An introduction to geolocation

The term geolocation is used in order to refer to the identification process of the real-world geographic location of an object. Devices that are able to detect the user's position are becoming more common each day and we are now used to getting content based on our location (geo targeting).

Using the Global Positioning System (GPS)—a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information consistently across the globe—you can now get the accurate location of a device. During the early 1970s, the US military created Navstar, which is a defense navigation satellite system. Navstar was the system that created the basis for the GPS infrastructure used today by billions of devices. As of October 2014, 68 GPS satellites have been successfully placed in the orbit around the Earth (refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GPS_satellite_launches for a detailed report about the past and planned launches).

The location of a device is represented...