TechEd EMEA 08 - MBL305 Creating Location Aware Applications for Windows Mobile

Resource Page Description
The GPS Intermediate Driver (GPSID) allows you to make use of GPS hardware on Windows Mobile Devices in a generic way. Multiple applications can retrieve GPS information simultaneously thanks to the multiplexing capabilities of GPSID. Even legacy applications can use GPSID through a virtual COM Port.

This sample shows you how to make use of the GPS Intermediate Driver (GPSID) to display your current location using Virtual Earth Web Services 1.0 on a Windows Mobile Device. The application continuously reads lat/long information through GPSID, and, upon menu requests get Reverse Geocode information (street address given lat/long data) and Virtual Earth map updates. This code sample shows you how to obtain information about changes in location in an event driven manner and how to update the application’s UI with new location data. Updating the UI requires some special attention, because you will receive location updates on a separate thread. For more background information, you can download and listen to the following on-demand webcast.
Note: Virtual Earth maps are displayed in a web browser UI control in this sample. The reason for that is to make the code simple and understandable. There are other ways to show Virtual Earth mapping information.

In order to use the Virtual Earth Web Services 1.0 you need a Virtual Earth developer account. You can sign up for a free Virtual Earth Developer account here. Once you have received a user name and password, you need to put them into the sample solution. To do so, expand the SampleCode project in Solution explorer, expand its properties entry and double click on the file resources.resx. In the displayed string table, set the values of VirtualEarthPassword and VirtualEarthUserName to the credentials you have received by signing up for a developer account. Also, make sure to refresh the link to the Virtual Earth CommonService, because you need to provide your own user credentials (similar as above) to this service as well.

NOTE: You have to be connected to the Internet with either the emulator or a physical device in order to display Virtual Earth data.