NAVTEQ Discover Cities For Mobile Local Search and Travel

location based services

NAVTEQ announced the availability of NAVTEQ Discover Cities, a new product created specifically for personal navigation devices, personal media players, cell phone and other mobile devices. This bundle of map and Points-of-Interest (POI) content will be available to device manufacturers, wireless carriers and application developers to enable more relevant mobile local search and travel guidance. So, while your GPS in the car may be loaded with appropriate Points of Interest and items accessible to you in a car, this dataset seems to have captured data that might be useful to anyone moving on foot too. I could see something like this going into any flat GPS unit, or served up into a mobile phone application.

"Including Fodor's Travel ratings and reviews in NAVTEQ Discover Cities, furthers our goal of providing the increasingly personalized content our customers are asking for. This product offers features specific to the needs of pedestrians in large cities and will make visiting easier and more enjoyable. While different people have different styles of travel, they all have one thing in common -- they seek the best travel options available within their budget, including the best places to stay, eat, shop and see," stated George Filley, Vice President of Product Management, NAVTEQ.

NAVTEQ Discover Cities will extend the capabilities of the NAVTEQ(R) map with searchable information germane to a pedestrian touring a city. For example, a traveler arriving at O'Hare International Airport can locate the nearest mass transit option to travel to his hotel. While on the train ride he can search for his favorite type of restaurant by proximity to his hotel, point-of-interest or neighborhood in the city.

"This product can work in much the same way a travel guide would, it gives you a local's perspective," added Filley.

NAVTEQ Discover Cities includes pedestrian geometry, mass transit stops, and POIs. It supports map display, geocoding and proximity searches and is enhanced with Fodor's Travel Guide information for restaurants, hotels, shopping, nightlife and arts, and tourist attractions. Data sets include New York, Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and San Diego.