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NBC confirms it was a hoax. FAT put the logo and camera on the car. Again, still clever!
“This car was not an official Google car since we are currently not driving through Germany as there are not optimal weather and light conditions at this time of year,” Google Spokeswoman Laura Scott wrote.
Even as Apple tries to “manage” apps that offer location-based ads (listen to today’s podcast), Loopt has signed a deal with coupon start-up Mobile Spinach to offer just that sort of ads. Loopt, best known as a “friend finder” app made the statement Monday, but the ads began appearing the Bay Area earlier this month. As the Wall Street Journal put it:
When Loopt users log on, they’ll now see messages for nearby offers in addition to a map of their friends.
Loopt had been generating revenue from a cut of carriers fees to use the app, but figures it can make more this way.
- WSJ Digits Blog
Foursquare today announced a deal with Zagat. A new “foodie” badge can be earned by visiting Zagat rated restaurants in selected cities.
GyPSii, the mobile digital lifestyle application and geo-mobility social media platform, and Telmap, the mobile search, mapping and navigation pioneers, are teaming to develop and introduce advanced location-based social networking as part of Telmap’s Mobile Location Companion.
Two “can’t just sit around” sort of people were concerned about Queensland’s koala population. They’ve launched a grassroots organization, Koala Diaries, to keep an eye on the population. One aspect, Project Location seeks to answer:
Just how many koalas are left?
Where do they live?
In what general condition?
ESRI Australia helped build a mapping portal where the public can report sightings.
The Kerala Google Mapping Party, second of its kind in India, caused concern to the Kerala Police:
“We are apprehensive about the way comprehensive mapping for it is to include strategic locations like the Indian Space Research Organisation, various units of the defence ministry etc,” said Sibi Mathews, Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence).
Organizers responded that the goal was to map neighborhoods and it seems the event went on without a hitch.
- India Today
Google Maps now include (Yahoo’s) Flickr user photos as another option in its Street View offerings. Those pictures join the Google-owned Panoramio and Picasa photo sites which also provides images.
Rural areas are home to most of the nearly 100 closed post offices in the last five years. That can mean that residents need to drive 15 more miles to the nearest facility. One elderly man died en route to the next closes post office during a snow storm. Those facts, along with at least one handwritten three page letter from an 87 year old have led to investigations as to weather the Postal Service has been following the law regarding closures.
Also noteworthy: the importance of ZIP Codes in emergency response (even though they are not really supposed to be used for such things):
Officials in the historic resort town of Crescent Lake say the suspension of their post office and loss of their own ZIP code caused confusion for search-and-rescue personnel called in after a plane crash and forest fire. Both times, rescuers mixed up Crescent with Crescent Lake and set up bases far from the scene, community members say.
The Postal Service is in financial trouble, but rural post offices account for about 1% of its budget per one retired postmaster.
- AP
I’ve noted that every paper of any size has, in the past few years, run and article about how Tele Atlas, NAVTEQ or now Google and other organizations are collecting street level data.
The new crop of obligatory articles are about local startups offering LBS apps. Most it seems are somehow about local transportation. In a classic example the state paper introduces Locomatix launched by a company founded by a UW professor.
