Broadcom Integrates Wi-Fi Into Chips

Broadcom is busy integrating Wi-Fi support into its GPS navigation chips. The reason for doing so would be to let cell phones or any device with said chips to use the local network for positioning. This utilizes a technique licensed from Skyhook that uses known Wi-Fi points to triangulate a rough location when GPS positioning is hard to come by or even unavailable. By doing so, devices should be able to get a GPS lock much faster in urban areas, or even indoors, where GPS signals are normally rather weak. The iPhone 3G is one of the few phones to actually take advantage of such features, which just goes to show how much thought Apple put into their iPhone.