The Gungle Ben Green makes nice with technology and humans

Google adds cell-tower location to it’s mobile map client

See your location on the map, with or without GPS. Save time and tedious keystrokes finding where you are, what’s around you, and how to get there. Watch the video on the right to see how it works.

Press “0″ and look for the blue dot:

or

Google Maps with My Location (beta)

While not quite high on the accuracy chart, the new application uses information broadcasted from cell towers and triangulates your approximate location. (Because of how the application estimates your location, a certain amount of information is sent to Google servers, and if you have privacy concerns, then you can turn the My Location feature off in your maps application.)

With Google’s My Location, Who Needs a GPS? – GigaOM

I tried upstairs at home and got a location 2.2km away, then I tried downstairs and got a location 500m away. I tried at work and got a position 1.5km away.
It’s nice and fast, and they don’t bother to render the street name on the interface, it’s just a dot and the semi-transparent circle that indicates approximation. The accompanying message is “Your location within 5000 metres”.

Google says 1000m on average, but that could be for the U.S. and UK.

You can use the approximate location in directions – there’s a checkbox for “GPS Location” that will also reference the cell-based location if there’s no GPS available.