Google Open Sources Sky Map and other LBS News

Google is open-sourcing Google Sky Map, an app created by employees at Google's Pittsburgh office who wanted to put the sensors in Android phones to the test. While the app has seen more than 20 million Android phone users since 2009, the app will now be used in student projects at Carnegie Mellon University.

A number of other apps and API are to be shut down entirely.

- eWeek

Hertz Global Holdings Inc. has acquired from Thales Navigation the remaining 35 percent of Navigation Solutions, the operational arm behind its in-car global positioning systems, known as NeverLost.

- AP

The highlight of the [latest ChaCha] upgrade is the exciting all-new Real-Time Map feature, which allows users to see questions recently asked by others using the application. For the first time ever, ChaChees will visually see on a real-time map what questions are being asked where.

Why "visually see"? Why not just "see"?

- press release

Rentenna.com -- the free, groundbreaking rental tool that condenses everything a renter would want to know about a rental building into a single score -- releases its interactive "Rentenna Score Map" to the public today.

Remote Sensing for Parking Spaces

One big issue with all of the parking finder apps is know where the spots are and when are avaialble. Most systems use some kind of senor device embedded in the road/wall to know if the space is open. What if you didn't have to dig up streets or purchase a sensor for every space? What if you made the sensors mobile?

That's the just of a project from a team at Rutgers.

Using ultrasonic sensors, GPS location finders and wireless networks, the Rutgers group thinks it has come up with a cost-effective way to locate the nearest open parking spaces and give drivers choices.

Taxis, municipal vehicles or mall security cars — vehicles that travel frequently in a given area — would be equipped with sensors that measure distances to obstacles and determine whether there is an available parking space. That information would then be fed to an internet server and matched with a map of legal parking spots.

Drivers would then be able to find out, through their GPS navigation systems or smart phones, where parking spaces are open, saving them the time and frustration of looking for a spot.

Using algorithms, the Rutgers team was able to distinguish between parked cars and other objects such as trees or fire hydrants.

"There are some other obstacles that can be on the side of the road that have that same size and eventually we learn over time, if this obstacle never moves, it’s always there, it’s probably not a car," Gruteser said. "If this space is always open and in an area where parking is very crowded, it’s probably not a legal spot."

In tests accuracy was up to 90%. The sensor today would cost a few hundred dollars but could be brought down. At this point the team is looking for a company to test the sensor.

- nj.com