The Nokia E71 smartphone, great for personal use, fantastic for the business user!

I've had a way cool Nokia E71 smartphone at my displosal for a couple of weeks. This bad-boy runs on Symbian S60 3, sports a large screen, QWERTY keypad, bluetooth, GPS, loads of memory, incredible apps, camera, video, and much more. The slideshow below shows a few images of the device which is an ideal personal and business companion... Blackberry has nothing on this one!




Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Update to Microsoft Virtual Earth, VE Web Services and Maps for Mobile Devices

Good news from the VE Blog about release 6.2... it's here along with version 1.0 of the Virtual Earth Web Services. The following features come in this release:
- Maps for Mobile Devices... (WOOHOO) Develop mobile applications with rich imagery optimized specifically for mobile devices, including the iPhone. The new mobile-optimized features are supported in the new Virtual Earth Web Services.
- Bird’s Eye Views and Bird’s Eye Hybrid. Exclusive to Microsoft, these unique views of real-world locations provide insight into “what it’s like there.” Bird’s eye hybrid adds street names to the bird’s eye maps to provide end users better visual context and orientation.
- Aerial Imagery. Leverage the impact of high-resolution aerial images from leading imagery providers.
- 3D Imagery. Create more realistic 3D views of buildings and landscapes, featuring denser city models.
- Geocoding and Reverse Geocoding. Get the most accurate locations around the world through integration of multiple geocoders and datasets with MapView, Reverse IP, and Culture to provide the most relevant and accurate results. And find the closest street address based only on latitude and longitude coordinates from a GPS or other geospatial device.
- International Geocoding. Your customers can now find international addresses with reverse geocoding, available anywhere Virtual Earth has routing.
- Localized Directions. Get localized driving or walking directions in 15 languages.
- Localized Maps.
- Extended International Parsing Capabilities.
- Expanded Number of Rooftop Views.
- Near-Matching Capabilities. using alternate and similar spellings, resulting in a more relevant search experience.
- Imagery Metadata.
- New Virtual Earth Web Services.
- One-Click Directions.
- Shapes and Shape Layers.
- Pushpin Clustering.
- Landmark-Based Routing.
- Driving Directions with Traffic-Based Routing.
- Walking Directions.
- Multipoint Routing.
- Traffic Reports.
- GeoRSS Feeds.
- Weather Integration.

See complete details here

Bookmark this Webcast about the release

see Also http://www.microsoft.com/virtualearth/

Nokia Data Gathering for field collection

Nokia rolls out another new service designed to make the lives of field data collection workers much easier - Nokia Data Gathering. With an emphasize on health care workers in developing countries, the data gathering service shows huge potential - particularly when you consider the massive level of mobile usage in these parts of the World.

US Presidential Election Prediction Maps 08 compared to 04

Interesting to compare the predictions for the coming election as compared to back in 2004. I fist mentioned these prediction maps several years ago in this article where you can also find some interesting resources that may once again be providing the public with interesting graphics. Kudos to Dave Leip on some fine graphics provided below!

2008 Prediction Map (Source: electionatlas.org)

2004 Prediction Map (Source: electionatlas.org)

Happy 10th and Google Project 10 100

Think you have an idea that could change the World? Maybe a cool map service, mobile geo-location app or ??? Google may be interested in paying you for your idea, and giving you the help you need to bring your idea to life...

Mobile Shopping App Pongr takes top prize in Tele Atlas LBS Contest

Pongr, a mobile shopping client has won first prize in the Tele Atlas Maps in Apps LBS innovator series contest. The app encourages users to snap a photo of a product or UPC code, send it to them via mobile, and in return receive the best price - more on the app

Which Mobile Device / Smartphone Do You Want Next?

We've seen a number of very cool, powerful, and useful smartphones hit the market recently... most of them very suitable for work and play. If you could upgrade your mobile device next month which way would you go??

Webcast reminder - Tomorrow, Enable Data Independence for Field Users

Tomorrow, TerraGo and Adobe are hosting an hour long webinar titled "Enable Data Independence for Field Users". About the session... "Non geo-savvy users need to access and collaborate with geospatial data and assets. These users aren’t concerned whether it is a map from ESRI or an image from ERDAS, they just want the information to help them respond faster, make better decisions and enable their teams to be more productive." Time and Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008, 11am Eastern; 8am Pacific - see details and register here
Attendees will learn how to:

• put disparate data sources together in a single, intelligent, interactive PDF
• Review geospatial data types required by non-GIS experts
• create a functional map using multiple data sources easily and securely accessible by anyone using Adobe Reader

International Polar Year Polar Days

On Wednesday September 24th, the International Polar Year is hosting the sixth of a series of themed "International Polar days" that will occur approximately every three months. September 24th focuses on People at the Poles. See more www.ipy.org homepage and if you're organization can contribute in any way there's a map on the homepage where contributors are encouraged to add details of their efforts and interest.

at dazbog havin a coffee, like i haven't had enough already!

Finally, it's official The Google Android G1 device

Today T-mobile made it offical, the company will be distributing the first Google Android mobile device - the G1 (from HTC). Some details... an open-source mobile platform led by Google. T-Mobile G1 is a touch-screen mobile phone that includes a QWERTY keyboard and features applications like Google Maps with StreetView, Gmail and YouTube. The phone will be available in the U.S. beginning Oct. 22 and in the United Kingdom in early November with other international launch dates scheduled throughout 2009. See the official announcement

More info... Based on the Android open source OS, the device sports some amazing functionality including: swipe, touch, embedded google apps (maps, search etc...) fast access to your most heavily-used apps (like YouTube, gmaps), slide-out QWERTY keyboard, drag/drop apps, MP3 player, 3MP camera, WiFi, access to mobile street views with compass mode option (this is way cool!!) amazing apps for carbon footprint detection, bar-code scanning, location services, and much more - this device, available from T-Mobile in the near future (or pre-order online now) will be HUGE! Pricing... $179 + contract (commercial launch Oct 22) - $35 month for unlimited web and messaging. As near as I can tell this device sports most of the functionality that you would want, except for, video capture, Bluetooth, and GPS! I'm still digging up info to determine exactly the full feature specs.

OsGeo RFP for FOSS4G 2010 Conference

From OsGeo... The Open Source Geospatial Foundation, or OSGeo, today released a request for proposal for the hosting of the FOSS4G 2010 conference. The RFP solicitation closes December 1st, 2008. See details

GIS education gets a boost on CO Front Range

Great to see GIS making front page in today's Coloradoan - Fort Collins. Seems the Poudre School District, with some help of a couple of businesses, have secured a small grant to help fuel interest in geo technologies for future high school graduates. The district will be putting a course into place in the spring where some 50 students will be able to take a class in either clean energy for companies, or GIS technologies. The funding has come out of the Metro Denver Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) program. I find it interesting how the Geo-technologies (GIS) has been tied so closely to the booming clean energies sector. See more via Coloradoan

More Nokia OpenLab Videos

Indeed there's tons of images and video that came out of Helsinki at the recently held Nokia OpenLab... almost overwhelming since about 3 dozen attendees and the show planners were all generating content (live) while there. The Nokia team put together a very cool video montage that summarized some of the cool moments during the 3 days... enjoy.

And more videos from the adventure!

• Drinking in Helsinki (CT Moore)
• Workshop #1 (Whatleydude)
• Workshop #3 (Gypsybandito)
• OpenLab workshops on events page
• Environmental workshop - listen to the freaking crash 10 seconds in- wow!
  

Samsung Tools says no to Nokia PC Suite

As more and more cool, new devices come out (most of them now GPS enabled) I have the need to test and install numerous apps and services. Recently I was trying to install and use Samsung PC Suite when I ran into an obstacle... seems the app is forcing me to get rid of Nokia PC Suite... Frustrating since my main mobiles are Nokia and in order to test the functionality of the way cool GPS-enabled SGHi560 seems I need to make a choice or remove PC Suite do my thing with the Samsung, then grab the 100+MB Nokia PC Suite and re-install...