Tuesday, October 21. 2008

MapQuest Optimized for iPhone

That from the MapQuest blog.

Google Gears Location Tapping Now Can Use Wi-Fi

Gears is an add-on for many browsers ( Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox other coming) and built-in technology in Chrome and Android, that provides extra goodies including geolocation. Until now, geolocation in Gears was provided by cell tower locations and was aimed at mobile phone apps. Today, Google announced location support via Wi-Fi access points. No word on if the technology is Google's or Skyhooks or someone else's.

ITN, Independent Television News, based in Britain, is one of the first content providers to use the API.

Also, Android, Google open source operating system, is now available to all, not just to selected developers. Download it here.

Federal Satellite Buy Plan, BASIC, Scrapped

Cost was the main reason according to an AP story which explains that House and Senate intelligence appropriations committees cut all the funding for 2009 along with what was left for 2008. The National Reconnaissance Office, NRO, planned to acquire two birds, like those of DigitalGlobe and GeoEye for launch around 2012. BASIC, the Broad Area Space-Based Imagery Collection satellite system including funding for those and monies to acquire additional commercial imagery.

Beginning of End of PND Market?

Investor's Daily suggests two scenarios: a few more year of growth driven by lower prices, then death, or it's already dead.

Phones with navigation and other electronic goodies (e-book readers, music players, etc.) will grab consumer dollars. And what of the nav companies that try to fight back, like Garmin with the nuvifone? Jeff Evanson, an analyst at Dougherty & Co. calls it a bomb, noting it is ugly and late.

On the other hand, IBD notes in a second article that NIM and TeleNav are making good money from carriers by providing for fee navigation on phones. Noteworthy in the coverage: IBD notes that NIM and TeleNav get data from NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas (owners Nokia and TomTom are mentioned) but does not mention that the underlying navigation and mapping tools are from deCarta.

Russia May Ban GPS

Use of the system is not currently banned. Though it was until Dec 2006 for security reasons. But the law was ignored, so it was dropped. (Moscow Times)

Two years later, the officials are reconsidering:

However, during recent meeting on space industry, government representatives said that they planned to ban GPS navigation system from being used on municipal and public means of transportation.

The "why" of the proposed ban was not addressed in any coverage I found.

- Russia IC

Quote of the Week

"The public should have access to the same crime information, virtually the same crime information that the NOPD uses on a daily basis to identify emerging crime patterns."

- Brain Denzer commenting on the slow updates and filtering that prompted him to create his own interactive maps of crime in New Orleans in WWLTV.