Tuesday, October 27. 2009

Podcast: The State of Augmented Reality

What is augmented reality and how does it relate to geospatial technology? Is it "just cool" or are there real uses for it? Further, is there any money it? Our editors offer up definitions, uses and suggestions for geospatial companies waiting on the sidelines.

Monday, October 26. 2009

VentureBeat: State of Mobile Social Networks

Saad Fazil does a roundup and explains why these networks are still not reaching their potential:

We decided to try out several of these apps ourselves and talk to the companies and several industry experts to find out. And what we found out is that there seem to be four factors holding these networks back: Users are hesitant to join unless their friends are already on board, businesses won’t join up without a critical mass of users, many phones still can’t handle the necessary technology, and there are privacy and behavioral concerns.

Friday, October 23. 2009

First Foursquare Transit Partner: BART

San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit will offer up free tickets for those who "check in" in various locations. "From November onward, the transit authority will award $25 promotional tickets to random users who check-in at one of 34 BART stations."

- ReadWriteWeb

Thursday, October 22. 2009

Loopt Acquires GraffitiGEO

I guess that broke the other day (TechCrunch). I wrote about the company in August. (APB) Now, TechCrunch has actual comments from Loopt CEO Sam Altman.

"In particular, he [Altman] says Loopt has been exploring location-based social gaming, local reviews, and augmented reality (which is another area GraffitiGeo has experimented in), so the company seemed like a good fit."

Wednesday, October 21. 2009

What your mobile local searches say about you...

Turns out, per uLocate, the folks behind WHERE:

...BlackBerry users are more likely to compare gas prices online than other smart-phone owners. IPhone users, meanwhile, are eight times more likely to search for Starbucks ... locations than users of other smart phones...

Monday, October 19. 2009

Foursquare to be "everywhere" Soon

One of the Foursquare founders, Dennis Crowley, posted at the company's GetSatisfaction forum: "Just FYI we’re a few weeks away from doing *everywhere*." For those not keeping up, the "game" added London two weeks ago and 15 North American cities last week.

- The Next Web