by Justin on March 12, 2010
With SXSW going on in Austin, Texas, the big focus in the blogosphere is on location-based applications, probably most of which are tied somehow to social networking. Personally though, I find Google’s Product Search for mobile with local inventory much more interesting.
Live as of yesterday, the mobile application lets searchers see in product search results if products are in stock at nearby stores.
For example, in the image above, a search for Wii Fit displays a result with a blue dot and phrase “In stock nearby” underneath. If the searcher clicks on the phrase or dot, they’ll be taken to the seller’s page where there will be more information, a Google Maps listing and the option to get directions if My Location is enabled.
Currently the application works on the iPhone, Palm webOS and Android. It also works from Google.com if the searcher clicks on Shopping under the More tab–all from a mobile browser of course.
Right now, only a few retailers are participating in the program including Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn and West Elm. Other businesses that wish to participate can film out this form.
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by Justin on March 12, 2010
The demise of paid mobile mapping applications has begun. Just last year, European wireless carrier Vodafone shelled out $30 million to purchase Swedish startup Wayfinder, a turn-by-turn navigation platform. Of course, at the time Vodafone has every intention of charging for the application to make that $30 million back.
With the release of free Google Maps Navigation and free Nokia Ovi Maps navigation, both fully featured turn-by-turn navigation apps, Vodafone’s Wayfinder vision was cooked and the service has been officially shut down.
Vodafone’s Anna Cloke spoke to Engadget and put things into perspective:
“We could not charge for something that other gave away for free.”
And the deathwatch begins…
by Justin on March 11, 2010
If you haven’t yet heard of Chatroulette, it’s some crazy site that provides webcam video chats with complete strangers.
I really shouldn’t have to say anything more for you to picture the unsavory potential here.
A couple of months after the site reached global infamy, the first map mashup has appeared called Chatroulette Map. The application pulls the IP addresses of its users, and together with a screenshot, plots the whole package on a map.
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by Justin on March 11, 2010
Google today has extended its 360-degree, Street View photographic imagery coverage in the United Kingdom to include 95% of homes in the country and another 210, 000 miles of road.
Europe has been on fire recently with allegations that Street View, part of Google Maps, amounts to nothing more than a
privacy invasion. Despite this, Spain, France and Italy join the UK as European Union countries that have been fully mapped by Google.
Users can request that Google remove images of them or their properties from Street View if they so choose.
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by Justin on March 11, 2010
Other US carriers including
Sprint and AT&T are also members of the initiative meaning that T-Mobile’s 1000+ developers will have access to remote location information from over 150 million mobile devices across the United States.
The Veriplace platform provides a simple and single API that developers can hook into location-based applications, one that is even compatible with indoor geolocation acquisitions.
You can find out more about the Veriplace Location Aggregation Platform at http://developer.veriplace.com.
by Justin on March 11, 2010
New Delhi-based
MapmyIndia has released the
Road Pilot GPS navigator for India’s automotive market. The 3.5-inch wide, touch screen unit, which doesn’t utilize a cellular connection, features pre-loaded maps of 620 cities, 30, 000 tourist locations, 576, 000 towns and cities and 2 million points of interest.
The Road Pilot navigates using voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions and has some new power-saving features like Sleep Mode which puts the navigator in standby mode when not in use so it can be booted up instantly the next time it is used. At the same time, battery power waste is reduced.
Available now in India, the Road Pilot GPS navigator costs Rs. 7,990 or roughly US$175.
by Justin on March 10, 2010
TeleNav, a GPS navigation and mapping provider, has made good use of the location data it collects from the more than 13 million users of its navigation applications and
published a report about some of their habits. Completely anonymized of course, the data reveals that
business searches are perhaps just as important as the traditional navigation features TeleNav offers.
The analysis, confined to the United States, has revealed that Walmart is the most searched for business using TeleNav data, followed by Starbucks, Target, Best Buy and Bank of America. All of these businesses have made a splash in the mobile application marketplace with dedicated applications for various mobile platforms such as the iPhone. Not surprisingly, America’s favorite food by search is pizza, followed by Chinese and burgers.
When it comes to traditional navigation usage, bigger cities such as Los Angeles tend to mean more users attempt to re-route to avoid traffic or just use GPS in the first place. The report is a good, visual read with lots of pictures. Definitely worth it.
by Justin on March 10, 2010
Google, answering demand from the public,
has added bicycling directions to Google Maps in the United States. By
tweaking its routing algorithm, Google has enabled cyclists to route out a journey from point A to point B that manages to take into account hills, traffic on arterial roads and even busy intersections. This means that things like steep hills and traffic lights won’t be part of your bike route to work, likely lessening the time it takes to get there and reducing the overall effort.
The data for the bike trails was acquired in partnership with the
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and includes more than 12, 000 miles of coverage in 150 cities across the US. When looking at the map, dark green lines indicate bike-only trails, light green indicate a dedicated bike lane along a road and dashed green lines indicate roads that are preferred for cycling but do not include dedicated lanes. The routing algorithm will first favor dark green routes and gradually add less weight until it reached dashed green routes.
Like all other Google products,
Google Maps biking directions will be improved with the help of user feedback. The company also says that once Map Maker is available in the United States, riders will be able to contribute their own information as well.
by Justin on March 9, 2010
I’ve always known it would just be a matter of time until Facebook rolled out built-in geolocation features. According to the New York Times Bits blog, citing company sources, Facebook will officially announced geolocation features at its annual f8 developers conference in late April. According to Bits, Facebook will not only allow users to append location information to their status updates but also provide a set of APIs so that developers can allow location information to be shared with the social networking platform.
With 400 million users this has the potential to turn the location-based application industry upside down. Facebook’s 100 million active mobile users are perhaps even more significant. But the company says it won’t attempt to compete with the Foursquare’s and Gowalla’s of the world, but rather try to take on Google in the local small business advertising niche. How that’ll work remains to be seen.
Twitter has also apparently rolled out geolocation capabilities on its website today though it’s been available from mobile phones and via its API for some time.
by Justin on March 9, 2010
by Greg Bartlett / guest author
When was the last time you looked at a picture of you or your family and asked yourself “Where in the world was that taken?” Unless you’re obsessive about cataloguing each photo you take, chances are it’s happened more than once. For those of us who can’t remember our own birthdays, much less where we were when that photo of the pretty butterfly was taken, Sony has introduced a GPS tracker to supplement your memory banks.
The photo mapper is a small GPS tracking device that can be clipped to your belt or backpack as you walk. It keeps track of your location throughout the day by recording coordinates at intervals. Simply carry it with you and make sure it’s clock is synchronized with the clock on your camera. At the end of the day, you can download the information to your computer and the software will match the location information with the time stamp on your digital photographs. You’ll have an instant map of your adventures plus new categorizing abilities including organization by trip, state, or city in which the pictures were taken. An online map powered by Google Maps allows you to add additional photos, keeping a photographic record of your travels that can be updated after each new excursion. Acting as virtual markers on the map, you pictures will synchronize with the location information in order to put place names at your fingertips rather than at the tip of your tongue.
Whether your next vacation includes several cities, several states, or several countries, you’ll never again have to worry about looking at a quaint village nestled in the hillside and wondering whether it was in Italy or Spain, or whether that vineyard was in California or Nevada. Your GPS tracking device will do the remembering for you and when you go to show off your travels to family and friends, you can focus on relating the humorous or special details that made the trip memorable rather than stumbling over memory lapses regarding specific place names.
GPS tracking devices have become an integral part of our lives and can be expected to become even more so as new technology incorporates tracking in order to make everything from jogging to photography a little easier. Watch for new innovations to help you keep tabs on family and friends, no matter where in the world they might travel.
