Skyhook Wireless

Skyhook Wireless (formerly known as Quarterscope) is a Boston-based company that developed Wi-Fi positioning system technology for determining geographical location. Using the MAC addresses of nearby wireless access points and proprietary algorithms, Skyhook's Wi-Fi Positioning System WPS can determine the position of a mobile device within 10–20 meters. It provides service similar to GPS without GPS hardware and can also integrate with GPS-enabled devices to provide hybrid positioning. Skyhook Wireless claims that with sub-second time-to-first-fix, it can obtain 10–20 meter accuracy and near 100% availability indoors and in dense urban areas.

Skyhook's database is gathered through wardriving, and includes more than 250 million wi-fi access points and covers 70 percent of population centers in the United States, Canada, Western Europe and selected Asian countries.

Skyhook Wireless offers Loki, a free 'virtual GPS' toolbar that automatically integrates a user's location with web content such as Google Maps, Fandango, Weather.com, etc. It has been now replaced by a "Find Me" page on the website, as well as tools and SDK's used for adding location-based data to sites such as WeatherBug.com.

Skyhook announced a partnership to help users in geotagging their pictures.

At the Macworld Conference & Expo in January 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that both the iPhone and iPod Touch would use Skyhook's WPS as the primary location engine for Google Maps and other applications. All Apple devices utilized Skyhook's WPS until the iPhone/iPad software 3.2 release in April 2010, which utilized Apple's own location technologies.