NeuAer: Another Radio Wave “Location” Solution

Says CEO Dave Mathews of NeuAer in Venture Beat about apps like Highlight that launched at SXSW this year:

The problem at hand with LBS apps is that they require the GPS radio to run nearly full-time, have a clear view of the sky to get a signal, and report back to a server their location.

They eat your batteries leaving you alone with no tweets or Facebook or anything. But of course he has a solution: using a bunch of radio waves as a signature for not locating per se, but prompting your device to "do something."

Sadly, the NeuAer website does not have a "how it works" page or video. But I found this digging into the blog:

This marks the first time that our ToothTag engine for proximity plumbing is available for developers to create their own web services that can be executed based upon your smartphone seeing another wireless radio.

And, Rafe at C|net did the due diligence:

Mathews' technology, ToothTag (can we talk about that?), uses all the radio signals that come into a phone--Wi-Fi, GPS, near-field, and most importantly Bluetooth--to fingerprint a location or a person with high accuracy. Most of the real-world locations and things you care about, he says, emit a complex radio-frequency signature based on more than one transmitter. Mobile-phone location services don't use enough of these signals, he says. When it comes to mobile assets like Bluetooth headsets, you don't even have to connect to the other device or "pair" with it. In other words, once you collect the Bluetooth signature from someone you know, you could, with ToothTag technology, get an alert on your mobile device whenever that person came within Bluetooth range of you.

So, you capture a signature of the place/object of interest, then identify what you want to happen when that place/object is in range again. As Rafe notes, there are all sorts of privacy implications here. The first: must you ask permission to capture someone's electronic signature? The app and developer tools are available for Android, with iPhone coming later.

I'm not expecting to see this solution hit it big.

Pinwheel offers Virtual Notes on the Landscape and other LBS News

Flickr and Hunch co-founder, Caterina Fake, has launched a new online venture called Pinwheel where users can leave virtual notes pinned on a map. This location-based startup idea is still currently in invite-only private beta mode, but has already generated a lot of buzz online. 

The potential difference between this and all the others just like it? Big name behind it.

- PSFK

Geoloqi, a powerful platform for next-generation location based services, officially launches today along with its language agnostic SDK for iOS and Android, and proprietary API. Geoloqi offers a complete stack of geolocation tools, including geo-fencing, messaging, security and analytics, that empowers the enterprise, government and developers to unlock the full potential of real-time location-based services and easily layer geolocation onto any device or application.

- press release

SpatialMatch.com, an overlay technology that can be embedded on an agent's website or perhaps on an entire multiple listing service, enables buyers to pursue properties using any number of lifestyle criteria. That's over and above the usual number of bedrooms and bathrooms and price, the benchmarks on which most people base their searches. ...

At CheckYourLandlord.com, potential renters can guard against dealing with shaky "accidental" landlords who turn to renting because they can't sell their underwater properties. Even though the owners are collecting rent, they sometimes can't keep up with their house payments and lose their properties to foreclosure.

For free, a renter can limit his or her risk by using the website to search databases to determine whether any notices of default have been filed against the property. Of course, there's no guarantee that the landlord won't run into financial difficulty after the place is rented. But at least you'll be warned before you sign a lease if he's already in trouble.

For $28 you can learn if the landlord owns the property, has filed for bankruptcy or other off-putting circumstances.

- LA Times

A recent ruling on GPS tracking has prompted the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to turn off about 3,000 tracking devices, says FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann. The Supreme Court ruling on US v. Jones, which found that placing a GPS tracker without a warrant constituted an illegal search, has apparently caused a "sea change" in the Bureau, leading it to draft broader guidelines for both GPS device use and related questions regarding the right to privacy.

- The Verge

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

Google to Show Off Indoor Mapping and other CES News

Google will be brining its "blue dot" to the buildings and floors of CES, the large consumer gadget show that launch Tuesday in Vegas. The folks at Slashgear say it works well.

The official CES showroom floor has all been indexed by Google Maps and can easily be pulled up and even saved to cache. No more mapping for the closest Hollister inside Mall of America instead get turn by turn directions to Samsung, NOKIA, and all the other booths at this years CES.

Continue reading...

Pakistan Mapping Bill Proposed and other International GIS News

Pakistan

The Survey of Pakistan is worried about amatuers not only mapping the country, but also mapping sites harmful to national security. So, it's time for a new law to allow enforcement.

With the objective of regulating and implementing surveying and mapping standards in the country, to obviate potential security risk to sensitive information, to prevent damage to affixed survey makers, to avoid duplication of effort in mapping and to transform SoP into a national mapping agency, a draft land surveying and mapping bill has been prepared by the SoP.

The salient features of the Bill are as follows: (i) to transform SoP into national mapping agency ie an authority regulating surveying and mapping activities in the country; (ii) to make it compulsory for all firms involved in surveying and mapping activities to get themselves registered with SoP; (iii) to make it obligatory to all firms involved in surveying and mapping activities to adopt surveying and mapping standards framed by the national mapping agency ie SoP; (iv) to stop unqualified firms to take part in surveying and mapping activities that can pose a security risk to the State; (v) to protect established and affixed survey makers at various locations throughout the country from damage by assigning their responsibility to local district management; (vii) to avoid duplication of efforts in the field of mapping, especially in the public sector, thereby economising on public exchequer; and (viii) to assess the mapping requirements of public and private sector on a yearly basis, thereby lending technical support to federal and provincial development plan and activities.

Part of the logic for doing so relates to how other countries have addressed the issue.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has suggested to the government to frame a law aimed at stopping unlawful activities related to mapping firms, given that several western countries, including Australia, China, India, Turkey, USA and UK, have enacted supportive laws, official sources told Business Recorder.

- Business Recorder (Pakistan)

India

Dehli Police now has a link off its home page (Know Your Police Stateion) of its police stations. It can help residents navigate to the station and find the one covering a certain issue. The department built it in partnership with Microsoft and it uses Silverlight.

- ZeeNews

Nigeria

The Kwara [state in Nigeria] government has concluded arrangements to launch the state Geographic Information System (GIS) in the first quarter of 2012, Alhaji Usman Hamza, the Senior Special Assistant on Information Technology, said.

The state already has a land information system and plans an emegency response system for the future.

- All Africa

Singapore

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) yesterday announced a new competition that it hopes will spur application developers to create new uses for electronic maps.

The inaugural OneMap Challenge offers top prizes of 20,000 Singapore dollars (US$15,556) cash each in the two categories of desktop and mobile applications, and a total of more than 70,000 Singapore dollars in cash and prizes.

- Jakarta Globe