Press release from AirIQ says that Cingular will provide the data network for AirIQ services for the ‘ vehicular and personal tracking markets’.

This could be significant for a couple of reasons. First of all, Cingular has missed the boat for handset support for LBS. One way to catch up is to pursue other partnerships that leverage their data network to deliver LBS services. Secondly, this bolsters the leadership position Cingular appears to be taking in the US of opening up the walled garden.

Hope to see more announcements like this.

Via DirectionsMag.

From BoingBoing, a Homebrew GSM cellphone.

Homemade cell phones could be a signficant first step toward a future when we can choose our own personal device, customize its features, and make micropayments for usage to whichever network provider (EV-DO, WiMax, WiFi, etc) happens to be in range as we go about our day.

MocoNews brings to light some unenforceable terms from the Verizon TOS for NationalAccess (1xRTT) and BroadbandAccess (EV-DO):

Unlimited NationalAccess/BroadbandAccess services cannot be used (1) for uploading, downloading or streaming of movies, music or games, (2) with server devices or with host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, Voice over IP (VoIP), automated machine-to-machine connections, or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, or (3) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections.

I can imagine a group of lawyers representing different divisions of Verizon working together to craft this TOS, and in the process finding a way to render the service practically useless.

Amp’d Mobile, the Verizon MVNO that’s preparing to launch soon, is going to become a test-case for mobile advertising.

Peter Adderton described his plans to Advertising Age:

- Ads will target 18-to-34 year-olds.
– Ads could take up as much as a quarter to a half of the screen.
– Ads will be five to 10 seconds long.
– Their research found 7 of 10 consumers would watch commercials that affect the cost of mobile phone content “in a heartbeat.”
– Advertisers will sponsor channels, for example an Amp’d Pepsi Channel.
– Amp’d will maintain some editorial control over types of advertising and their content (no Viagra ads).

And in case the ad model doesn’t work, on the subscription side … pornography ‘will be available on the Amp’d phone through a “vaulted” channel, one which requires user identification and a pass code’.

Via MocoNews.

Since their merger with GDT, TeleAtlas has been in process of combining two massive databases and data collection processes. On the former GDT side, they use aerial imagery with hand-drawn roads augmented by schematics from governments and other sources. On the former TeleAtlas North America side, they have fleets of vehicles driving the roads. While this database merge project is a monumental undertaking, it offers the possibility of geographic data set with greater currency than either process by itself would allow.

NAVTEQ traditionally has gathered the vast majority of their road geography through fleets of drivers. It will be very interesting to compare the quality of the NT versus TA data going forward.

Good though brief summary of the project in a DirectionsMag article by Marilyn Otto of MapInfo.

The ‘Stanford Center for Position, Navigation and Time’ is working on the next generation of GPS. Very cool stuff, one nice benefit of such high accuracy GPS systems would be in-vehicle navigation systems that allow the vehicle to drive themselves.

GPS receivers used to be bigger than a brick a decade ago and were accurate to within about 100 meters. Today a handheld $100 GPS receiver can fix a point on the ground within five or 10 meters, while more expensive military systems can zero in on the receiver within five meters or fewer…

The interdisciplinary research center wants to create a navigation system capable of locating objects within one centimeter, or less than half an inch.

From a Seattle Times article. Via All Points Blog.

Today Google launched a J2ME client for local search and maps.

Some initial thoughts…
– Since they’re delivering it via an over-the-top model, Google will receive all future revenue from the service. But the downside is that they alienate the carriers, blocking themselves completely from Verizon and forfeiting active marketing assistance from any other carrier.
– Depending on which mapping vendor they’re using, they’ll be spending anywhere from a lot to a whole lot on data royalty expenses, especially when it includes GPS capability.
– The service crashes my Treo 650. Haven’t tried it yet on other phones.

For articles around the web, try Technorati’s search of ‘authoritative bloggers’.

Update: Good comparison of Google and Yahoo’s mobile approaches at MobHappy. Similarly to how they deal with content providers, Yahoo is partnering with carriers while Google is going around them. One big advantage to Yahoo’s approach is they can create a better user experience through phone compatibility and integrated hardware/software from the handset manufacturers and carriers.

Microsoft Mobile’s successful strategy to get carrier distribution is described in Business 2.0.

Microsoft’s masterstroke was its decision to focus attention on wireless operators when marketing its Windows Mobile platform. By partnering with white-label electronics manufacturers such as HTC, Microsoft presented operators with a means to customize phones exactly to their network specifications, while HTC allowed the carriers to brand their own names on its phones. “We realized there had always been a love-hate relationship between carriers and big phone vendors,” Starkweather says. By letting carriers customize its operating system to fit their needs, Microsoft was able to get a foothold in the wireless industry

This strategy gets the credit for strong quarterly numbers for the mobile and embedded devices division:
– Their revenues grew 50 percent over the prior year, to $75 million.
– They posted a $2 million operating loss, compared with a $29 million loss during the same period in 2004.

Have to give them credit for this. I’m considering buying my first MS mobile phone.

Via Om.

Along with the launch of their beta maps site, Yahoo! has updated the Yahoo Maps API. This has sparked an interesting discussion among geowankers about what you can actually (legally) do with these APIs in relation to GPS.

Here are the restrictive terms:

Yahoo! Maps

Sensor-Based Location Limit
You may use location data derived from GPS or other location sensing devices in connection with the Yahoo! Maps APIs, provided that such location data is not based on real-time (i.e., less than 6 hours) GPS or any other real-time location sensing device, the GPS or location sensing device that derives the location data cannot automatically (i.e. without human intervention) provide the end user’s location, and any such location data must be uploaded by an end-user (and not you) to the Yahoo! Maps APIs.

Google Maps

In addition, the Service may not be used: (a) for or with real time route guidance (including without limitation, turn-by-turn route guidance and other routing that is enabled through the use of a sensor), or (b) for, or in connection with, any systems or functions for automatic or autonomous control of vehicle behavior.

These terms reflect restrictions from TeleAtlas and NAVTEQ and have the purpose of protecting the in-car navigation market, which despite all the recent buzz about online mapping represents by far a greater source of revenue.

The restrictions prompted the best question I’ve seen on this topic (from Geowanking Digest, Vol 24, Issue 4):

What happens if I used a sextant to get the real-time position data?

Assuming that a sextant is a ‘location sensing device’, I’m guessing that some lawyers would have to get involved.

MAKE describes ‘HOW TO GPS tag photos’.

Here’s an example of the Flickr tags:
make
seattle
google earth
geotagged
geo:lat=47.620628
geo:long=-122.349329

And they recommend including ‘http://www.geobloggers.com/’ in the description, so your photos will automatically be referenced by GeoBloggers.

The problem is that unless you have a very rare GPS-enabled camera, you’ll have to carry an external GPS and keep track of the coordinates of where each photo was taken. So it’s just a system for geeks for now. Still, pretty cool.