now GPS chips fit in SIM cards

location based services

Published on April 26th, 2007 in gps navigation, misc news

Now you have more than ever reasons to believe you’re being followed. Thanks to a new patent pending technology by BlueSkyPositioning we are one step closer to having a GPS chip inside every cell phone - as long as they take SIM cards. The key point here is their proprietary antenna design that is embedded in the SIM card itself. Just so you know this is not your regular GPS chip. It is an assisted GPS chip that relies on your cellular network for a faster position fix.

No software or hardware changes are needed for legacy handsets. The A-GPS SIM supports E-112 and E-911 Emergency Call Positioning and enables SIM, Mobile and Network based LBS applications. It’s faster, it’s targeted, and it costs the operator a small fraction of the cost of a new handset.

The new startup company is in a great position since all EU countries will soon pass a law that requires network providers to locate the position of handsets in case of emergency calls.

Following publication of a significantly strengthened EU directive, expected later this year, EU member countries will have just 18 months to implement a law requiring operators to identify the precise location of callers to the E-112 emergency services, potentially to an accuracy level of just a few metres. Similar to the E-911 legislation in the US, the new law is designed to improve emergency services’ reaction and response times due to improved location accuracy and therefore increase levels of public safety. However, over 50 per cent of emergency calls in the EU are made from mobile phones – and current network-based positioning technologies on the market cannot provide the degree of accuracy required.

We’d buy their stock.

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Mapquest and OnStar Partner

location based services

Mapquest and OnStar are in a new partnership that allows Mapquest users to send their directions to their OnStar service. Map out your destination and hit "Send to OnStar" to get your turn by turn directions with voice prompts. You will be able to store up to 5 destinations which can be retreived at any time. This is a pretty good service, but at a GPS user, I would love to be able to see where I am going instead of just "hearing" where I am going.

Press Release follows...

GM’s OnStar and MapQuest announced today a collaboration that will allow OnStar subscribers to plan their driving route on MapQuest.com and send their destination right to OnStar’s easy to use Turn-by-Turn Navigation service. This new Turn-by-Turn service enhancement, OnStar Web Destination Entry, will allow subscribers to conveniently use MapQuest.com to research and plan their driving destinations with more than 15 million points-of-interest available through the number one mapping Web site.

General Motors and OnStar, the leading provider of in-vehicle safety, security and communication services, are making the simplest and smartest navigation service, OnStar Turn-by-Turn Navigation, available to more than 2 million vehicles in 2007 and an additional 3 million vehicles in 2008. This availability allows GM to offer the most navigation options across more vehicle segments and price ranges than any other vehicle manufacturer. MapQuest is the leading online mapping and directions destination and one of the most trusted and widely used brands on the Web. *

“Our 10 years of experience have taught us that life happens when you’re driving,” said OnStar President Chet Huber. “The value of OnStar Web Destination Entry, which combines the powerfully-simple technology of OnStar Turn-by-Turn Navigation with the leading consumer Web site for maps and directions, MapQuest®, is added flexibility for our subscribers. The new service enhancement will allow them to use the Web to plan their destination while having the freedom to start the journey from wherever they want.”

OnStar and MapQuest will start a Web Destination Entry pilot program in the summer of 2007 with a select group of OnStar subscribers. Targeted for late 2007, OnStar Web Destination Entry will be available to all OnStar subscribers with Turn-by-Turn Navigation-capable vehicles.

“One of our goals at MapQuest is to make it convenient and easy for our users to plan their journey on their desktop computers and send the information to their cars. We are thrilled to be working with the world’s largest auto manufacturer to bring our great services to OnStar customers,” said Jim Greiner, Senior Vice President and General Manager of MapQuest. “This represents another example of how we are extending our ability to help consumers access MapQuest® services whenever and wherever they need them.”

Read More in: GPS News

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BlueSky Touts GPS on a Chip

U.K. startup hopes to accelerate location-based services deployment.
April 25, 2007

By Peter Purton

A Finnish serial entrepreneur claims to have developed a revolutionary chip that can convert most GSM cell phones into GPS receivers capable of supporting a host of new location-based services.

Risto Savolainen, founder of London-based BlueSky Positioning, told Red Herring his company has managed to cram a complete global positioning system receiver onto a fingernail-sized subscriber identification module, or SIM card, which fits into the GSM or 3GSM mobile phones provided by wireless carriers such as T-Mobile.

Phones that are equipped with the new chip and suitable applications software can then support a host of new location-based services, such as providing directories of nearby restaurants or serving up ads for businesses located in the vicinity of any given phone subscriber.

Some location-based services are already available to mobile subscribers who own special cell phones or have handsets with special positioning GPS add-ons installed.

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The new chip could accelerate the adoption of a host of location-based services because it could quickly convert regular GSM/3GSM handsets―which account for two-thirds of the world’s cell phones―into GPS-enabled devices.

BlueSky, which has received about $3 million from Mr. Savolainen’s friends and family, has already demonstrated a first-generation prototype to network operators such as Orange and Vodafone. It is now working on a second-generation prototype which will actually fit into a phone. He said he hopes to have a commercial product within one year.

Quite a Challenge

But Ken Blakeslee, chairman of U.K. consultancy Webmobility Ventures, cautioned that BlueSky faced significant challenges. Making it work “on such a small scale and behind the battery and the electronics” may turn out to be quite a challenge, he said.

“GPS is hot, but GPS is tricky,” he said.

BlueSky has five patents pending including a patent for a miniature antenna integrated on the SIM card, which will protect its product from direct competitive pressure, said Mr. Savolainen.

A unique aspect of BlueSky’s product is that it can be retrofitted to existing phones and does not require a customer to buy a new phone. This means that if an operator decided to provide GPS to its users it could do so very quickly and at low cost.

The cost to the network operator of the upgrade would be just 8€ ($11.00) as opposed to many hundreds of dollars for a GPS-equipped phone, said Mr. Savolainen. And the introduction of new revenue-generating location-based services could be accomplished within months, rather than years, he said.

BlueSky Positioning was formed by Mr. Savolainen two years ago with his own money from the sale of his previous company, Helsinki-based SST Wireless Information Services, to Reston, Virginia-based Ztango. Mr. Savolainen says his new company may seek further investment in about a year.

The Low Profile of Microsoft’s Mapping Effort

location based services

2:36 PM Online Maps
Why does Microsoft’s online mapping service get so little attention compared with Google’s?

Peter Laudati thinks it’s because it’s gone through so many name changes, from Virtual Earth to Windows Live Local to whatever they’re calling it now — he counts at least eight web addresses that resolve to the service. (Dare Obasanjo: “This product has now officially gone through more names than I’ve had ex-girlfriends. … It’s sad that we are intent on screwing one of the coolest products we are shipping these days in this way.”)

Scoble thinks it comes down to ease of use: Google’s typically simple, uncluttered, non-redundant user interface.

Me, I suspect that cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility might play a factor: a lot of the people who write the stories that generate the buzz use Macs. (Live Maps doesn’t work at all on Safari, and it’s apparently not feature-complete on Firefox.)

Plus, I think Microsoft simply doesn’t have much goodwill left: if you say that Microsoft has produced something truly amazing, many of us will simply conclude that you’re a shill on their payroll.

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EU parliament 'deeply concerned' about troubled Galileo project

location based services

The European Parliament voiced deep concerns on Thursday about the EU's delayed Galileo satellite navigation system while a top EU official ruled out pulling the plug on the troubled programme.
In a resolution adopted Thursday, the parliament said it was "deeply concerned by the fact that the concession negotiations have been at a standstill for several months." EU lawmakers expressed particular concern that the delays would drive up the costs of the programme, which is priced at 1.5 billion euros (1.95 billion dollars) and meant to be fully operational in 2012. Nearly two years since a consortium was chosen in June 2005, the concession contract for the project remains unsigned as the companies squabble over who will do what. They have been given until May 10 to work out there differences. The system is aimed at breaking Europe's dependence on the free US Global Positioning System (GPS), used aboard many cars, boats and aircraft.


Despite the programme's problems, EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen ruled out the possibility of calling off Galileo, describing the project as essential. "Galileo is from the European Commission standpoint an absolutely essential project," he told journalists in Brussels. "We don't have an option of giving up on Galileo." The current consortium comprises Britain's Inmarsat, the European group EADS, French firms Thales and Alcatel, Spain's Hispasat and Aena, Italy's Finmeccanica and Germany's TeleOp. Industry sources have accused Hispasat of causing the delays with demands for a bigger role than initially foreseen, although the Spanish government has dismissed such claims.

Take 5: The Evolution Of The Mobile Phone User Experience

location based services

Posted by Stephen Wellman, Apr 24, 2007 05:13 PM
Welcome to this week's edition of Take 5, our regular feature on Over The Air where we ask a wireless or enterprise IT industry insider five (or in this case eight) questions about a specific area of interest. This week's guest is Frank Tyneski, Senior Director of Design and Human Factors for Kyocera Wireless. Our topic is The Evolution Of Mobile Usability, with an emphasis on handsets and smartphones. Let's dig in.
What are the biggest challenges to making a mobile phone easier to use?
I believe the biggest challenge is constantly reminding yourself (as a manufacturer) that you’re not designing phones for your industry technology peers. Mass market consumers -- and this includes business users as well as consumers -- who purchase mobile phones are seeking simplicity. Anything beyond the basic functions can compromise what is really important to them. The real challenge lies in understanding what customers want within various user segments and then inserting increased functionality without compromising their core usability desires. We're solving this equation by putting a heavy emphasis on the integration of research and design. In many cases, we are placing designers in the field and actually designing on location with target consumers to develop a better context of understanding for particular user groups and the environments in which they live, work and play.
After years of talk and endless hype, we know that people are using their mobile phones to do all kinds of tasks including text messaging, checking their e-mail, downloading ringtones, and even surfing the Web. But many users still complain about the user experience on their handsets. Many wireless industry insiders claim we're hitting a glass ceiling of mobile usability -- i.e. that the devices can't really do more than they do now (if they can even do that). Do you agree with this assessment?
Five years ago, the wireless shows like CTIA and 3GSM were peppered with forward-thinking concepts – essentially, non-working appearance models showing grand visions of the future. Back then, the industry’s future trajectory was visible to the general public. We've since realized those original visions, climaxing today with mobile music, TV, GPS, and more on relatively small devices. Now, manufacturers have shifted their vision and strategy toward convincing consumers that they can, in fact, deliver a complex group of wireless utilities with more grace and expertise than their competitors.With future wireless concepts being less celebrated, there is a perception that the industry has hit a flat spot. However, in this case, perception is not reality. The mobile communications industry continues to be the equivalent of our 'jet age.' In comparison, I think we’ve only developed the propeller. This is not to say that mobile communications won't evolve to reveal some common denominators, but I think we're many years away from that. The key is that it's not just about manufacturers advancing handsets in a silo while content providers and infrastructure providers make advancements in their silos. We, as an industry, need to pay particular attention to developing holistic user experiences, where devices, applications and infrastructure work harmoniously. This is the glass ceiling we’re pressing against, with much compression. I suppose it’s a good thing the glass is not in a fixed frame. It's continually being pushed upward, just not as quickly as some would like.
Do you think the iPhone will be the tipping point for improved mobile User Input? Or does the iPhone represent a transition phase?
The iPhone appears to be a compelling device and I'm looking forward to playing with one. It's premature, however, to say that it's going to recalibrate consumer expectations of a mobile phone. The iPhone is likely to push the envelop for consumers by mixing increased processor speeds with the organic, elegant and charming user experience people have come to expect from Apple. But we cannot forget that it's being talked about as a $500 device and that will keep it out of the hands of a vast majority of consumers. The challenge for phone manufacturers, including my team at Kyocera, is to remove price as a barrier to consumers who want an organic, charming and elegant user experience. I want to create phones that use design, features and user interface to make the devices extensions of their users and a part of those users' lifestyles.
"Latency kills the mobile experience." I don't know about you, but I totally agree with this opinion. But, as people in the wireless industry, like you, know latency will always be a fact with mobile networks. What can you do, in terms of UI and UE, to reduce the impact of latency in the end-user experience?
Well, the short answer is to play tricks -- create the illusion of high speed whenever possible. Cached images and animations can reduce the perceived time from the initiated request to delivery. For example, your Internet favorites could display cached images of your last visit, which are refreshed periodically, when the phone is idle. Or better yet, turn latency into an opportunity, such as turning Push-to-Talk into Push-To-Message, or PTM. It would be great to just send someone a voice message, forgoing actually talking to them, assuming I don't have time, or suffering through their lengthy voicemail message. In this case, the latency entering in text would be displaced by the expediency of voice with all the inflection of your character, not to mention that there would be chronology, something PTT doesn't offer.
Many people may not know this, but you were involved with the design of the BlackBerry Pearl. How did you go about rethinking the BlackBerry UI paradigm? And can this thinking apply to other smartphones?
Well it’s more accurate to say that before coming to Kyocera Wireless I was responsible for leading RIM into the consumer space with the 7100 series of products with SureType. The success of the 7100 series eventually led to the most recent design, the Pearl. RIM is a wonderful company; it's a place where forward-thinking ideas are supported by brilliant people. The SureType text entry UI is an example of what could be and was created in that type of culture. And it's a similar mindset that attracted me to Kyocera. I've never been a fan of mobile convergence. That’s because convergence is too often approached in this way: take human-scaled input mechanisms (like a full-sized QWERTY keyboard, etc.) and dump them into the wide end of the funnel, then apply pressure. Squeeze and squeeze until a "converged" device pops out from the narrow end of the funnel. The result is a severely compromised converged device. The SureType UI was not designed in this way. Quite the opposite in fact, we turned the convergence funnel upside down with scaled input mechanisms serving as the root system -- thereby allowing a whole new UI paradigm to blossom. Personally, I believe more innovation would come from the mobile community if manufacturers approached it in this way. It's a mindset I've brought with me and try to instill in my team. Ultimately, it's about innovation, not just convergence.
What are the differences between designing a mobile device for the business market vs. designing for the consumer market? What kinds of features do business users need vs. those that consumers want?
Actually, business users and consumers are more alike than different -- it's their purchasing behavior that is most different. For example, the business/enterprise user approaches the product purchase with a well-defined set of classical and rational values. Enterprise users are more inclined to research their next purchases, deciding on things such as applications, battery life, integration with other office tools and deployment on the corporate network. Under these conditions, cost and product styling are less important. For example, an ultra-slim enterprise device with poor battery life would be a deal breaker, no matter how inexpensive it was. In contrast, young consumers are the opposite. Their world revolves around instant gratification. They place a greater emphasis on the emotional attributes of a product, including design, color, material and trend overlays. Show a 'millennial' [someone between the ages of 13 to 24] something cool and they’ll likely respond, "I like it, I want it, what is it?"
If you were going to re-design an existing smartphone how would you begin?
I learned early on in my career, back when I was a toy designer for Fisher-Price, that the best ideas are never prescribed. The best results came when the design briefs were vague with a heavy emphasis on "play value." I still approach every new product category in this way. It helped me to later design the first Nextel phone and the TalkAbout two-way radios for Motorola. Whenever possible, I suggest designers spend time seeking out the unexpected. With that said, I couldn't begin to tell you what the end result would be for a redesigned smartphone, but rest assured I guarantee it wouldn't be a refresh of the phones you see on shelves today.
Do you have a favorite mobile OS? Windows? Palm? Symbian? BlackBerry? Linux? What do you think would be the hallmarks of the next generation mobile UI?
Naturally I'm eager to try the iPhone and I have some sentimental attachment to the BlackBerry. At Kyocera, though, we've taken a step back from these operating systems and really focused our efforts on creating a tighter integration between the device and the UI experience.
Today's challenge is in bridging the distance between those designing hardware and those designing the user interface. The difference between universal UI and custom UI is becoming more apparent in the phone experience. As devices continue to advance, carriers will need to elevate their UI expectations to compete on equal footing -- placing more pressure on handset manufacturers and developers to not just collaborate but cohabitate

Tele Atlas Announces LBS Innovators Series Finalists

location based services

Finalists to Present Applications at Dow Jones VentureWire Wireless
Innovations Conference
SAN FRANCISCO, April 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Wireless Innovations
Conference -- Tele Atlas (FSE: TA6, EUNV: TA), a leading global provider of
digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location-based
solutions, today announced the finalists of the Tele Atlas LBS Innovators
Series event held in conjunction with the Wireless Innovations Conference
produced by Dow Jones VentureWire.
Based on the business potential of their LBS applications and
attractiveness to venture capitalists, eight finalists were selected by Dow
Jones to present their new location-based solutions to venture capitalists
and industry experts at the 2007 conference, being held this week at the
Sofitel San Francisco Bay in Redwood City, CA. This exclusive opportunity
is a key component of the ongoing Tele Atlas LBS Innovators Series, a
program designed to help enable wireless application developers to expand
their visibility, credibility and success with key participants in the
industry, including investors, carriers and technology providers. The
featured finalists are:
-- 5o9, a client-server software provider that makes the Internet local,
mobile and personal;
-- Bones In Motion, a location-aware mobile active lifestyle service
provider;
-- Intercasting, a mobile social networking gateway provider;
-- GPShopper, a mobile marketing technology company connecting consumers
to offline, real-world purchase point locations;
-- Locatrix, an Australian developer of mobile social networking and
location-based content solutions;
-- loopt, a social mapping service provider that provides users with
automatic updates of friends' locations via maps on mobile handsets and
the web;
-- Plazes, a Web service for geo-social navigation; and
-- Spark Parking, a provider of parking management services through
wireless sensors and mobile payments.
"The Tele Atlas LBS Innovators Series is designed to help foster
ground- breaking application development and we are pleased to help shine a
spotlight on the exciting and fast-growing LBS developer community," said
Darren Koenig, wireless market director, Tele Atlas. "By collaborating with
Dow Jones to bring together pioneering LBS application companies with
representatives from the industry community, we hope to further increase
awareness for this burgeoning market, as we all work together to cultivate
the next wave of applications."
For additional information regarding the Dow Jones VentureWire Wireless
Innovations Conference, please visit
http://wirelessinnovations.dowjones.com/.
To learn more about the Tele Atlas LBS Innovators Series and upcoming
events, including a series of Digital Mapping Webinars, please visit
http://www.teleatlas.com/LBSseries.
About Tele Atlas DeveloperLink
Tele Atlas DeveloperLink is a free online networking resource for
developers of Internet, mobile, and other next-generation digital map
applications. The service provides sample data, technical tools, and
business resources to help developers reduce time to market and increase
their potential for success. Members gain access to Tele Atlas' peerless
database of geographic content, and to the world's largest community of
geographic application developers. Developers can sign up to receive
additional information via Tele Atlas DeveloperLink(SM) at
http://developerlink.teleatlas.com
About Tele Atlas
Tele Atlas delivers the digital maps and dynamic content that power
some of the world's most essential navigation and location-based services.
The information is the foundation for a wide range of personal and in-car
navigation systems and mobile and Internet map applications that help users
find the people, places, products and services they need, wherever they
are. Tele Atlas also works with business partners who trust its digital map
data to deliver critical applications for emergency, business, fleet and
infrastructure services. The company was founded in 1984 and today has
approximately 2,400 full-time staff and contract cartographers at offices
in 24 countries. Tele Atlas uses a sophisticated network of professional
drivers, mobile mapping vans and more than 50,000 data resources to deliver
highly accurate and up-to-date digital maps. Tele Atlas is listed on the
Frankfurt Stock Exchange (TA6) and on Euronext Amsterdam (TA). For more
information, visit http://www.teleatlas.com.
About VentureWire
VentureWire produces the leading daily newsletters and industry events
for the venture capital market (http://www.venturewire.com or
http://www.venturecapital.dowjones.com). VentureWire is a unit of Dow Jones
Financial Information Services, which produces sector-specific products and
events for the private equity, venture capital and diversified markets
including VentureSource, Private Equity Analyst, and Daily Bankruptcy
Review.
Dow Jones & Company (NYSE: DJ; dowjones.com) is a leading provider of
global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group
publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far
Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones
Newswires, Factiva, Dow Jones Licensing Services, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow
Jones Financial Information Services. Its Local Media Group operates
community-based information franchises. Dow Jones provides news content to
CNBC and radio stations in the U.S.

TV and cellphone signals may provide GPS back-up

location based services

Soldiers may no longer need to rely on satellite navigation to pinpoint themselves or targets, if a new US military research project succeeds.
The Robust Surface Navigation programme, funded by the US government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), aims to extract accurate positioning information from "signals of opportunity". These may include television and cellphone transmissions, if satellite signals are unavailable.
Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers pinpoint their location by measuring precisely how long signals from several satellites take to reach them. But these signals can be difficult to receive in built-up urban areas, or inside buildings, and can also be jammed by an enemy.
To overcome this problem, the Robust Surface Navigation project is intended to replace missing GPS information by using other incidental signals to calculate location.
TV guide
"Television transmissions from terrestrial transmitters with relatively high power could be used like GPS," says Bart Ferrell, programme manager for precision navigation at the Boeing Phantom Works in Missouri, US. The company has been awarded one of two DARPA contracts to develop this technology.
Other potential sources include signals from cellphone towers, communication satellites, Russia's GLONASS navigation system and Europe's forthcoming Galileo navigation satellites.
Boeing has enlisted help from a Silicon Valley company called Rosom, which has already developed location systems based on television transmission. "With television, it's quite similar to GPS, if you know the location of the emitter and the time of emission," says Rosom's Jon Metzler.
Mixed signals
Rosom's system monitors periodic image-synchronisation elements of television signals to determine the transit time, allowing a receiver to calculate its position relative to the transmitter. The approach works with both digital and analogue television signals.
The first goal is to "assess what signals are available and which would be suitable for use in this system", Ferrell says. If the results are promising, the next stage will be to develop and test a prototype that would automatically choose from available local signals, select those most suitable for use, and calculate its position.
The long-term goal is to develop a new-generation of compact satellite receiver that can switch to local signals when needed.

Homer Simpson on Google Maps:

location based services

Trimble Introduces Lightweight, Powerful Solution for Mapping and GIS

location based services


SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 23 -- Trimble today introduced the latest addition to its Mapping and Geographic Information System (GIS) product line-the Juno ST handheld. The Juno ST handheld is a portable, low-cost data collection solution supported by Trimble's range of field and office software. It comes standard with a built-in high-sensitivity Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, Microsoft Windows Mobile version 5.0 software, and has Wi-Fi(R)/Bluetooth for wireless connectivity to office networks, cameras and mobile phones.The Juno ST handheld's low price point facilitates large-scale deployment, allowing a company or organization to equip a significant number of its employees; it is especially practical for use in applications where high productivity is most important. Examples include natural resources organizations, utility companies, and government agencies conducting inspection and permitting tasks. The Juno ST is also fully compatible with other Trimble data collection systems, utilizing the same software and workflows as the entire range of Trimble Mapping and GIS solutions.Delivering a range of 2 to 5 meter positioning, real-time or postprocessed, the Juno ST handheld incorporates a high-sensitivity GPS receiver and has been specially designed to maximize yield of positions in hostile environments, such as under forest canopy and up against buildings. For use in a vehicle, an external antenna can be added."The Juno ST handheld is ideal for companies and organizations that need to deploy a large number of data collection systems in the field," said Doug Merrill, general manager of Trimble's Mapping and GIS Division. "Small and light enough to fit in your pocket, the Juno ST can easily complement an existing field operation and can be added into your current workflow."Weighing in at just 4.8 ounces (133 grams) and measuring approximately 4.3 in x 2.4 in x 0.7 in (10.9 cm x 6.0 cm x 1.9 cm), the Juno ST handheld is lightweight and compact, and its small form factor makes it portable and convenient to use.Purpose-built for streamlined data collection, the Juno ST handheld has 128 MB of non-volatile Flash data storage and a Secure Digital (SD) card slot for additional data storage. The removable Li-Ion battery is rechargeable and lasts for up to eight hours.The Juno ST handheld provides flexibility with Windows Mobile 5.0 software and includes familiar Microsoft productivity tools such as Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, Internet Explorer Mobile and Outlook Mobile.The Juno ST handheld GPS receiver is available for order now through Trimble's Mapping and GIS dealer network. It should begin shipping in early May 2007.About TrimbleTrimble applies technology to make field and mobile workers in businesses and government significantly more productive. Solutions are focused on applications requiring position or location -- including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. In addition to utilizing positioning technologies, such as GPS, lasers and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user and to ensure a tight coupling of the field and the back office. Founded in 1978 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Trimble has a worldwide presence with more than 3,400 employees in over 18 countries.For more information, visit http://www.trimble.com/.

Scientists predict next solar cycle peak

[ see impact on GPS and SATNAV]

location based services

WASHINGTON - The peak of the next sunspot cycle is expected in late 2011 or mid-2012 — potentially affecting airline flights, communications satellites and electrical transmissions. But forecasters can't agree on how intense it will be.
A 12-member panel charged with forecasting the solar cycle said Wednesday it is evenly split over whether the peak will be 90 sunspots or 140 sunspots.
The government's Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo., tracks space weather and forecasts its changes, which can affect millions of dollars worth of activities such as oil drilling, car navigation systems and astronauts.
Half of the specialists predicted a moderately strong cycle of 140 sunspots expected to peak in October of 2011, while the rest called for a moderately weak cycle of 90 sunspots peaking in August of 2012.
"We're hoping to achieve a consensus sometime in the next six to 12 months," said Douglas Biesecker, a space environment center scientist who is chairman of the forecast panel.
An average solar cycle ranges from 75 to 155 sunspots.
During an active solar period, violent eruptions occur more often on the Sun, the agency said. Solar flares and vast explosions, known as coronal mass ejections, shoot highly charged matter toward Earth.
Making these predictions is important for many businesses, which have been asking for a forecast for nearly a year, Biesecker said.
Just like coastal residents want a hurricane forecast as early as possible, so do those affected by solar activity, said Joseph Kunches, chief of forecast and analysis at the center, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado-Boulder, noted that more than $200 billion of satellites in space can be affected by changes in solar radiation as the cycle rises and falls.
In addition, Baker said, other problems include:
_Airlines flying over the pole face loss of communications that could force them to use a different, longer route at an added cost of as much as $100,000 per flight.
_The Global Positioning System is immensely important to commerce and can be disrupted by solar activity.
_Operating floating oil rigs in the ocean requires keeping them positioned within a few inches to prevent damaging drilling gear. "They have to know when GPS is going to be accurate."
_There is an increased radiation risk to humans in space.
_Currents can be induced in long electrical transmission lines, causing blackouts.
In the past, such problems have been caused by solar superstorms, he said.
"Storms don't have to be so super any more" to cause problems, Baker said, as more and more systems become susceptible to solar effects.
W. Dean Pesnell of
NASA' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory said the solar storms also can heat the Earth's upper atmosphere, causing it to expand. This increases drag on satellites, slowing them down. It also affects the position of the space debris encircling the planet, and it is essential to keep track of that debris for the safety of space flight.
The forecasters said the current solar cycle will probably end next March, when Solar Cycle 24 will begin. That will mean Cycle 23 lasted 12 years, slightly longer than the usual 11-year cycle.
___

Google, not Microsoft, is world's top brand

location based services

By Laura Clout
Last Updated: 6:50am BST 24/04/2007
Google has replaced Microsoft as the world's most powerful brand, research showed yesterday.
The internet search engine recorded a 77 per cent increase in its value to £33.2 billion last year from £18.7 billion in 2005, a study reveals.
But Marks & Spencer, which entered a list of the globe's 100 biggest names for the first time at 68, is the fastest growing brand.
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It recorded a 192 per cent rise to £4.75 billion to become the fourth biggest name in Britain, according to a study by Millward Brown, a market research firm.
However, Vodafone, the mobile phone network operator, was the highest-placed UK name, ranked 22nd with a value of £10.5 billion.
It was followed by HSBC in 31st with £8.7 billion and Tesco in 32nd with £8.3 billion, according to the study, which combined their value with consumer sentiment.
Google, which topped the list, last week released the results for its first quarter, which showed a 63 per cent increase in revenue compared to the same period last year. It was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were still students at Stanford University, California.
Microsoft, which topped the last list, saw its brand value drop by 11 per cent to £27.5 billion, putting it in third place.
Second was General Electric, the same position it held in the previous ranking.
Other technology companies in the top 10 were China Mobile, in fifth place, and IBM, in ninth.
The combined value of the top 100 brands has risen by 10.6 per cent in the last year to £0.8 trillion.
At least one million consumers were interviewed for this year's survey, which covered almost 400,000 worldwide brands.
Other British names in the top 100 were Royal Bank of Scotland in 82nd with a brand value of £3.6 billion, Barclays in 87th with £3.3 billion, BP in 93rd with £2.9 billion and Asda in 97th with £2.7 billion.

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Ad familiarity breeds content for Google

location based services

A growing familiarity with search engine advertising in international markets, including a new burst of growth in the UK, contributed to another quarter of outperformance at Google, figures released on Thursday showed.
While big acquisitions and moves into new online services have grabbed the headlines in recent months, Google executives used news of the first-quarter earnings to try to bring attention back to the company’s core search-engine operations.
“The most important thing is that the core business is really strong,” said Eric Schmidt, chief executive, adding that this “allows us to take calculated risks in new markets”.
Google’s share price has been becalmed since the start of last year amid concerns that some of its initiatives in new markets, such as its attempts to attract TV companies as partners for YouTube, are not paying off.
However, the continued powerful growth in search advertising lifted revenues and earnings ahead of market estimates.
“We’re still at the beginning of that business,” said Mr Schmidt, dismissing suggestions that Google would soon start to run into limits in the size of the market.
“It’s a huge business – we have lots of room to grow there.”
After deducting the traffic acquisition costs it pays to other websites that carry its advertising, Google’s revenues jumped 65 per cent to $2.53bn, up $1bn from a year before and slightly ahead of Wall Street forecasts. International business grew by 81 per cent and accounted for 47 per cent of total revenues, up from 42 per cent a year ago.
Net income climbed to $1bn, or $3.18 a share. On the pro forma basis on which Wall Street judges the company, earnings reached $3.68 a share, compared with expectations of $3.31.
“The global growth strategy of Google continues to work very very well”, with newer international markets learning from the experience of more developed markets, Mr Schmidt said.
In the UK, its biggest overseas market, Google said that a seasonal jump in travel and financial services advertising had driven a revival of growth from the previous three months. UK revenues were $578m, or 16 per cent of the total, it added.
Google also named Mr Schmidt chairman of the company, ending its unconventional practice of not operating with a formal chairman. The lack of a chairman had accentuated the unusual triumvirate in charge of the company, with Mr Schmidt working alongside founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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Google Maps Taps Ajax To Syndicate Automated Feeds, Mashups

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The Ajax Feed API lets a developer tie a syndication feed to a mashup with two lines of JavaScript, so they don't need to know the details of what XML format would accompany a designated feed.
By Charles Babcock InformationWeek April 18, 2007 10:00 AM
Google is making it easier to distribute new Google Maps mashups via an automated syndication feed, such as RSS.
That may mean that a site such as "Earthquakes In The Last Week" may soon reach thousands of new viewers instead of being a novelty known by a few. Building mashups with maps is a hallmark activity of lets a user respond if they felt an earthquake any where in the world, as well as pinpoint a quake's epicenter and magnitude on a map based on Google Maps. San Francisco fans of the mashup might want to receive a notice whenever the site is updated with information on any earthquake in California. Sending out that information via Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, a public format for conveying information to subscribers, becomes a lot easier to implement with Google Ajax Feed API, Bret Taylor, group manager for developer products, said in an interview.
Ajax Feed API can tie a syndication feed to a mashup like Earthquakes "with two lines of JavaScript." Previously, a developer needed to know the details of what XML format would accompany a designated feed, such as Atom 1.0; RSS 0.94, 1.0, 2.0; or one of the five other variations of the feeds, as well as server proxy details. With the Ajax Feed API, developers have a single point of reference that lets them tap into a feed they want to use with their mashup. Mashups have become popular with those building what's known as Web 2.0 applications, or Web services based on combinations of content assembled by JavaScript and tailored to the end user. JavaScript is the active ingredient in Ajax, which is supported by several free toolkits from Google, Zimbra, and Sabre Holdings. The RSS and Atom service feeds both automatically let subscribers know when something changes in a subject area they have designated on a Web site as of interest to them.
The Google Ajax Feed API will offer one point of intersection between a developer's JavaScript mashup, which might be a combination of a Google map of a city and information on apartments in the same city. Apartment hunters could subscribe to a mashup and receive a notice when new apartments come on the market in a neighborhood in which they'e interested.
There are already at least 908 mashups using Google Maps, but many more are likely to be spawned and distributed via the Ajax Feed API, said Taylor. The ability of the API to link the public feeds to mashups is not limited to Google Maps.
Taylor announced the new API is available from Google during a talk Wednesday morning at O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The talk had the snappy title: "The Web 2.0 is about all this content that lives in the cloud [on Internet servers], and mash ups are built to present it in new combinations." For more information on Google's APIs and developer tools, see code.google.com.
Yahoo, Microsoft, and other Web services providers are also trying to make it easier to combine their sites into user-generated mashups.

Wading Into The N95 Crippling Furore

location based services

[ they had better not try this in Oz or NZ ]

y Carlo Longino on April 24th, 2007 in Mobile Operators
There’s a bit of an uproar going around about how Vodafone and Orange in the UK are “crippling” Nokia N95s they sell by removing the internet telephony plumbing that allows the use of integrated third-party VoIP services over the device’s Wi-Fi connection. Users can still make VoIP calls through services that have a separate client, but can’t use ones that integrate right into the phone and let users dial from the phonebook and so on.
The fuss is mainly being kicked up by Truphone, providers of the type of VoIP service that can’t run on a Vodafone or Orange N95. Its CEO told El Reg he’ll complain to British telecoms regulators, and accused the operators of contravening European laws.
I’m not quite sure what to make of the situation, and I’ve got some conflicting feelings about things, so let’s try to make some sense of it, then tell me where I’ve gone wrong (or gotten it right) in the comments.
Operators blocking this sort of thing is stupid. But if that sort of stupidity were illegal, the operators would be in jail already. It’s rather pointless to block this stuff, because all it’s going to do in the end is piss off some users. At this point, there aren’t enough people using, or even aware of, these services for any revenue loss to be a concern. Second, the people trying to use these things are savvy users who, if they can’t do something on one operator, will just churn to another — and how is that preventing “lost” revenues? Third, if people want to make cheaper calls, they’re going to do it one way or another. If it’s not VoIP, they’ll use a landline, or a calling card, or a callback service. (More along these lines from Dean Bubley.)
Truphone obviously isn’t a disinterested party. Their agenda here is pretty clear: if all compatible phones have the software required to use their service removed by operators, it’s going to make life pretty difficult for them. So, they whip up a frenzy about the big, bad operators’ anti-consumer policies, and even if they don’t get the operators to change their ways, they’ve gotten a ton of free marketing — even if this particular issue affects only a handful of users. (Keith McMahon has some more talk about Truphone and the size of its market.)
All that said, if operators want to remove the VoIP capabilities, let them. As I said above, it’s a move that will backfire in the end. But at the same time, I can understand how they’d see a company like Truphone as leeching off the subsidies they pay out on mobile devices. These companies depend on operator subsidies to get high-end devices which can access their services into the hands of potential customers cheaply — and then they want to sell a service that directly competes with the operators’ core offering. That would probably upset me, too — though my reaction wouldn’t be to try and block their services. To suggest that operators shouldn’t be allowed to determine what’s included on or left off the handsets they sell will hasten the end of operator subsidies. And as much as people love to get worked up about operators “crippling” devices, they love the cheap handsets subsidies provide even more. If they didn’t, the reaction to this sort of story would be “fine, I’ll just pay more and get the unlocked, SIM-free version.”
For me, this is an issue of disclosure. Operators and retailers should openly disclose the specs of the devices they sell. Should this mean they have to make it clear what functionality or applications they remove? I’m on the fence about that, but I think as long as they make some detailed specs listing the features the devices they sell do contain readily available, it shouldn’t be a problem. However, judging by the listing for the N95 on Vodafone’s web site, they’re not doing this. I think a useful example could be how cars are advertised and sold: manufacturers’ advertising plays up certain features, which are often options. Not every model features those options, but when you go to a dealer, it’s made very clear which features a particular car does have. Conversely, the window sticker doesn’t say “This car does NOT have…” and list all the options it doesn’t have.
I think that more transparency and better information for consumers is something that we can all get behind, but to imply that operators shouldn’t be able to change the devices they see fit is a step too far. As I said, doing so endangers subsidies — but it could also see handset vendors start selling dumbed-down handsets to all their carrier customers, leaving out features from unlocked versions as well so operators wouldn’t fall foul of “anti-crippling” laws

Satnav hacking made simple

location based services

Create your own traffic jam, bull fight or air raid
By Dan Goodin in Vancouver → More by this author
CanSecWest A pair of hackers have demonstrated a way to spoof travel information messages displayed on satellite navigation systems used by Italian drivers to bypass accidents, traffic jams and plot the most efficient routes from one point to another.
The hack is so simple it's hard to believe no one has shown it off before. It uses inexpensive, off-the-shelf gear to inject RDS-TMC (radio data system-traffic message channel) data that is digitally coded into FM signals that many satnav systems use to receive travel information in real time. While the technique could be used for ill intent, Andrea Barisani, one of two researchers from Inverse Path who presented the hack at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, swears his goals were much more benign.

"The whole point is you can actually get laid," Barisani declared. He was alluding to video he had just rolled depicting Daniele Bianco, Barisani's partner in the demo, ambling down an unpaved road with a ravishing young woman. Based on the input from their 2006 Honda's integrated natsav, the two become stranded in the middle of nowhere. Upon learning an evil hacker brandishing an FM antenna is responsible, the young woman, so impressed with his power, quickly takes up with him.
Beyond an RDS encoder (price tag: $40), an FM transmitter and a hand-held antenna, the hackers needed the codes used to denote a particular event (e.g. an accident, parade or bull fight), and the event's location - information that can be easily learned from online sources. The strength of the FM signal can be augmented for long-range hacks that target a large number of drivers or more narrowly for those that aim to single out someone in particular.
Depending on the event invoked, the driver may receive a pop up notification (e.g. airplane crash or bomb alert), or the notification may not be displayed. But even in the latter case, the spoofed alert has the potential to mislead a satnav user. For example, an injection reporting a road has been closed will cause the satnav to recalculate a route to avoid the closure.
The injection is trivial to carry out. While TMC specs employ encryption, it is used for discrimination and not authentication, and the key can be broken by sampling a small amount of data. Also facilitating injection: terminals that use encryption are still expected to accept unencrypted data.
In addition to the FM band, TMC is also supported over digital audio broadcast and satellite radio, but those mediums are likely harder to exploit for injections. Microsoft DirectBand, an FM subcarrier used for MSN Direct, is a closed system that employs more robust encryption, also making it look promising, Barisani said. ®
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Security Concepts has announced the Worldtracker sms


location based services


, a tiny GPS tracking device powered by the Sirfstar III chipset with WAAS. Worldtracker SMS is able to track vehicles, packages, people or anything else you can imagine and location information can be reported to a cell phone or PDA using SMS messages send by it’s Tri Band GSM module (GSM850/1800/1900 MHz or GSM900/1800/1900 MHz). It can also visualize the tracking data using Google Earth. It has a battery life of 24 hours, however by using an additional battery pack it can run for almost four days.

New GPS Widgets Enabled by WHERE™, Tying Eco-Friendly Content to Mobile Tech Lifestyle

location based services

uLocate’s WHERE™ Platform accelerates development of NearBio’s Local Biodiesel Fueling Locations and Current Air Quality Widgets for Mobile Phones
FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Marrying technological and environmentally-conscious lifestyles, Lisa Hull, co-founder of NearBio, brings two new widgets to mobile phone users through uLocate Communications, Inc.’s WHERE™ Platform. Launched earlier this year, WHERE is the first mobile GPS widget platform for rapid development and publishing of location enabled wireless content and applications. The NearBio team’s experience illustrates the WHERE Platform’s ability to dramatically streamline the widget development process, saving time and money.
The NearBio widget provides the five nearest biodiesel fueling locations based on the user’s current location, using the most comprehensive database of locations available. Directions, hours, blends, and payment information are included for user convenience. The second widget provides current and forecasted air quality (updated every hour) using the nearest Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) air quality monitoring station.
“The WHERE platform has dramatically improved the usability of our biodiesel locator service by eliminating the need for users to know exactly where they are in order to enter their city and state or zip code,” said Ms. Hull.
“Importantly, the development took less than 24 hours, and required no testing of a multitude of handsets or negotiations with a mobile operator. In fact, without WHERE, the development of our air quality widget would have been impossible because of the development time required. We consider the WHERE application to be the most important milestone in location-based services in the last several years,” added Ms. Hull.
uLocate’s mobile GPS widget platform, WHERE, is the first of its kind on the market and is free via the WHERE Developer Program. With the WHERE platform, the time required to develop GPS-based applications is dramatically reduced, providing speed to market advantages as well as significant cost savings, while also eliminating the potential for technical errors and complex challenges. As a result, WHERE makes it possible for content owners and developers to create valuable and practical mobile GPS applications across multiple mobile devices.
“GPS applications, while useful, are historically difficult to develop,” said Walt Doyle, president and chief executive officer of uLocate. “The time required to build a GPS-based application can take twelve months or more. Plus, developers must also integrate their applications with one or multiple carrier platforms. This all requires extensive time, money and business development skills as partnerships have to be formed. Many developers have shied away from such an undertaking.”
WHERE leverages the same GPS-based technology underpinning MapQuest Find Me and other popular mobile applications. The platform uses simple, yet powerful WHERE mark-up language and scripting to allow developers to write in their preferred development language to quickly assemble applications on mobile handsets. All the tools, documentation technologies and services needed to get started can be found at: www.where.com/create.
About NearBio
NearBio (www.nearbio.com) is operated and invented by WHDC LLC (Nevada City, CA), a privately held company specializing in unique, distributed mobile applications. The company has four patents pending relating to mobile imaging, telephony, and nutrition and maintains a comprehensive database of over 1200 US biodiesel retail fueling locations.
About uLocate
uLocate Communications, Inc. (www.ulocate.com) is a privately held, venture-backed leader in consumer location-based services headquartered in Framingham, Mass. uLocate powers consumer location based services (LBS) applications for partners including MapQuest, Track-em, Global Pet Finder and offers direct to consumer LBS under its own brands including WHERE. Dozen of widgets built through the WHERE Developer Program are publicly available. For more information on WHERE, visit www.where.com.

Map-Enabled Enterprises On the Rise

location based services

GIS Meets BI (Business Intelligence) at Location Intelligence Conference 2007.
Apr 23, 2007
By: Kenneth Wong
In San Francisco, at the Web 2.0 Expo in Moscone West convention center, e-business enthusiasts mulled over the Google-DoubleClick merger, a deal that, in the view of some, gives the search engine giant too much power in online advertising ("Rivals Complain About Google-DoubleClick Deal," PC World, April 16, 2007). Several blocks away, at the Location Intelligence Conference in Parc 55 Hotel, another merger dominated the keynote sessions and hallway discussions: the unification of geospatial data and enterprise data. The move to combine backend business operations -- such as human resources, sales, accounting, warehousing and shipping -- with dynamic maps is under way, said many presenters. Some came right out and said the time has arrived to make money from this union -- and they can show you how.
Mapping Business OpportunitiesIn one conference room, Simon Thompson, ESRI's director of commercial sector industry solutions, discussed "Enterprise GIS Trends and Methods -- How to Leverage Them." In another, two vice-presidents from systems integrator CH2M HILL talked about "Spatially Enabling the Enterprise: Best Practices." Several doors away, NAVTEQ's product marketing manager Doug Kolom shared "Strategies for Monetizing and Managing Geospatial Web Services." On Tuesday April 17, the
Onsite Location Intelligence Consumption
Do location intelligence advocates and evangelists practice what they preach? Out of curiosity, this reporter asked a few randomly selected vendors at the show. Here's a sampling of the responses.
"I have a cousin who lives on the west side of [San Francisco], and I used a navigation system to figure out how to get to his house. I travel a lot and I always make sure to rent a car with a navigation system. It ends up saving me quite a bit of time by getting me where I want to go quickly and efficiently." –Nathan Pautz, sales operations specialist, NAVTEQ.
"I couldn't book a room at this hotel [Parc 55, where the conference is held], so I went online to find the nearest hotel to minimize my walk. I used Google Earth." –Robert Bray, geospatial architect, Autodesk
"At NAVTEQ, we distinguish ourselves by utilizing local knowledge. When we hire people, we hire those who're local, so they know the driving patterns. So I just asked my friend who lives here to recommend a good restaurant. That's location intelligence too." –Arthar Naqi, senior account executive, NAVTEQ post-lunch lineup presented some attendees with a dilemma: Go hear "From Mashups to Money," moderated by the John Hanke, director of Google Maps/Local/Earth, or sit in on "A Honey Pot for Investment Capital," hosted by a GIS consultant.
Speaking on "Emerging Trends in Enterprise Location Solutions," S.J. Camarata, ESRI's vice-president and director, observed, "Traditional IT applications -- the CRM [customer relationship management], ERP [enterprise resource planning], HR [human resource]-type applications -- these back-office tools that businesses and government agencies had in the past kept in enterprise perspective are now being integrated with GIS. In some cases, it's very simple ... you use standard protocols and APIs available in the enterprise platforms to make GIS a part of them. GIS is now viewed, if you will, on top of all that information."
So why haven't we heard much about the GIS-ERP success stories, about the businesses and agencies that have managed to wrestle huge returns on their geospatial investments? "But they won't talk about it," Camarata said. "That gives them a competitive edge over their competition."
Banana Republic GeocodedOne example of such integrations, CH2M HILL's vice-president Brian Cullis pointed out, can be found at Dole Organic, a Web site Dole Food has set up to let consumers verify the origin of their purchases. Suppose you bought a bunch of Dole bananas at your local Safeway. At this site, you can enter the three-digit code printed on the label into the search box to identify where it came from. Code 776, for instance, can be traced to Don Pedro Farm in La Guajira, Colombia, which received its organic certification in 2005. A link on the site takes you directly to the farm's location in Google Earth.
Robert Uleman, IBM's consulting IT specialist, observed, "It's about what you do when you start tracking moving things. That's where the explosion is now, I believe. Everything now has some way to locate itself, via GPS-enabled cell phones or RFID [radio frequency identification] tags." And that can create new headaches for the IT chiefs, he warned. "You'll get a lot of data streaming in; you need to be able to catch all those data."
Good Decision Requires PrecisionDuring the track titled "Bad Data, Missing Metadata and Other Geospatial Data Tribulations," Keith Armonaitis, president and CEO of the location analytics software firm Cubistix, spoke from first-hand experience how inaccurate geospatial data could lead to a wall -- literally. "One time I was driving along," he said. "[The navigation device] told me to make a right turn to a through street. I made a right turn -- there was a wall there."
Even when geospatial data is flawless, if critical local intelligence is unavailable and routing algorithms are imperfect, you still might not get to your destination. In another navigation experiment, Armonaitis traveled from New Jersey to Brooklyn. "I tried following the exact directions on the device and took any local knowledge out of the interpretation of my route. [The onboard navigation system] took me down the New Jersey Turnpike, off the Turnpike, then back on the Turnpike, so I paid an extra $4 in tolls. ... By the time I got to the bridge, it was closed for repair."
From these and many similar episodes, Armonaitis pondered, "It makes me wonder how often [data providers] update their data. ... I'm sure all of us in the LBS [location-based services] space realize there's not an exactness to some of the stuff we do. ... In fact, not only do we rely on other people's data, we rely on their relationship with their data provider. ... There's still an issue of people using faulty data to route where they're going."
Accuracy Has a PriceArmonaitis was followed by Pankaj Mathur, vice-president of sales at InfoUSA, a data provider. On its site, the company states that it employs "over 600 full-time people to compile and update the databases from thousands of public sources such as yellow pages, white pages, newspapers, incorporation records, real estate deed transfers and various other sources."
"It's not so much about what we can compile, but about how much the market can support this economics," Mathur observed. He revealed that it costs roughly $40 million a year to collect and clean up the data.
Athar Naqi, a senior account executive at NAVTEQ, one of the biggest road data suppliers, said, "Our network of field teams are constantly updating the database to ensure our customers have access to the most up-to-date and comprehensive map content. NAVTEQ's customers understand that refreshing the data once every two years is not a viable option if you want to provide a high-quality solution."
Where Are My Urban Warriors?Geoff Zeiss, director of technology for Autodesk Geospatial Business Unit, was among the attendees. He brought along a laptop loaded with iMOUT, an Autodesk product that unites CAD, GIS, BIM (building information modeling) and 3D visualization technologies.
When Zeiss launched the program, it revealed a cityscape, not unlike the view inside a videogame. The Web-based navigation tools let him move seamlessly from the outdoor setting to the interior of a building. Along the way, he turned on and off various walls and roofs to reveal the skeleton structure beneath the cement shell, checked the line of sight accessible from a window and took note of various heating and ventilation elements that could interfere with emergency operations. While he conducted his walkthrough, a 2D floor plan remained visible on a panel next to the viewing window. To render the urban environment on the fly, iMOUT tapped into real-world geospatial data, as-built architectural data and the visualization power of Autodesk Media and Entertainment products, he revealed.
Autodesk iMOUT, a solution conceived for military operations in urban terrain, may be also used by first responders in emergency situations. The product combines BIM, CAD, GIS and videogame-style visualization.
"It's different from [Microsoft] Virtual Earth or Google Earth," Zeiss pointed out. "[The building] is a BIM model. The elevator shafts could have come from a mechanical program. The road data could have come from a civil engineering application. Other data could have come from CAD, GIS, 3D city models and subterranean utility infrastructure data." Though conceived originally for commanders of military operations in urban terrain, "anybody who needs to respond to emergency situations" will find it useful, he said.
Who Are My Customers? Where Are My Employees?A few yards away from the workshops, Mike Profita, chief operating officer of SSS-Research, demonstrated how financial institutions, law enforcements, retailers and entertainment venue operators might use his company's products: GeoTrack and GeoBoost.
GeoBoost is described as a "Web 2.0-based technology platform ... a real-time, collaborative spatial environment." With the ability to read both common map formats (OGC WMS, WFS, MrSID, JPEG2000, NGA/RPF, AutoCAD, etc.) and databases (WFS, XML, Oracle and Oracle Spatial, Javabeans, ESRI ArcSDE, Microsoft SQL, etc.), GeoBoost provides browser-based visualization of interactive maps and charts. A customized interface for a bank, for example, might display icons and points on a map representing customers and their locations. Furthermore, these items can be associated with the type of accounts they own and the transactions they've made, identifiable in the color-coded pie charts and bar graphs.
GeoTrack, which can read RFID and GPS feeds, can be used as a management tool to monitor employees and assets. A casino operator might, for example, use the software to identify idle employees on the floor and prevent removal of properties from restricted areas, or geofenced zones.
In the demonstration by SSS-Research, imaginary casino operator Top Hat uses GeoTrack to monitor idle employees and valuable assets. Items equipped with RFID trigger alerts when they are taken beyond the geofenced zones, represented in yellow. (Image copyright SSS Research; used with permission)
Location Intelligence Conference ran April 16-18, and Web 2.0 Expo ran April 15-18. Google was the platinum sponsor of both.
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Japan’s Pedestrians to Come on Car Sat-nav

location based services

Nissan, which seems to be on a mission to push cars into an innovative era in Japan, of late made public the newest phase in continuing research into making use of technology to decrease traffic mishaps, mainly those concerning pedestrians. The company’s latest Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is aimed at alerting drivers of the location of pedestrians by making use of GPS-ready 3G phones and in-car warning systems linked to navigation systems.

Theoretically, anybody having an apt phone will be logged by a central ITS server, which will afterward relays warnings to cars by making use of the system if the pedestrian are deemed to be at risk position by it. Prior features of the technology concentrated on alert-ing of other cars in perilous situations and giving info on traffic situation. Nissan’s long- standing objective is to decrease deaths and severe injuries engrossing its cars from 15.3 per 10,000 vehicles in 1995 to half that level by 2015.

As estimable as the goal is, it’s hard to make out how cautioning drivers of the existence of pedestrians is capable of creating anything but for info overload, chiefly when Tokyo streets are mostly found full of pediatricians. That is but for even mulling over the fact that the most vulnerable pedestrians - the very young and the very old – are generally those with no phones.

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Tags: GPS, japan, Nissan, Pedestrians