fallback methods is always a good idea.

Although not talked about as much, the Wi-Fi positioning is made possible through a deal with Skyhook Wireless. Now Broadcom, which makes many of the GPS, Wi-Fi and other types of chips in a vast array of phones, is adding Skyhook’s Wi-Fi positioning to its chips as well. That means more phones will be able to take advantage of location-based apps in the future.

Skyhook keeps a constantly updated database of millions of geo-coded Wi-Fi hotspots around the country. So any phone with a Broadcom Wi-Fi chip will be able to tap into SkyHook’s database. (You can test how good SkyHook’s location detection works yourself on your laptop using its MyLoki service, which is based on the same technology).

If you look at my Facebook page you might think that I’m still in Miami, although I returned from that trip two weeks ago. I simply forgot to change my location status back to New York City. The problem with most location updates on Facebook or elsewhere is that they require you to manually change your status every time you get on a plane. Finally, though, there is an easier way to broadcast your location automatically. It is called MyLoki.

MyLoki is a service offered by Boston-based SkyHook Wireless, the same company behind the GPS-like, WiFi-locating technology in the iPhone. Skyhook can determine your location based on the nearest WiFi routers that it picks up through your laptop or other computing device.

After first downloading the Loki toolbar for your browser, whenever you are in the vicinity of a WiFi hotspot it should be able to triangulate your location. You can then broadcast this information in a number of ways. You get your own MyLoki page that shows people your exact location, or you can embed a constantly updated map with your position on your blog:

You can add the map as a Facebook app:

You also can create an embeddable badge and append it to your e-mail signature.

Or you can even create a location feed that anyone obsessed with your whereabouts can subscribe to. This feed integrates with any GeoRSS service, such as Google MyMaps. MyLoki also works with Jaiku and Yahoo’s Fire Eagle. No Twitter integration yet, but that is in the works.

MyLoki lets you enable or disable each broadcast option. For privacy, most only show what city you are in. The embeddable map lets you choose between country, state, city, zipcode or exact location in revealing where you are. If the application becomes popular, Skyhook CEO Ted Morgan thinks that Websites will want to localize their content (and ads) to Web surfers with Loki-enabled browsers. Good thing those privacy settings can be turned on and off.