Facebook Code Reveals HTML5 Location Tools, Checkin

While most of the planet is excited to hear about McDonald’s being in line to be the first to use Facebook’s as yet unannounced geospatial tools (Ad Age), TechCrunch has the scoop on the tech based on perusing some not yet turned on code. Facebook confirmed there is a product (TechCrunch) and a launch, but not much else. Oh, and there will be no marketing partners at launch.

This touch version of Facebook’s site is attempting to populate something called the “places_tab.” Unfortunately, Facebook hasn’t enabled that yet, so it throws the error. While that alone is interesting, much more interesting is what you find when you dig deeper into this JavaScript.

Based on the code, this is what it seems that Facebook is about to launch: A mobile version of the site using the HTML5 location component to grab your location information from your phone. Once it does that, you’re taken to this new Places area of Facebook that presumably will have a list of venues around you. From here you can click a button to check-in. Yes, there will be check-ins.

But it’s slightly more interesting than that as well. Facebook will record not only your latitude and longitude, but also your altitude, heading, and speed, according to this code (and assuming they can get all of that information). It will also record the accuracy of the location measurement. I’m just speculating here, but perhaps that will help curb cheating that has begun to run rampant on other location services like Foursquare.

- TechCrunch via Pocket-Lint