New Geo APIs - 2/14/12

Read all the way to the end - there's a bonus!

nowCOAST LayerInfo API: nowCOAST is a GIS-based online mapping tool that provides access to real-time coastal environmental observations and NOAA forecasts for any region in the coastal United States. nowCOAST's LayerInfo API provides access to additional useful information on mapping layers, including Legends, Timestamps, Icons, and Layer Descriptions. The API uses HTTP calls and responses are formatted in XML, HTML and TXT.

Aviresto API: Aviresto is a guide to restaurants in France. The site lets users read and submit customer reviews. Searches can be conducted by city or by location on a map. An API is available that allows users to conduct these searches programmatically and pull the results into their own application or web site. Public documentation of the API is not available; developers should contact the provider for access.

NAVTEQ LocationPoint Advertising API: NAVTEQ is a provider for digital maps and map content used in navigation and location-based services. The NAVTEQ Network for Developers (NN4D) program provides developers with a variety of API's for mapping, road traffic data, and advertising.

The NAVTEQ LocationPoint Advertising (LPA) service is an in-application mobile advertising service that provides location-based, targeted advertising to users of location aware applications and mobile websites. This API will gather location data and identify users, and then request relevant adds to return to the device. The LPA web service also exposes functions for handling the end-user experience after they have interacted with a LPA-powered add; for example, providing the user with maps and routes to physical stores related to an add they clicked through.

NAVTEQ Map Reporter API: NAVTEQ is a provider for digital maps and map content used in navigation and location-based services. The NAVTEQ Network for Developers (NN4D) program provides developers with a variety of API's for mapping, road traffic data, and advertising.

NAVTEQ's Map Reporter allows individuals to suggest updates or corrections to NAVTEQ maps. Users can give feedback about addresses, roads or road features, points of interest, or traffic restrictions. Attachments, such as images or supporting evidence, can also be added to the submission. In addition to submitting feedback on existing map elements, users can suggest new map content such as other points of interest or cartography details. The Map Reporter web service is composed of two primary parts: a submission service that allows users to provide their feedback to NAVTEQ, and a query service for searching map reports for the status and details of previously submitted requests.

- Programmable Web

Bonus: StreetFight offers Comparing the Pros and Cons of 5 Top Location APIs which looks at contenders to fill in for recently closed SimpleGeo. Warning: written by an intern.

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

Nokia Offers Maps, Augmented Reality to Distinguish its Windows Phones

The LiveView application attaches names, links and other tags to objects seen through a handset’s camera viewfinder, while the Pulse application lets users share their map location and status with selected contacts, the company said today. Other applications give public transportation and walking directions for more than 400 cities, and share user-created information on outdoor locations.

- BusinessWeek

Reorg at Nokia Establishes Location & Commerce Business

Michael Halbherr, one-time CEO of Gate5, which Nokia acquired in 2006, has been appointed executive vice president to spearhead Nokia's revised mission in mobile and location-based services. He'll lead the new Location & Commerce business, built from NAVTEQ business and Nokia's social location services operations and report to CEO Stephen Elop. "The Location & Commerce business will develop a new class of integrated social location products and services for consumers, as well as platform services and local commerce services for device manufacturers, application developers, internet services providers, merchants, and advertisers." Larry Kaplan, CEO of NAVTEQ, will be in the new business until year end. (It's not clear what he'll do after that.)

- press release

Source: Nokia Tech will Power the Bing Maps Infrastructure

Greg Sterling reports, but did not get official confirmation from either organization, Nokia tech will power the Bing Maps infrastructure. There have been many rumors regarding NAVTEQ in recent weeks from folks outside the industry, but Greg's on the inside, so I think this is worth sharing.

However my lunch companion argued unequivocally that Nokia Maps would effectively replace almost everything that Microsoft had developed over the past several years in terms of the Bing Maps infrastructure. This was shocking because Microsoft has invested hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billions) in creating a viable competitor to Google Maps. Most recently the company has been promoting its roll out of new hi-resolution aerial imagery on a global basis.

I said I couldn’t believe Microsoft would agree to swap in Navteq for the guts of its own system. Yet my lunch guest argued that Microsoft’s role would mostly center on the Bing Maps UI — ironically not unlike Yahoo’s relationship to Microsoft search results — everything else would be powered by Nokia.

And there was another very interesting remark. He asserted that Google’s unwillingness to agree to a co-mingling of Google Maps and Nokia Maps or substitution of Nokia Maps on the back end was one of the sticking points that prevented Nokia and Google from coming to terms.

Search Engine Land via @atanas

The gory details of how Nokia's mapping portfolio would work in the new Microsoft/Nokia deal announced earlier this year was not completely clear (APB coverage).