Location-based Services

China's Beidou satellite navigation system is adding two new countries in Southeast Asia to its list of customers: Laos and Brunei. The two will adopt the GNSS via research and co-operation agreements per China's Ministry of Science and Technology. Thailand was the first country on board. - Zee...

After 24 hours of staring at their screens, the teams that participated in our [TechCrunch] Disrupt NY 2013 Hackathon have now finished their projects and are currently presenting them onstage. With more than 160 hacks, there are far too many cool ones to write about, but one that stood out to...

The Shorewood village (IL) board approved a $136,000 contract with Joliet-based Ruettiger, Tonelli & Associates for development of custom mobile and web GIS to enhance its current system. Of interest to me: The playground inspection application, for example, will validate that such park...

Three year old UrtheCast (pronounced "earthcast"), with 22 employees, has raised $11.5 million from angel investors and expects to raise another $25 million in a reverse takeover slated for this summer. The timing is good since data from its sensors should start coming down to earth from the...

That may change. According to multiple sources, Twitter is in the process of testing a new feature that lets you discover tweets from people within a certain distance of your location. The idea is to surface relevant activity based on where you are in the world, serving up tweets from others...

Apple's "Systems and methods for printing maps and directions" patent filing discusses a process of printing out on paper navigation and mapping assets stored on a computer or portable device. While identical systems have existed for some time, Apple's Maps app has yet to support the...

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) just upgraded its Vehicle Research Center with a new positioning system that will allow more accurate vehicle crash testing, which could lead to safer cars. Developed by Locata Corp., based in Canberra, Australia, LocataNet devices, which...

The Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University is gearing up to discuss legal ramifications for geospatial technology, which recently aided in identifying and apprehending the two suspects in the Boston Marathon Bombings. A profile of Kevin Pomfret. - Wrentham Patch

It's titled Panoramic images within driving directions and was granted yesterday. Here's the abstract: Embodiments of the present invention enable displaying a plurality of driving direction steps that form a driving directions path between a start address and a destination address;...

Apple's WiFiSLAM acquistion: It's about apps. Not just maps. Apple doesn't just want to improve its maps application, it wants to enable a new generation of apps that won't run, or will be harder to run, on Android and Windows Phone. - Seeking Alpha