The Balloon Browser recognizes and highlights geo-coordinates in web pages. Hovering over a recognized location advises another application to show a map of the corresponding area. For now the only program Balloon Browser can interact with is Google Earth.
Instead of waiting for the one true geo-notation and markup standard, Balloon Browser tries to parse a variety of common coordinate notations. Ambiguous information like a missing hemisphere identifier are reconciled by looking at the context or the probability of a certain location.
Thanks to the GPS system and low-cost devices that can be used by everybody, the number of websites tagging their content with geo-coordinates (using latitude and longitude) is increasing rapidly.
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