The “Locate Me” feature in Virtual Earth is clever–it can locate your position by checking for access points at known positions. (Give it a try. It’s very cool. Requires a download.)
But I wonder, is this really that scalable of a technique? I can see it working reasonably well with access points that are fixed, however, is this a good assumption for home-owned or small business access points? What if people move? What if they upgrade their hardware? What if they carry their access point with them on a trip? Or shuttle it back and forth from work? Of course, noone says every access point needs to be added to the database. However, I still wonder if the technique will scale in location and over time.
I wonder if an EVDO version may be supported in the future. That would be interesting too.