A rant by Mordy Gilden.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably used Google Maps on your desktop browser for something at least once in your life. Google Maps is arguably the most popular mapping and directions plotting service there is, effectively stealing that crown from MapQuest ages ago.
So, its no surprise that the most popular server-based mapping and routing application on mobile phones is Google Maps Mobile (GMM). GMM offers a few features that don’t exist on the desktop based version, including support for GPS location if your phone has it, or localized search based on tower-triangulation (if your phone does not have or give you access to a GPS chip). It will even locate the addresses of contacts from your phonebook on some handsets.
Now, Google has announced voice recognition technology, based on the same technology as GOOG-411. Currently being tested on certain Blackberry handsets, the concept here is that your phone will record the voice clip, send it to Google’s servers who will decipher it, and send back the relevant information to your handset. Pretty nifty stuff, in fact nifty enough that many bloggers including Engadget, MobileCrunch, Boy Genius Report, and many others have rushed in to share this ground-breaking information with the rest of the Mobile World.
In fact, to quote the BGR:
“For the most recent feature addition, Google has decided to implement a bit of voice recognition. Sweet!”
Now, here’s where I’m confused. Did everyone miss Microsoft’s announcement to do this almost a year ago with Windows Live Search?
Windows Live has been offering this service for many of its compatible handsets, which include a wide range of devices including Blackberrys.
I currently use it on my Windows Mobile device so much that I now consider the feature to be indispensable (especially when on the road).
So, this begs the question: How come nobody talks about this stuff until Google does it?!
I see this as a great move on GMM’s part, and I share the enthusiasm as the aforementioned bloggers. However, my feelings towards it are not “Sweet!”, but rather “Finally! What took you guys so long?“. You don’t normally see Microsoft beating Google to the punch at these sort of things.
I have to admit, Google Maps seems to have fallen behind on features- Windows Live offers real time turn-by-turn routing on GPS enabled devices which GMM still does not do, not to mention some cute features like finding the cheapest gas, movie times and more based on your current location. Google still doesn’t do all of that.
Basically, Google Maps broke new grounds and set standards for desktop map utilities, but as far as mobile apps go, Windows Live far exceeds them in features and usability… once again, not something you’d expect from Microsoft. But there it is.
I am at least consoled by the fact that many of the loyal Engadget readers commented that they’ve already been doing this with Windows Live over the past year. Still, it makes me wonder how many people are only interested in a concept if Google is behind it… let’s see how well Android plays out against Linux Mobile.
I once read that if you want a promotion at work or just want to improve your life, go traveling.There is just something about it.Maybe it’s seeing something for the first time or problem solving your way out of situations while traveling that makes it so beneficial.I’ve been on the road for just over a week straight now and had two instances where I really needed to use GMaps.
I know the Google Maps application for phones has been out for a while now, and I have played with it a few times before (you know, to find cross streets in DC and such), but I never really used the application because I had no other option. I think these real life tests reveal much more about the application than just playing around with the tool.
The first part of the trip was out in CA.Actually, it was my first outing to Silicon Valley! I didn’t know the area that well at all, went out to the burbs, had dinner with a few people, and lost track of time. Long story short, I missed my train, didn’t really want to, but I had to stay.I am not one for unexpected sleepovers (being able to brush your teeth is nice), so woke up early the next day, pulled out my phone, found my way back to the BART train and easily navigated my way back to my destination. I must say, i was quiet impressed that trainstations were on the map! Without Google, there is NO way I would have found the station.CA is not much of a walking state, I mean, there are no sidewalks, many steep hills, and not a cab in sight!
After a mix of trains and planes, I thought it might be nice to take the car up to the City for the second half of my trip.Parking your car in Manhattan does not need to be difficult or expensive (There are plenty of spots in Harlem and the 2/3 express train stops at 125th).I was running late the morning I was going to drive out to long island from the City and completely forgot to print out directions!Luckily I remembered GMaps Mobile app offered directions.
Now, the nice thing about GMaps Mobile is that it imposes the directions on top of the map.So if you don’t quite understand what the directions are saying, you can visually see that specific step.The other great feature I found was that it estimated with current traffic conditions, how much longer my trip was going to be.It always sucks to be stuck in traffic, but I would rather be forewarned than surprised.
But, this is in the leg of the trip where I saw a few faults with the application:
First off, with Google Maps Mobile there is no way to just view the written directions all at once.Instead, you can ONLY view the directions one at a time.IDK about you, but before I go somewhere, and if I have time, I like to read out all of the directions.That way, if I have to make a snap decision, in my subconscious some names or exit numbers ought to be familiar.
Second, I think it might be useful for GMaps Mobile to add a voice component.When your steps are coming one right after another in a busy place, it is difficult to take your eyes off the road and focus in on your tiny phone screen.Now, if there was an automated voice reading the directions that would make for a much safer driving experience.
Third, every time my phone turned off the screen to save on power and I clicked any button to bring up the screen again, the application would not pick up where it left off. I was forced to press the number 3 to return to the previous entry.Mix this with heavy NYC traffic, directions happening in less than .1 miles from one another and you found a very stressed Kathie.Fortunately, I made it safe and sound to my beach town.
Thanks to Google Maps Mobile, I was able to navigate an unknown city on my own and drive out to LI with out printing directions.
In Barcelona at 3GSM, Rave Wireless is one of three finalists from the United States competing against a total of twenty-three entries from around the world. The event is the MoMo Global Peer Awards 2007, a project of MobileMonday. Finalists were picked by MobileMonday chapters each of which chose a company that has demonstrated exceptionally innovative mobile technologies, products, services and concepts.
Rave will be showcasing their Rave Guardian GPS application which keeps college kids safe all over the country.
February 12-25 in Barcelona 70,000 people are attending 3GSM World Congress, the planetss premier mobile event. Rave Wireless VP of product Todd Piett and Raves own Mobile evangelist Justin Oberman (aka me) are attending and presenting.
Its nice when a company actually listens to the market its trying to cater to. Many wondered what Helio was thinking when they offered two handsets to the tech savvy crowd and left out simple and necessary application like BlueTooth. Well, now Helio’s new Samsung Handset, the Drift, not only sports Bluetooth but has a built in GPS system with wicked Location Based Services (LBS) to boot.
This sleek and compact slider packs exceptional power and design into a slim, elegant shape. Produced by Samsung and exclusively available to Helio members, the Drift launches in two colors; gunmetal black and frost white. The Drift features a 2.12 inch high-resolution QVGA display, stereo Bluetooth®, 128MB internal memory expandable via microSD™, 2.0 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom and flash for shooting photos and video, high-speed 3G network access for lightning fast data, and MP3, MPEG-4 and VOD support for endless entertainment options. The Drift is also complete with GPS capabilities to support innovative new Helio services in addition to existing exclusive services like MySpace Mobile and Helio On Top (H.O.T.).
The built in GPS works together with built in Google maps. In addition to using GPS technology to pull up a current location on a clear and crisp map, Google Mapsâ„¢ for mobile also lets Helio members get:
• Real-time traffic: locate traffic jams or find a new route in over 30 major U.S. metropolitan areas with color-coded traffic reports.
• Detailed directions: routes displayed on the map itself, together with step-by-step directions.
• Integrated search results: local business locations and contact information appear in one place, integrated on the map so you can find the closest pizza joint and get there fast.
• Easily movable maps: interactive, draggable maps let members zoom in or out, or pan in every direction.
• Satellite imagery: get a bird’s eye view of a desired location.
But Helio is really the first mobile company to truly take advantage of GPS for Buddy Beaconing. Buddy Beacon is the new way for Helio members to synchronize their social lives and tell friends where the fun is. Rather than calling or texting, Helio members can switch on their Buddy Beacon and use satellite technology to broadcast their location to the friends they add to their Buddy List. When they turn on Buddy Beacon, their Buddy List friends can see their location on a map along with their closest address. Members can add up to 25 Buddies to their Buddy List. When members change locations and want to let everyone know the party is on the move, one simple button refreshes the location. Want to hide out? Just leave Buddy Beacon off to enjoy a night of privacy or to slip out the back of the club into the VIP.
Buddy Beacon also lets Helio members send out an SMS message asking their friends to flip on their Buddy Beacons. When they activate Buddy Beacon, members can see where everyone’s at and meet up with the closest person for a fun night out or to tailgate at the big game. If a member notices a friend is nearby, a call can be placed directly from Buddy Beacon to check in on the fun.
Pretty damn cool. Its the future and Helio is already there.
Anyone that could have seen the hours I wasted last night trying to install the maps for the US West Coast onto my TREO 650 for a trip to L.A I am taking would find it as humorous as I did to wake up this morning and discover the news that TOMTOM , the GPS software I use on my Treo, just released the long awaited new version of their mobile PDA GPS software the Navigator 6.
New features include:
Users of NAVIGATOR 6 can also take advantage of TomTom’s innovative desktop software application TomTom HOME, which enables users to easily manage, download, store and transfer content and services to their device. TomTom HOME is compatible with both a PC and MAC.
TomTom NAVIGATOR 6 also includes TomTom’s innovative TomTom Buddies service, enabling authorised TomTom users to locate each other and send instant messages*.
TomTom will unveil both a regional and European version of NAVIGATOR 6. The regional version will come with detailed maps of a customer’s country or region, as well as including the major roads in Western Europe, for seamless cross border navigation. The European version features complete door-to-door navigation anywhere in Western Europe.
Another great and obvious “everyone has a cell phone so what should we make it do” ideas. SmarterAgent is a mobile real estate application that uses GPS location data to provide information about surrounding properties. It basically gives you a list of houses for sale close to your actual physical location. Other advanced options such proximity and price tweaking are also included… just don’t expect to find anything under a million when standing in the middle of Scarsdale NY.
And if you just like ti I-Spy you can see how much houses in your vincinity sold for to gossip around the dinner table or see if the area is worth it.
Of course the smarter feature is the push to call an agent application if you think you find the house that you like. SmarterAgent of course gets a cut.
The service is now being made available for Sprint Nextel Customers.
Sprint charges $10 a month for its GPS data portal — Internet access, e-mail and photos — plus $4.99 for Smarter Agent. Expensive, but worth it if you are looking for a house.
Interesting article in Forbes on Six Innovations That Will Change Your Life. I wont rehash the article only to say that if you are interested in such subjects as m-commerce (maying by stiff with your phone), social networking and issues of presence, the mobile web, ubiquitous media, health supplements for your mobile phone and or GPS then check it out.
For those of you that know me or have every asked me about mobile GPS systems you know that I am crazy about TomTom. Its no news that they have had a mobile applications for a while now (I often run TomTom on my Treo 650 over the navigation system that came with my car, even though this prevents me from using the cars hands-ree feature). While TomTom has had applications that run on regular mobile phones and smart-phones such as those running Symbian S60, maps have not yet been made for the United States and thus I must wait.
I thus stopped paying attention to TomTom for while. Then today I came across a little blurb about them in the most recent August publication of Wired (p.070) and was amazed at the unit they have out, the GO 910. Not only does the new widescreen 3D map allow you navigate in greater ease it can link up with your bluetooth phone to add some pretty interesting features.
Like built in computer car systems, TomTom’s GO 910 can link up to your phone via its bluetooth connection to act as a handsfree speaker phone. But as they say in the infomercials “thats not all.” The linkup also allows you to locate friends who have the same type of high tech setup and marks them on your map if they are nearby. This will allow you to follow dad to grandpa’s house a little more easily.
The 4 inch touch pad screen will also act as a dial pad (much better then those spin knobs in built in car systems like mine). And so you are not distracted by reading SMS’ while driving the built-in voice synthesizer will read you SMS messages as they come. (No, it wont transcode your voice to text to send text messages… but I am sure that day is close).
On a non-mobile level its 20 gig hard drive has the entire map of the US on it and the ability to store MP3’s for your listening pleasure on long trips. And for those of you familiar with TomTom all the various message perks such as traffic, weather, speeding and camera alerts are standard software inclusions. As are updated rest-stops, restaurants etc…
For $799 dollars its a real steel and is 100 times better than any of the built in car units I have seen here in the States.
This is what integration and design are all about.
Emily over at Textually is reporting that an Austin-based tech startup unveiled a new add-on service for cell phones to help athletes monitor their running and cycling activity.
The company, Bones In Motion (great name right?) lets runners, walkers and cyclists record in real time the distance, speed and pace, location, elevation and calories burned for outdoor activities and uses GPS technology to track data, including distance, speed and pace.
The software can also be programed to play a ringtone when you have run a mile. Amar Maktal over at Moco blog muses on the new type of “motivational ringtone’s†this could produce like
“Keep it up!†and “Just one more mile!†come to mind. Perhaps version 2.0 will have a built in “coach†which will help you maintain your target calorie burn, heart rate, or speed.
Cnet also reports that because it’s connected to a network, it keeps track of your route, and can both show you where you’ve been and share it with others via the Web.
BiM Active also incorporates a community aspect, meaning that you can rate the routes you run or cycle and signify what kind of conditions they offer. Thus, when someone else accesses routes you’ve submitted online, they can tell whether there will be a lot of traffic, too many hills or anything else you want to mention.
As of right now the service is only available on the Sprint network for $9.99 a month.
In terms of mobile I would have to say that the next big thing is going to be the mesh of GPS technology with mobile phones and social software.
Once the networks and phone manufactures open up their GPS capabilities, as Sprint and Nextel has, you are going to see a new kind of social networking technology beyond anything that we have today.
