I gotta get a GPS to scan Paris cell towers and participate to the OpenCellID database.

Also, there seems to be several other LBS technics for mobiles like Enhanced Cell ID, Angle of Arrival (AOA) and Time of Arrival (TOA), and JSR-179 seems to provide some of those data.

Actually, I wrote a Vélib XMPP bot that I use to check where to find available places (using a geocoding API amongst other things) with Bombus Mod. But to use it, I need to stop and write an address which is not very practical when riding a bike. What I’d like is to have relevant data always displayed on the mini-screen.

I have several ideas of weather forecasts, Vélib stations, FON WiFi hotspot, prices of gas stations or NAViTiA (SIEL) based midlets.

For static data, once the midlet listener get a CellID it would make a query to get and display relevant data.

For dynamic data (like from the NAViTiA or Vélib API), there should be a push mechanism which would allow to get real-time data, perhaps with XMPP Pubsub, and hence to avoid unnecessary polling requests.

For Vélib I doubt they would deliver data in real-time, but for NAViTiA I think it might possible.

Regarding the GUI, I wished to simulate CBS with its channels subscription mechanism. But apparently, a midlet can’t emulate CBS, so I’m searching for an alternative and thinking to the Nokia Themes SDK.

BTW, I tried to run a modified version of OpenCellIDTest.java for a Nokia Series 40 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1, following the S40 system properties description but the values appear as “null” because the midlet requires to be signed as mentioned here. So I either should learn to sign midlets or a get a S60 mobile.

But your idea of providing home screen with information is nice…It could be possible to do it with SonyEricsson too, as it’s one of the few handsets which allows j2me app to run as background, in the idle screen.

You can easily do an app to display location based information! And to be honest, this is a very smart idea, I like it! Do you have plans to works on this?

MTE_CELLID

Location method Cell-ID for cellular (in GSM, this is the same as CGI, Cell Global Identity). MTE_CELLID = 0×00000008

BTW, I have an idea of midlets : the goal is to be able to get “subscribed channels” informations always displayed on the screen or on the mini-screen of the mobile “in a standard manner”.

For example, I’d like to have always displayed the most close FON WiFi hotspot or the list of the most close Velib’ stations on the screen.

I was first thinking to Cell Info Display that appear on the screens. But it seems not possible for a midlet to emulate Cell Broadcast informations (apparently, only emulators like the WTK can), and even less to generate specific CBS informations like Cell Info Display.

So I’m now thinking to a midlet that would use the UI API specific to each class of devices to display those informations via the screensaver or in a similar manner using the screen (themes ?) API, but I don’t know if it’s possible.

There are very interesting mashups to do with CellID and POI databases using the calculation of the orthodromic distance, though.