Mastodawn

no skyline this time but this image from The Age was a fun one to locate

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/warmest-june-night-to-duck-s-delight-dreary-melbourne-weather-here-to-stay-20260620-p608kp.html

#melbourne #geolocation #wheredat

Plutarch 5d ago

So I was watching this bodycam video on YouTube.

This is a screenshot of Google Maps in which I added points rounded to the fourth place past the decimal.

The bodycam was printing its location with a precision of six places, not four; this is, clearly now that we're literally looking at it, inaccurate. So I just sat there and watched, and whenever the fourth place past the decimal of either coordinate changed, I would add that as another point on my map. This was already easier than it could've been because there's a window in the video, meaning that at least one wall of said room must be exterior. So then I drew three triangles from a total of six points on the map, and I found that all three of them intersect at an exterior wall.

Either there's something I'm not seeing here, or that must've been the exact room.

Edit: typo, plus it was actually six points instead of nine, lol.

#YouTube #Geolocation #Geoguessr #OSINT #Random

Christian

Jun 15

#PWA and #geolocation on #iOS is a pain!
I had to reset my location and privacy settings so my OpenBookCase PWA asked me for location permissions. Before that I only got an error. -.-

fluentllc Jun 13

The Missing Link Between Agents and Applications TL;DR: Most agent tools run on the server, which means agents can call APIs but not interact with the browser, app state, or device capabilities … https://www.langchain.com/blog/agents-and-applications?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=fluentai%2Fmagazine%2FAIdeas #Technology #Geolocation #GeoTagging #ProgrammingLanguages #Apps

The Missing Link Between Agents and Applications

Most AI agent tools run on servers, limiting access to browser APIs, device capabilities, and frontend state. Discover how LangChain headless tools enable secure client-side tool execution for modern agent applications.

Buridan's procrastinator ⁂Jun 12

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@shodansafari/116736315005170967

#Geolocation quiz #Hamburg 😈

Welche Straße ist das? Das runde Dach am Ende kommt mir bekannt vor

Show thread

staringatclouds Jun 7

@kmck #geolocation
Can anyone figure out where the above picture was taken ?

Terence Eden’s Blog Jun 2

Using FourSquare's API to post location checkins to social media

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/06/using-foursquares-api-to-post-location-checkins-to-social-media/

What is this, 2016?

I like sharing my location with my pocket friends sometimes. If I'm in a cool bar that they know, perhaps they can recommend a drink. If they live nearby, maybe they want to come for dinner. Not everyone has FourSquare's SwarmApp, so it is handy to automatically share its updates with other people.

Of course, Swarm doesn't cross-post to social media because walled-gardens are the most profitable. This is my attempt to open it back up again.

Here's what they look like on BlueSky and Mastodon:

Checked in to Hamburger Fischmarkt, Große Elbstr. 9 (Fischmarkt), Germany Probably a *bit* early for a breakfast beer. See on Swarm

[image or embed]

— Terence Eden (@edent.tel) 24 May 2026 at 07:45 Post by @[email protected] View on Mastodon

tl;dr

You can get the SwarmToSocial code from my GitLab.

At the moment, developers get 10,000 API calls for free each month. That's probably more than enough for most personal uses.

Documentation

I was pleasantly surprised that FourSquare's CheckIn documentation was fairly easy to use and understand.

Once you've signed up for a developer account you can create an OAuth app. That will generate a Client ID (ABC123), Client Secret (XYZ789), and you supply a Project URL.

Once done you can follow the Authentication documentation. Or just visit:

https://foursquare.com/oauth2/authenticate?
   client_id=ABC123
  &response_type=code
  &redirect_uri=https://example.com/

Sign in with your FourSquare account. It will redirect you to:

https://example.com/?code=456QWE

Use that code to construct the final URl:

https://foursquare.com/oauth2/access_token?
   client_id=ABC123
  &client_secret=XYZ789
  &grant_type=authorization_code
  &redirect_uri=http://example.com/
  &code=456QWE

That will respond with the Access Token:

{
   "access_token":"asdfghjkl123456"
}

Hurrah! Posting a new checkin is relatively simple. POST to this URl with a header of accept: application/json

https://api.foursquare.com/v2/checkins/add?
   v=20260223
  &venueId=13600425
  &shout=This%20is%20a%20test
  &oauth_token=asdfghjkl123456

v is, rather confusingly, a date. The versioning documentation has more details but, basically, set it to the date you deployed your app.
venuId you'll need to find yourself (more on that later).
shout is up to 140 characters (!) of URl encoded text.

That will send back rather a lot of JSON. Here are the important bits:

{
  "meta": {
    "code": 200,
    "requestId": "123456789"
  },
  "response": {
    "checkin": {
      "id": "987654321",
      "createdAt": 1771843820,
      "type": "checkin",
      "visibility": "closeFriends",
      "shout": "This is a test of the API",
      "timeZoneOffset": -300,
      "editableUntil": 1771930220000,
      "user": {
        "id": "56367",
        "firstName": "Terence",
        "lastName": "Eden",
        "relationship": "self",
        "displayName": "Terence Eden"
      },
      "venue": {
        "id": "QWERTYUIOP",
        "name": "My Birthday Party!",
        "contact": {},
        "location": {
          "isFuzzed": true,
          "lat": 39.123456789,
          "lng": -84.987654321,
          "cc": "US",
          "city": "Cincinnati",
          "state": "KY",
          "country": "United States",
          "formattedAddress": [
            "Cincinnati, KY",
            "United States"
          ]
        }
      },
      "checkinShortUrl": "https://swarmapp.com/user/56367/checkin/987654321?s=wRZ7ByNfCW1DNrOIpsRcytPZelE"
    }
  }
}

For my purposes, the shout and checkinShortUrl are the most important. You can view a sample check in:

https://swarmapp.com/user/56367/checkin/699c34b55bad6b7fb1695544?s=LA7jCaAtH-s9CwSpgQrQdHrP5-8

Venue ID

If you're already using a service like Untappd you might be able to get the venue ID from that.

If not, FourSquare provides 100 million points of interest for free - although with questionable data quality.

Alternatively, you can search by location:

curl --request GET \
     --url 'https://places-api.foursquare.com/places/search?ll=51.123%2C0.123&radius=1000&sort=POPULARITY' \
     --header 'X-Places-Api-Version: 2025-06-17' \
     --header 'accept: application/json' \
     --header 'authorization: Bearer ABC123'

As far as I can see, the Bearer Token only exists on the documentation page. I couldn't find it in my developer console. Weird!

That gets you back:

{
  "results": [
    {
      "fsq_place_id": "4be584ed2457a593ad8cab15",
      "latitude": 51.11783041264215,
      "longitude": 0.11219274871133413,
      "categories": [
        {
          "fsq_category_id": "4bf58dd8d48988d1fa941735",
          "name": "Farmers Market",
          "short_name": "Farmers Market",
          "plural_name": "Farmers Markets",
          "icon": {
            "prefix": "https://ss3.4sqi.net/img/categories_v2/shops/food_farmersmarket_",
            "suffix": ".png"
          }
        }
      ],
      "date_created": "2010-05-08",
      "date_refreshed": "2025-11-01",
      "distance": 970,
      "extended_location": {},
      "link": "/places/4be584ed2457a593ad8cab15",
      "location": {
        "address": "",
        "locality": "Hartfield",
        "region": "East Sussex",
        "postcode": "",
        "admin_region": "England",
        "country": "GB",
        "formatted_address": "Hartfield, East Sussex"
      },
      "name": "Perryhill Farm Shop",
      "placemaker_url": "https://foursquare.com/placemakers/review-place/4be584ed2457a593ad8cab15",
      "related_places": {},
      "social_media": {
        "twitter": ""
      },
      "tel": "",
      "website": "http://www.perryhillorchards.co.uk/index.php?sec=4"
    },
    {
      "fsq_place_id": "8896f77565e54a658585301d",
      "latitude": 51.11649,
      "longitude": 0.13131,
      "categories": [],
      "date_created": "2021-12-06",
      "date_refreshed": "2021-12-06",
      "distance": 909,
      "extended_location": {},
      "link": "/places/8896f77565e54a658585301d",
      "location": {
        "address": "Priory Park, Beech Green Lane",
        "locality": "Withyham",
        "region": "East Sussex",
        "postcode": "TN7 4DB",
        "admin_region": "England",
        "post_town": "Hartfield",
        "country": "GB",
        "formatted_address": "Priory Park, Beech Green Lane, Withyham, East Sussex, TN7 4DB"
      },
      "name": "Spectra Studios",
      "placemaker_url": "https://foursquare.com/placemakers/review-place/8896f77565e54a658585301d",
      "related_places": {},
      "social_media": {},
      "tel": "01892 487149"
    },
  ],
  "context": {
    "geo_bounds": {
      "circle": {
        "center": {
          "latitude": 51.123,
          "longitude": 0.1234
        },
        "radius": 1000
      }
    }
  }
}

You can manually check a place using the Placemaker site: https://foursquare.com/placemakers/review-place/64eca80f0398c97ab52298ec

Getting Existing Checkins

What if you've checked in to a place using the official Swarm app? How do you get your own recent checkin data?

Again, there is documentation on getting user checkins.

curl --request GET \
     --url 'https://api.foursquare.com/v2/users/self/checkins?v=20260223&limit=2&offset=0&oauth_token=asdfghjkl123456' \
     --header 'accept: application/json'

Where it says oauth_token it actually means the access_token.

The JSON that is returned is a bit verbose, so I've simplified it here:

{
  "meta": {
    "code": 200,
    "requestId": "699c6505b488565a31e315e3"
  },
  "response": {
    "checkins": {
      "count": 2344,
      "items": [
        {
          "id": "699c34b55bad6b7fb1695544",
          "createdAt": 1771844789,
          "type": "checkin",
          "visibility": "closeFriends",
          "entities": [],
          "shout": "Testing the API using an Untappd FourSquare ID.",
          "timeZoneOffset": 0,
          "editableUntil": 1771931189000,
          "venue": {
            "id": "64eca80f0398c97ab52298ec",
            "name": "Abbey Wood Fossil Pit",
            "contact": {},
            "location": {
              "lat": 51.487514,
              "lng": 0.13048041,
              "postalCode": "SE2 0AX",
              "cc": "GB",
              "country": "United Kingdom",
              "formattedAddress": [
                "SE2 0AX"
              ]
            },
            "createdAt": 1693231119
          },
        },

Annoyingly, there's no checkinShortUrl which means it can't easily be shared.

For that, you'll need to use the get-checkin-details API:

curl --request GET \
     --url 'https://api.foursquare.com/v2/checkins/699c34b55bad6b7fb1695544?v=20250202&oauth_token=asdfghjkl123456' \
     --header 'accept: application/json'

Which will return this (truncated for brevity):

{
  "meta": {
    "code": 200,
    "requestId": "699c67de5f5c0a0e8ab234db"
  },
  "response": {
    "checkin": {
      "id": "699c34b55bad6b7fb1695544",
      "createdAt": 1771844789,
      "type": "checkin",
      "shout": "Testing the API using an Untappd FourSquare ID.",
      "timeZoneOffset": 0,
      "checkinShortUrl": "https://swarmapp.com/user/56367/checkin/699c34b55bad6b7fb1695544?s=LA7jCaAtH-s9CwSpgQrQdHrP5-8",

Photos

If there's a photo with the checkin, it will be return in the JSON like this:

{
  "response": {
    "checkin": {
      "photos": {
        "count": 1,
        "items": [
          {
            "id": "699f3a9f96799c05c0f16c9c",
            "createdAt": 1772042911,
            "prefix": "https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/",
            "suffix": "/56367_5VYox4Y-hs66wURVsYc1NLgOokfwBfcWhtKQrOlMdD8.jpg",
            "width": 1008,
            "height": 1344,

The URl for the image is prefix width x height suffix - in this case https://fastly.4sqi.net/img/general/1008x1344/56367_5VYox4Y-hs66wURVsYc1NLgOokfwBfcWhtKQrOlMdD8.jpg

You can adjust the width and height if you want a thumbnail or some other resolution.

If there's no photo, the count will be 0.

Putting it all together

Every 15 minutes, the SwarmToSocial code does the following:

Get the most recent checkin.

Read a local file to get the previously seen checkin ID.

If the checkin ID hasn't been seen before:

Get the checkin details.

Get the photo if it exists

Post the checkin (plus photo) to Mastodon & BlueSky.

Save the checkin ID to a file.

Enjoy!

#api #BlueSky #FourSquare #geolocation #MastodonAPI

Using FourSquare's API to post location checkins to social media

What is this, 2016? I like sharing my location with my pocket friends sometimes. If I'm in a cool bar that they know, perhaps they can recommend a drink. If they live nearby, maybe they want to come for dinner. Not everyone has FourSquare's SwarmApp, so it is handy to automatically share its updates with other people. Of course, Swarm doesn't cross-post to social media because walled-gardens…

Terence Eden’s Blog

Terence Eden Jun 2

🆕 blog! “Using FourSquare's API to post location checkins to social media”

What is this, 2016?

I like sharing my location with my pocket friends sometimes. If I'm in a cool bar that they know, perhaps they can recommend a drink. If they live nearby, maybe they want to come for dinner. Not everyone has FourSquare's…

Using FourSquare's API to post location checkins to social media

What is this, 2016? I like sharing my location with my pocket friends sometimes. If I'm in a cool bar that they know, perhaps they can recommend a drink. If they live nearby, maybe they want to come for dinner. Not everyone has FourSquare's SwarmApp, so it is handy to automatically share its updates with other people. Of course, Swarm doesn't cross-post to social media because walled-gardens…

Terence Eden’s Blog