Google Location Services API in Gears

TechCrunch UK (via TechCrunch US via Washington Post) reports on some new info on Google and LBS:

- “Location services API had been added to Google Gears” (Gears left limited beta last week and is open to all now)
- Google is “backing up their Location API with a large effort to map out cell-phone towers and wifi hotspots, so that a users location can be pin-pointed more precisely.”
- Google building its own database of cell towers/wi-fi hotspots (I think we knew that) and “users of the service will further refine and improve the service by having devices submit information on towers and signal strength” (I think we knew that, too)
- “an effort to develop and define a standard API for accessing Location data” (I expected a link to OGC, where Google is a member, but found a dead link to blog in India)