What is special about Geospatial?

Statements of Nokia and Navteq:

“Nokia and NAVTEQ together make a powerful combination, and customers will benefit as the transaction enables NAVTEQ to accelerate its expansion into new regions and introduce innovative new content. This is an industry poised for further growth and NAVTEQ will play a major role in the field,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, President and CEO, Nokia. “The addition of NAVTEQ comes at the right time for Nokia’s business, allowing us to create the leading location platform just as context-aware and location-based Internet services expand rapidly into mobile communications devices.”

Judson Green, President and CEO of NAVTEQ, said: “Nokia has a deep understanding of the requirements for the industry. As part of Nokia, NAVTEQ will further invest in its map and content capabilities and make our products and services easier for all our customers to use and access.”

“NAVTEQ’s map data already play an important role in Nokia Maps service, which brings downloadable maps, voice-guided navigation and other context-aware web services to people’s pockets. Now that the acquisition has been completed, this role will become even more important as context-aware Internet services grow,” added Niklas Savander, Executive Vice President for Services & Software, Nokia.

The transaction is valued at approximately $8.1 billion.

About NAVTEQ

NAVTEQ is a leading provider of comprehensive digital map information for automotive navigation systems, mobile navigation devices, Internet-based mapping applications, and government and business solutions. NAVTEQ creates the digital maps and map content that power navigation and location-based services solutions around the world. The Chicago-based company was founded in 1985 and has more than 3,600 employees located in 187 offices and in 39 countries. NAVTEQ maps are available in 73 countries today and are distinguished by their detailed inclusion of over 260 road network attributes essential to dynamic, turn-by-turn route guidance and navigation.

With the deal Nokia Maps will be strenghtend. Nokia Maps covers over 200 countries, with over 70 of them navigable. Nokia Maps 2.0 has improved its optional Car Navigation, enhanced its pedestrian navigation, added multimedia city guides, offers satellite images, and is sporting a redesigned user interface.

Nokia Press Release

Navteq Press Release

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Tomorrow the new Apple’s iPhone 3G will be available. In Austria t-mobile and one will offer contracts for the new iPhone. David Pogue from NYTimes has created a new video about the new iPhone.

Last year David Pogue has created a legendary video about the introduction of the first iPhone.

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Typing on a mobile device my be very cumbersome. Google also recognized this disadvantage and provide a voice search for Google Maps for mobile devices. They give a short tutorial how to do voice search. unfortunately it is only available for some blackbarry phones, but I assume it the service is accepted by the user, more phones will be supported.

But how it is written on the site?

“Using your voice is optional. You can always type your searches as usual.”

[via: http://www.google.com/mobile/blackberry/maps/voicesearch.html]

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Nokia is planning opening up Nokia Maps for the Desktop and synchronizing information between desktop and mobile phone. Therefore they are working on a browser frontend for their maps and navigation service Nokia Maps, which is optimized for the PC. The user should be able to plan a route on the PC and is shown the information on the mobile after synchronizing. I can be assumed that Nokia Maps will be embedded into the Ovi-platform. Currently the product is under development and will not be available before fall 2008.

In general it can be said that Nokia make a lot of effort providing geospatial solution for the mobile world. Nokia has announced to deliver 35 to 40 million mobiles, which have built-in GPS chips.

[via: golem.de]

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What are the best mobiles for LBS? To answer this questions I have taken four phones from different manufactures and compared them. In my opinion following issues are important if you want to use a mobile for LBS applications:

• buid-in GPS
• large screen size and resolution
• fast internet connection
• good usability and operating system which allows to design own applciation easily
• battery life
• prize

Maybe there are some more criteria to rate phones for their LBS suitability.

I know this is a very limited evaluation. But for this four phones my winner is the iPhone 3G because of the great suitability and the mobile MacOS X SDK.

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Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (see definition at Wikipedia).

The application fields of augmented reality for spatial problems are very broad. The contain navigation, enviromental planning, etc. Object recognition is here also an issue. Currently many GI researchers are dealing with the topic of augmented maps. Some interesting papers are for example:

• Augmented Maps
• Localisation and Interaction for Augmented Maps
• Clarification Dialogues in Human-Augmented Mapping
• Overlaying Paper Maps with Digital Information Services for Tourists

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To create a MapView within Android you onle have to use the MapView object. You can go through the code and see how it works. For the user interface hou need to have en element with the corresponing ID.

The Class:

package com.joesonic;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import com.google.android.maps.MapActivity;
import com.google.android.maps.MapView;
public class MapsMini extends MapActivity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
private MapView mapview;
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
super.onCreate(icicle);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
mapview = (MapView)findViewById(R.id.mapview);
}
}

The Result:

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Garmin Wednesday night surprised the cellphone industry by taking its own leap into smartphones. The Nuviphone aims both to compete with the iPhone as well as to bring Garmin’s experience with GPS navigation to the forefront. Almost entirely controlled by a 3.5-inch touchscreen interface, the device centers around its native GPS unit: in addition to straightforward navigation, a host of Google apps allow it to search for local businesses, check traffic, and view nearby weather. Any photos or videos taken with the built-in camera are automatically geotagged for positioning in location-based services.

The GPS maker also seeks to improve on areas underserved by its current rival at Apple. In addition to Wi-Fi, the Nuviphone connects to the Internet through a 3G HSDPA connection with AT&T or other worldwide networks. This helps with multi-network instant messaging (including Google) and easy access to GMail, according to the company. It also supports MMS media messaging in addition to SMS texting.

[electronista]

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