LBS developers encouraged to create apps for Nokia E71 and N95

Nokia wants to encourage developers to create innovative LBS apps to run on the E71 or N95 smartphones. Nokia will provide qualifying contestants with handsets and software tools to enable the development of LBS applications based on multiple platforms including S60 for Symbian OS, Java ME, Python as well as the WHERE platform in the Americas region. Nokia will also provide qualifying contestants with their choice of the Nokia E71 or Nokia N85 handset to develop their location-enabled applications for the competition.
About the devices:
-- The Nokia E71 is the world's thinnest QWERTY handset and supports the latest Ovi services, including maps, music and media sharing. The Nokia E71 is an Official Device in the EMEA and Americas regions.
-- The dual-slider Nokia N85 enables users to discover new places with turn-by-turn voice navigation, pedestrian navigation, city guides and 15 million points of interest. Users can also upload geotagged pictures from the 5 Megapixel camera or videos on the internet directly from the handset. The Nokia N85 is an Official Device in the EMEA region.


Nokia E71 symbian S60 smartphone - see more on the LBS challenge here

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

NAVTEQ Community Blogs

You may have seen that the Nokia purchase of NAVTEQ is finally a done deal - see details - but did you know you can browse the NAVTEQ community blogs online here

Location-based party hopping.. where was this when I needed it?

Oh man, where was this app when I was growing up and going to College! The youth today have all the cool stuff... imaging this - broadcast the location of your party via mobile and get free drinks in return! Yes indeed, that's the premise behind Meet Now Live (MNL). Some details... NL's public beta launch includes a network of more than 2,000 bars, clubs, and lounges in the Metro New York, Jersey Shore, and Hamptons areas. This summer, anybody can register for the service free-of-charge at Meetnowlive.com, and then use it to find bars, nightlife, and friends. After registration, users broadcast their location from their Web-enabled mobile device (with optimized interface for iPhones), allow others to view their location broadcast in real-time, and let the party begin. visit www.meetnowlive.com or see more in this announcement

Event - Focus on Locus: Symposium on Location Based Services

An interesting event taking place this Friday in New York...
When: Friday, July 11, 2008
Where: 301 Uris Hall, Columbia Business School, 116th & Broadway, New York, NY
Hosted by: Columbia Institute of Tele-Information (CITI)
See http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/citi/events/lbs08 or check out the blog at http://chrisloh.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/lbs/

Team Phoenix to compete as a finalist in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Competition with taxibuses

What a cool story out of Telogis. A group of four students from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, calling themselves Team Phoenix, have been selected as a finalist to compete in the Imagine Cup 2008 worldwide finals to take place in Paris July 3–8, 2008. This year the Microsoft competition is challenging young programmers around the world to “Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment.”

At the core of Team Phoenix’s Taxibus solution is GeoBase mapping software by Telogis. The software solution uses GeoBase to determine the routes for taxibuses to take and to give a powerful visualization of the simulation. See more about the app in the news

The Sony Ericsson Paris Video of the UIQ P5 smartphone

An interesting video from Paris has been "leaked" to the public. The clip shows the P5, a UIQ smartphone that appears very sleek, has a touch UI, boasts mapping (GPS-enabled??), camera, video, and all the other goodies that come with such a next-gen device.

Indeed, this device is sweet to say the least!










For more on the P5, check out Engadget
or IntoMobile

Forum Nokia Code Camp: Location-based Services heads to Mountain View

Heads Up! Forum Nokia Code Camp: Location-based Services is scheduled for June 10th inMountain View, California, US - In this LBS session, the Nokia team get you up to speed with the latest enabling technologies for building location-aware mobile applications and services, including positioning technologies, POI management, mapping and navigation and service integration. The content is going to be delivered by top Nokia experts and select location-based ecosystem members. See more

Event of Interest - Explore the Mobile Future

Heads up on this one... Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley Conference to Explore the Mobile Future, April 22. Details - Acknowledging the rise of handheld mobile devices as a dominant computing platform both in the United States and abroad, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California at Berkeley have joined together to sponsor “The Mobile Future: Technology Revolutionizing Our Lives.” The one-day conference gathers leading academics, researchers, pundits and industry experts to discuss their visions of this mobile future, along with technology and business models for achieving them. The conference will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., April 22 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, Calif. For more details, please visit http://west.cmu.edu/sofcon08/13867052.html.

Navteq partners with uLocate

Wow, these guys don't waste any time partnering up... although you could see this one coming a mile away! Navteq has just announced today that they have partnered up with uLocate (these guys developed the WHERE developer platform). Under the deal, uLocate will us NAVTEQ map data for applications running on the WHERE platform and Buddy Beacon products in the U.S. and Europe. FYI, 12 of the 15 finalists in the LBS challenge this week were powered by WHERE! IF your interested in dabbling with the WHERE platform you might take note of their developer contest... a good time to start creating your first mobile, location-aware app. See more

SpotJots from ten23 takes 1st place in 2008 Navteq LBS Challenge with SpotJots

Just managed to catch the award ceremony for the 2008 Navteq LBS Challenge from Vegas... some very interesting apps from some new names. And the winner is... from ten23 Software SpotJots (See http://www.ten23software.com) - about the app:
SpotJots enables users to upload their stories, reviews, pictures, video, audio and documents to their personal SpotJots blog, where the content can be associated with relevant location information and shared with the entire community, just friends or kept private for personal viewing only. Users can discover content and people through various site tools, including keyword searches, a public timeline, city exploration guides, references, a featured user list and maps which promotes spatial discovery of content. Of note, ten23 software was a semi-finalist in last year's challenge with their cool SpotKast application

Congrats to all the winners!

Spotjots from ten23 software - powered by deCarta


1st Runner up - WildLab, powered by WHERE


2nd runner up (and the coolest name!) HeyWhatsThat - powered by WHERE

3rd Runner up AEN Mobile – Americas Emergency Network - powered by WHERE

Interesting to note about this years contest, over half of entries had some form of user-generated content in their apps!

Nice job on the video Networks in Motion (NIM)

I'm not sure why more companies don't do this! NIM has released a YouTube video directly from CTIA Wireless 2008 describing what they to offers visitors to their booth. With smartphones now shipping with high quality video and mobile apps like Shozu enabling rapid upload to youtube, I would expect this to be more common. Although, it's likely that one would have to upload their 5 minute vid via PC outside the exhibition hall due to the typical bandwidth over-usage at these shows... also, Shozu won't handle a 10MB upload too well! I hope to see more of these on YouTube soon!








In the video, Networks In Motion’s CEO, Doug Antone, describes the company and introduces its newest application, AtlasBook Navigator™, a software platform available to NIM’s wireless carrier partners to implement into their own branded mobile phone navigation applications.

Catch the greatest in LBS via webcast on Wednesday

Webcast of interest... can't get to Vegas this week to take in the Navteq LBSChallenge awards ceremony? No problem as you can kick back in your office chair and watch the awards live via webcast - a great way to save some cash and enjoy seeing and hearing from some of the coolest developers of innovative LBS apps. Watch Live Announcement of Winners from CTIA WIRELESS on April 2, 2008 at www.LBSChallenge.com at 3:00 p.m. PST

Loopt - the first location aware developer program??

A reader brought this one to my attention and I have to admit I had to read over it a couple of times myself before deciding to post it... I'm still not exactly sure of the meaning! Last wee Loopt, a social-mapping and communication service, announced a new closed, Beta developer program. This next sentence is what had me wondering about the exact meaning... “We are thrilled to offer the first live location developer program that ushers in a new generation of context-sensitive mobile services,” said Sam Altman, CEO and co-Founder of Loopt. So, is it the first Loopt live location developer program or the first live location developer program? Also, what exactly is a live location developer program?? I know for a fact there are other devzones and developer programs that leverage the users' "live" location so this one has me wondering.

AT&T to target k-12 schools with RFID and GPS tracking services

This interesting tidbit from AT&T... AT&T Inc. has announced the availability of interoperable radio frequency identification (RFID) and GPS-based mobile resource management (MRM) solutions for the K - 12 education segment. The solutions will enhance visibility into the facility and vehicular operations of K - 12 institutions, increasing staff productivity, reducing costs and improving student safety. AT&T's RFID application works in conjunction with MRM location-based services that use GPS technology, AT&T's wireless data network and specialized hosted and managed applications. These applications enable K - 12 institutions to track school bus locations, monitor their speed and condition while on the road and report on events within vehicles. The service enables school districts to improve student safety and to save money by routing their school buses as efficiently as possible -- cutting down on fuel, maintenance and labor expenses. See more at http://www.att.com/edu

SiRF Creating Location Awareness on the Android Platform

Finally some news on the Android front from a developer... it's been some time since we've heard anything! This announcement comes from SiRF - SiRF is actively working on the Android platform to include some of the more innovative features of Secure User Plane Location (SUPL), a standards-based protocol that allows a mobile handset client to communicate with a SUPL Location Platform (SLP), including transport layer security (TLS) for location privacy and multiple session capabilities to provide the most compelling user experience. SiRF is also implementing support for Android-based assisted GPS (A-GPS) handsets, including mobile station based (MSB) and mobile station assisted (MSA) positioning methods to facilitate the Android platform passing Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and 3GPP conformance testing for third-party certification. More details here

Navteq Traffic to go - the case for LBS and advertising

A presentation from Nokia World, Amsterdam, describing how effective location-aware advertising can be. Presented by Chris Rothey, VP Navteq. Interesting that to date the mobile, location-aware ads are being very succesful, are valuable to users, people are looking at it etc. The key to mobile ads is that it places the advert in a different context, adding tremendous value. Imagine that an ad for a short video clip download or coupon etc.. may have much more meaning when delivered to you if your standing in line at a move or waiting for a train etc... Imagine approaching an Interstate exit and a relevant ad serving a coupon for gas or a free drink is served... contextual ads will be huge!

New Patent to Enhance Local Search from GeoVector

Details on Another patent focused on local search... GeoVector today has announced a New Patent to Enhance Local Search. The location-based technology allows access to images or video by pointing a mobile phone or other device at an object or place. The new technology, available for license, also significantly extends battery life of mobile devices. US Patent 7301536 better enables mobile phones or other devices to display stored digital images which are linked to real-world objects or places. see also geovector.com

Tele atlas CES Attendee Choice Awards deadline extension - Dec 1

A reminder to any LBS developers out there interested in the CES Attendee Choice Awards being promoted by Tele Atlas. Here's a great opportunity to get your app kick-started - and get some great exposure!

Three consumer LBS application developers will be chosen to showcase their solution in the Tele Atlas booth at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) - Jan 7 thru 10, 2008 in Las Vegas. Attendees will select the best application via SMS voting. Program details can be found at http://www.teleatlas.com/lbsseries and official rules here.

Perhaps there's another cool GPS-enabled mobile shopping application or similar app out there waiting to be discovered. It seems so far that shopping is the hot app for 07 as GPSshopper from Slifter has recently scored a win in the LBS innovator series and Yokel won the WHERE developer contest for their location-enabled shopping app... Good luck! Remember Submit your application by Dec. 1.

GPShopper (Slifter) Wins Tele Atlas Maps in Apps Contest

Become a GPS Shopper! Kudos to Slifter and their GPS shopper on this win... the app is indeed cool, to say the least! I recall I first featured Slifter last Christmas (prior to their fame) as an application to watch. GPShopper (www.gpshopper.com) is the first ever local mobile phone product search. With big name retailers and over 50 million products, GPShopper and its revolutionary Slifter (www.slifter.com) technology allows consumers to receive up-to-the-minute product availability, location and pricing right on their cell phones. See more on the Contest in this PR from Tele Atlas