Update: SXSW LBS News - 3/6/12

Update: Friday Facebook announced it would acquire Glancee and its 20,000 current users. Per RWW "Glancee is a smartphone app that tells you when people with similar interests are in the same location as you."

- Glancee

- RWW

--- original post 3/6/12 ----

The hot LBS apps per DigitalTrends? HIghlight and Glancee, two passive "find nearby people of interest" apps.

There’s a new trend set to emerge at this year’s SXSW know as “ambient social networking.” At the helm of this burgeoning trend is the budding two-person startup, Highlight, headed by founder and CEO, Paul Davison.

While in the past, Foursquare and Gowalla were the location-based apps that made headlines, the latest innovation a is new breed that sits on your phone and runs silently behind the scenes. 

- DigitalTrends

I'm not sure if the timing of this announcement is related to SXSW but it might be. Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai is leaving to do something new.

- C|net

LocalScope has a SXSW update:

Its been an exciting weekend for us here at Cynapse. We released an update for Localscope - v2.1 with new features, improvements, fixes and more. Further terrific news is that Apple has yet again chosen Localscope as one of their favorite apps on the App Store Staff Favorites section! Its an awesome feeling of accomplishment each time, inspiring us in our endeavors of consistently improving Localscope

 

v2.1 introduces an Interactive Full Screen Map view with pinch, zoom and pan functionality to get a quick bird's eyeview of a point of interest and its surroundings. Localscope now leverages the iOS5 Twitter integration enabling a smoother experience for users to share locations. We've also added support for the Turkish language. We now support 20 languages and are proud to reach out to such a diverse set of audience across the globe.

Skyhook on the Kindle and other LBS News

Skyhook, the world leader in location information, context and intelligence, today announced TweetCaster, the #1 third-party mobile Twitter app, has integrated Skyhook's Location Engine in its Amazon Kindle Fire. Location services are now available on this device for the first time.

- press release

MapMuse today announced the release of Main Street Locator, a free app that connects users with historic Main Street districts across the USA. Main Street, Inc. is a grassroots economic development initiative sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation that helps revitalize commercial districts through preservation-based strategies.

- press release

The mobile app ‘Girls Around Me’ got a lot of press recently. What does it do? What you'd expect: finds girls. How? But using the Foursquare API (until the company turned off access due to breaking terms of API use and the company behind it removed it from the Apple iTunes Store), Google Maps and Facebook. It was said to allow those interested to see their full name, photos, and send them messages. The app was on the market for some months before a journalist at the Cult of Mac wrote about it in the last few days.

- Forbes

Forecast Update and other LBS News

Well a new version of the location-based application Forecast aims to get us back into the swing of sharing our every movement, but the difference is you don't check-in as you visit places, you aim to predict where you're going to be later in the day or week so there's more chance you'll bump into those you know.

You begin by creating your own Forecast about where you're planning on going and what you're planning on doing there. This information will then be linked up to your Foursquare account so that your friends can receive notifications about what you're up to and when you do eventually check-in. Forecast's recent integration with Facebook also means your friends will be updated about your future Forecasts and your check-ins on your Timeline too.

- Shiny Shiny

Dennis Crowley of Foursquare was one of three people in the keynote at Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona. The others were from Nokia (Elop) and HTC. Crowley outlined the Foursquare vision.

Ultimately, he sees Foursquare as an omnipresent layer of data which is open to other apps via its API – arguably its most important “feature”. “Anywhere you see a map, you should see foursquare dots on it,” he said.

- Mashable

FireWhat, a tech start-up in Dunsmuir, CA developed a revolutionary mapping and weather platform for wildfires around the country. Using a NASA satellite, WeatherUnderground Inc. local weather data, tracking information from Air Attack on-scene at wildfires, and Google Maps satellite imagery, firewhat.com provides current wildland fire perimeter data on a map showing roads, terrain, and local area weather.

A free verison will be available for iOS and Android April 1.

- press release

Finding Naturist Areas and other LBS News

MapMuse today announced the 2012 release of its Nude Beach and Naturist Maps, a series of web maps and an accompanying iPhone app that plot the locations of nude beaches, nude resorts, nudist clubs, nudist colonies, and nude runs around the world.

- press release

Glassmap, an app (Android/iOS, Facebook log-in) to passively share your location with friends, has lauched. It started at Standord, where 10% of students use it and has launched at 10 other schools. The big improvement ovr other apps like this (Google Latitiude, Loopt)? It uses an order of magnitude less battery.

- ReadWriteWeb

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Thursday proposed voluntary guidelines for [auto] manufacturers, including a recommendation that they design dashboards so that distracting devices are automatically disabled unless the vehicle is stopped and the transmission is in park.

Thankfully, backers understand that sometimes a passenger keys in an address to the in-car GPS or of course driver could use a phone not integrated into the dashboard for navigation. Maybe that's why this is voluntary.

- AP

Groupon has acquired Hyperpublic, a small company that develops location-based technology that can be integrated into other applications.

- PC World

Google has added "leaderboards" to Google Latititude, something many suggest means its going after Foursquare in a big way. You earn points for checking in and data is shared on Google +. So far the feature is only on the latest Google Maps for Android.

- PC Mag

Nokia Maps Suite Beta Debuts and other LBS News

Under the name of Nokia Maps Suite we have, in fact, packaged a series of tools that will help you experience adventures everyday: Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive and Nokia Public Transport are just the beginning. You are going to love all the apps included in the newest release of Nokia Maps Suite. Just point your browser to Nokia Beta Labs to download it now.

My sense is this a two fold effort: first to continue to rebrand mapping from NAVTEQ to Nokia Maps and second to collect what seem to be dozens of LBS apps into a single suite.

- Nokia Conversations Blog

[Waze is] introducing a hands-free way to activate and file reports with the iOS version of the software.

Waze, impatiently waiting for Apple to open up its Siri APIs to developers, has taken the unusual approach of using the iPhone's proximity sensor to activate a voice-controlled interface in its application. A simple wave of the hand will initiate voice-control, allowing drivers to quickly navigate, report traffic, and alert others to road hazards. The app uses Apple's native Siri speech recognition for addresses and local search queries, and will also disable text input while the car is in motion. Unlike Apple's Siri voice control, there's no reason a driver needs to touch the screen or push a button to interact with Waze.

- The Verge

Foursquare last week announced something new: a way to search for venues "where you are not." This is something Yelp and Google do not yet have.

- Co Design