A new mobile search functionality by integrating a WAP-based local search application from JumpTap, Inc. Launching this week, the new local search application enables Virgin Mobile USA customers to type in specific search terms, along with a zip code or city and state, to find anything local – from pizza shops to the closest CD store. The new capabilities also allow customers to search for local maps and directions to and from destinations, from their mobile phones. Now, Virgin Mobile offers on-and off-portal search in one easy, WAP-based application. So what’s all the hype about local search — it’s all about the location man and getting local, location-sensitive results! www.virginmobileusa.com / www.jumptap.com
Archives for May 22, 2007
US Immigration, the H1B visa, Sen. MCcain and Google
The topic of the US immigration policy is obviously of interest to yours truly – recall I am a Canadian residing in the US. An article of interest appeared today that I wanted to share.. apparently US Senator McCain paid a visit to the Googleplex recently and was asked a number of questions in his “job interview”… the topic of immigration came up… “If Google is going to be able to maintain its supremacy in the world, it is going to have to continue to get the best and the brightest from all over the world, and I accept with your gigantic egos, that you are the best…we need an H1B visa program that works”. I frequently scour the web for material about the H1B visa – recall this year the quote expired on day 1 leaving many people out of luck – one day??? 2 years ago it took months to hand out 65,000 H visas WTF??? It’s interesting to see how the topic dominates the India press – I guess it should since they hoard about 80% of all the H1B visas – a little heavy in my opinion.. how about spreading them around a bit eh? Aussies also have an unfair advantage and have an assured quote of Visas made available to them – a pretty cozy arrangement. The H1B visas topic is important to the high tech industries (even geospatial) and will affect many big names (think ESRI, Autodesk, Sun, HP, Google, and many others). Finally, it will be interesting to see if illegal residents are provided amnesty and a chance at getting a green card simply by paying up $5k (gee, I wish I had that opportunity)… until then those seeking to work in the US legally have it tougher every year. More on this topic in this blog post over at ZDnet – http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p=1393
Checked out Terraserver Beta yet?
Just browsing terraserver and hopped over to have a looksee at the new Beta version. Check it out.. search for imagery by address, coordinates, or township. Obviously this version is taking advantage of the recent partnership with mytopo as it’s now very simple and evident that you can quickly order prints of the imagery – see http://beta.terraserver.com – if you ever need a cool poster or print of your office, your home, maybe an NFL stadium or ??? this is a great resource to bookmark
HD View viewer from Microsoft Research’s Interactive Visual Media group
A side note on something cool from Microsoft research – HD View is a new viewer developed by Microsoft Research’s Interactive Visual Media group to aid in the display and interaction with very large images. From the team… HD View was developed with a number of goals in mind. It should:
allow smooth panning and zooming on large images, only download enough data to create the current view (and possibly look ahead to the next), and always display the current field of view with an appropriate projection. This means that when zoomed way in you should be presented with a standard perspective projection providing a sense of immersion, and when zoomed out you experience a curved projection so that get a full overview of the scene. In between the projection should smoothly transition. Finally, it should be easy to create your own HD View content and present it to the world via the web. Create your own HD View content – here’s a very cool sample… Harlem-13-gigapixels A massive 13 Gigapixel panorama created by stitching 2045 12 Megapixel photographs http://www.harlem-13-gigapixels.com/harlem_hdview.html – See details of HD View at http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/HDView.htm
HD View viewer from Microsoft Research’s Interactive Visual Media group
A side note on something cool from Microsoft research – HD View is a new viewer developed by Microsoft Research’s Interactive Visual Media group to aid in the display and interaction with very large images. From the team… HD View was developed with a number of goals in mind. It should:
allow smooth panning and zooming on large images, only download enough data to create the current view (and possibly look ahead to the next), and always display the current field of view with an appropriate projection. This means that when zoomed way in you should be presented with a standard perspective projection providing a sense of immersion, and when zoomed out you experience a curved projection so that get a full overview of the scene. In between the projection should smoothly transition. Finally, it should be easy to create your own HD View content and present it to the world via the web. Create your own HD View content – here’s a very cool sample… Harlem-13-gigapixels A massive 13 Gigapixel panorama created by stitching 2045 12 Megapixel photographs http://www.harlem-13-gigapixels.com/harlem_hdview.html – See details of HD View at http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/HDView.htm
Swivel serving up data goodies
Need data.. maybe you want to chase some political facts and figures, or maybe socio-economic data, or what about health stats… try swivel. this is an interesting and information-rich resource focused on data. Apparently the company is expanding and will be offering up more geodata but we’ll have to wait for the announcement to be made at Where 2.0.. stay tuned for more on this one… See http://swivel.com/ or all data at http://swivel.com/data_sets
DMTI Multiple Dwelling Unit (MDU) Buildings
The MDU data product is designed to help businesses improve the accuracy of marketing analytics, distribution and service provisioning. Characteristics such as building type, number of floors, unit numbers and additional information provide a level of detail required to drive precision decision making. The MDU product, which is housed and maintained within DMTI’s Location Hub™, provides detailed information about Canadian commercial, government and residential buildings. MDU buildings throughout Canada are identified, along with information such as building use, parking attributes, point of physical access, number of floors and total number of units. See http://www.dmtispatial.com/mdu/index.html
Swivel serving up data goodies
Need data.. maybe you want to chase some political facts and figures, or maybe socio-economic data, or what about health stats… try swivel. this is an interesting and information-rich resource focused on data. Apparently the company is expanding and will be offering up more geodata but we’ll have to wait for the announcement to be made at Where 2.0.. stay tuned for more on this one… See http://swivel.com/ or all data at http://swivel.com/data_sets
Going to Where 2.0 and Google Developer day? Stick around for ISDE5
Going to Where 2.0 and Google Developer day? If so stick around another week for this one! International Symposium on Digital Earth (ISDE5) June 5-9, on the Campus of U.C. Berkeley. Some snipets… Google Earth’s Michael Jones will keynote on June 5 and Rebecca Moore will highlight several Google Earth projects on the environment and human rights as well, on June 6. The meeting also features Dr. Edgar Mitchell (the 6th man to walk on the moon), Ambassador John McDonald, Dr. Doug Englebart (inventor of the mouse), Dr. Bob Corell (chair of Arctic Impact Assessment) and many others. See the website at www.isde5.org for all the latest details.
With Bloggers like this from Nokia who needs a marketing team! Nokia N95 gets b$%^ slapped
I couldn’t resist this one as I was browsing a thread that caught my eye – the title was “Convergence and Integration”. The author then goes on to describe how non-useful his Nokia N95 was and how his preference for the iPod prevailed (pretty hard to believe if you ask me). Anyway, what’s odd is that this blogger is posting on an “official” Nokia blog, yet ripping on the N95… I’m sure corporate is really pleased about that! Dameon also goes on about his dislike for flickr as well.. gee, what mobile apps does this guy like?? I guess the long and short of this post is that the iPod works and is simple to use and a breeze to get music on and off of – he obviously uses a Mac. I’m not really sure why the author has issues with moving data on/off of his N95… I’ve always found that the Nokia PC Suite seems capable of accomplishing all of that and then some – See the thread for yourself over at the S60 blogs http://blogs.s60.com/seeintos60/2007/05/convergence_and_integration.html