Hub on Google Apis

Google Latitude is one of the latest api's to be launched by google .

And there is no doubt that this product has been made keeping in

mind the mobile internet user's in mind .This thread is about how

you can use the google latitude api to create killer apps . You can

also use your google latitude account to continiusoly track your location

and create an history of his location data to track abnormal behavior .

There are two ways through which you can use the google latitude api

1) Google Latitude Api through Oauth verification

2) Google Latitude through badge api .

In this thread I will be showing you how you can retrieve the

location using google latitude badge api .

You need to have a google latitude account created or enabled

if you already have an google account . Next Step goto

https://www.google.co.in/latitude/b/0/apps

In this page enable Google Public Location Badge to show the best

city level location .Note down your userid in the iframe block .

Once you are done with that you are ready to get started with the

coding to get the users's location . The php code is as given below

<?php
//Replace the YOURUSERID in the url below with your Badge userid .

$url="http://www.google.com/latitude/apps/badge/api?user=YOURUSERID&type=json";

// We get the content

$content = file_get_contents( $url );

// We convert the JSON to an object

$json = json_decode( $content );

$coord = $json->features[0]->geometry->coordinates;

// this will give you the coordinates of the user

echo $coord ;

$timeStamp = $json->features[0]->properties->timeStamp;

// timestamp of the last update

echo $timestamp ;

// If you want to retrieve the longitude & latitude separately $latitude=$coord[0];

$longitude=$coord[1];

echo "Your current coordinates Latitude :".$latitude." Longitude".$longitude ;

?>

You can either use this data to mashup with other api's like Google Maps api

or Google Weather Api to create killer apps .

For mashups ,howto and source code on google latitude api you can visit

my blog page

http://googlelatiude.blogspot.com/2011/03/google-latitude-mashup-with-google-maps.html

Thanks ,

Vaishakh