Interesting research findings today as a New Evans Data Survey Shows Google is the first choice among wireless developers for developing location-enhanced apps. The survey, which was conducted worldwide in September, showed that 38.4 percent of developers preferred using Google technologies for location based development. The closest competitors were Microsoft followed by Nokia. This quote from the report is a testatament as why I’m always touting mobile applications to the Geo developer community… “Given that there will be approximately three billion mobile phone subscribers by end of 2007, Google sees tremendous potential in further extending their presence with content aimed squarely at this market.” Think about the third screen because its rapidly becoming the first screen! Another interesting finding from the study reports that almost two-thirds (60.5%) of wireless developers plan to be using open source or Linux-specific tools to build applications for mobile devices in the next year. See www.evansdata.com – see also www.lbszone.com for the latest on LBS
Archives for October 30, 2007
Interesting DHS update – the Three year TN Immigation Visa?
Technically the TN is not a visa although it is commonly referred to as one… I just stumbled on to this interesting update in the DHS Fact Sheet: Improving Border Security and Immigration Within Existing Law, Release Date: August 10, 2007
The Department Of Homeland Security Will Extend The Visa Term For Professional Workers From Canada And Mexico To Attract More Of These Talented Workers To The United States. The United States must compete for foreign professional workers, and those who elect to lend their talents to the U.S. economy should be welcomed with open arms, not given a bureaucratic runaround. Yet the roughly 65,000 workers who enter the United States each year on the TN visa must go to the trouble of renewing their visa every year. This regulation will extend the TN visa duration to three years – the same term as other popular professional visas.
To market to market… where to get that Nokia N95
I noticed that just recently that Nokia has announced the opening of a new flagship store in Shanghai, China – FYI, the stores are Nokia’s main POC for B to C and are quite important. There’s a couple in the USA (New York , Chicago) but hardly enough. Why so? Well… its funny but Nokia is going gangbusters promoting the crap our of the N95 – this device was even recently billed as the official device of the Navteq LBS Challenge… ie. Nokia and Navteq want LBS developers to build apps to run on this device on the S60 environment. So what’s the problem? Well… ever tried to buy an N95 in the USA! Currently, buying an unlocked device online (ebay or other) is likely the best way to go, unless you happen to be close to a flagship store. Otherwise, if you go into AT&T or T-Mobile they will likely look at you with a strange look and say “what’s an N95”?? Getting to the consumer is a huge issue for Nokia smartphones here in North America and continues to get worse. Finally, get this… just this week I was at a Nokia S60 gig and the crew was giving away an N95 in a door prize (I didn’t win.. darn it!) but the kicker… the Nokia/S60 people couldn’t find one in San Francisco!! OUCH – one suggested resource for locating these and other products is – GPS-enabled product search, aka. GPS shopping! see www.s60.com / www.nokia.com
OSGeo RFP for hosting FOSS4G 2009 conference
This from the OSGeo Conference committee… The Open Source Geospatial Foundation, or OSGeo, has released a request for proposal, or RFP, (available here as a PDF) for the hosting of the FOSS4G 2009 conference. With the overwhelming success of the recent FOSS4G 2007 conference in Victoria Canada (http://www.foss4g2007.org/), and as excitement begins to build for
FOSS4G 2008 in Cape Town South Africa (http://www.foss4g2008.org/), OSGeo again aims for the 2009 conference to be a major geospatial conference during that year. The RFP solicitation closes January 11th, 2008.