Waze’s solution is actually more advanced than Siri in one key way: you don’t need to awkwardly hold down any buttons to activate voice commands. Instead, Waze’s voice controls are activated simply by waving your hand over the iPhone’s screen while driving. Waze uses the iPhone’s proximity sensor to enable this functionality, and as you can see in the video below, it’s a particularly nifty gesture.

Once activated, you can speak commands to Waze like “report traffic,” which will let you give an account of the traffic ahead, or you can change your route by telling the app to “Drive home.” The company is utilizing the open source API OpenEars to power its voice controls, but it’s open to moving to an official Siri API when Apple makes it available.

Waze’s free apps, which are available on the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian phones, offers free turn-by-turn directions. But Waze’s true value is its vast amount of live traffic data. Crowdsourced entirely from its users, the data makes Waze a far more useful alternative to standalone GPS units.

Waze VP Community Geographer DiAnn Eisnor tells me that they’ve been working on the hands-free feature, which has been one of the most requested from its rabid fanbase of 12 million users, for months. The company too found the feature important, as it will remove yet another major distraction for drivers while using its app. Waze has also disabled text input in the app while your car is in motion, which will discourage drivers from focusing too much on their phones.

The updated Waze app does take advantage of Siri when it comes to more complex voice controls, like looking up a specific address or local business, but it seems to just be using Siri’s dictation capabilities. The update also includes the ability to share your destination and ETA, and so you can tell your friends when you’re going to be late.

The voice control feature will first appear on the Waze iPhone app, mainly because it was the idea of Waze’s core iPhone engineer. It’ll hit other platforms eventually.

Waze is based in Palo Alto, Calif. and has raised over $55 million thus far.

The decision means that computer age advances won’t trump the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The case is the first in recent times to deal with the improved technological ability to eavesdrop on people.

The Obama administration had argued that such searches were okay, but in oral arguments the justices made references to George Orwell’s 1984 novel, where Big Brother government could track your every move.

In what was probably a bad admission, the government lawyers said that authorities could put GPS devices on the cars of all the members of the Supreme Court without a warrant.

The case involved Antoine Jones, an alleged drug dealer in Washington, D.C., who was the subject of a warrantless, 28-day GPS surveillance. As a result, the justices overturned the conviction.

“We hold that the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote. “Whatever new methods of investigation may be devised, our task, at a minimum, is to decide whether the action in question would have constituted a ‘search’ within the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Where, as here, the government obtains information by physically intruding on a constitutionally protected area, such a search has undoubtedly occurred.”

Justices were split over exactly how the Fourth Amendment applies to tracking with high-tech equipment. Five justices led by Scalia said that attaching a GPS device underneath a car was trespassing and required a search warrant. But those justices said the case at hand did not require them to answer whether GPS monitoring of a car with onboard navigation constituted trespassing.

Four justices led by Samuel Alito said that the month-long GPS surveillance in this case amounted to a search requiring a warrant. Those justices believed that, whether or not there was a trespass, long monitoring of a suspect constituted a search.

CSR, the leading maker of navigation chips, showed how you can use its upcoming platform to find your way inside large buildings such as the giant Las Vegas Convention Center. Now a combination of several new technologies makes it possible to navigate with map-based directions inside large buildings, giving you even fewer reasons to get lost or be late for an appointment.

At the Consumer Electronics Show last week, CSR showed a demo of its SiRFstarV global positioning system (GPS) chip, which is coming out later this year. The preproduction chip showed how you could use a map of the convention floor from Micello, Navteq and VisioGlobe to navigate across the floor of the giant hall.

J. Blake Bullock, senior product line manager at CSR, said in an interview that SiRFstarV fuses various radio signals, sensor inputs, and other location data to provide reliable and accurate positioning inside buildings. Using a cloud-based back-end service dubbed SiRFusion, the technology pulls together the various inputs to figure out where you are and where you are moving.

“We’ve been working on this problem for the last couple of years,” Bullock said. “The result is good positioning indoors.”

The smart thing about this is that none of the signals by themselves is perfect. GPS uses satellites that need a line-of-site to the handheld device. WiFi radios are also useful for triangulation. Your phone can detect a variety of WiFi networks, and it can calculate which hot spot you are nearest. So that can also help fix your position. But WiFi networks aren’t ubiquitous and sometimes you’re out of range. The system also relies on gyroscopes, compasses, and accelerometers — which detect motion — to determine the speed and direction you are moving. That method is called “MEMS positioning dead reckoning,” and it determines your step patterns. Separately, each system has flaws. But together, they can fix your position with reasonable accuracy.

Bullock showed me how he could use an application with a Micello map that showed the walking route from the CSR booth to the Nokia booth. The device came up with a reasonably accurate turn-by-turn path through the network of booths to show me where I was supposed to walk. It tells you, for instance, to walk to the BlackBerry booth and then turn right.

Nearby, there were 255 WiFi access points that could be used to triangulate our position with pinpoint accuracy. CSR’s technology can use a barometer in the chip to determine your elevation, so it can tell which floor you’re on. If you walk down the stairs, the sensors will tell the device that you have gone down one level.

Now what has to happen is that companies need to create indoor maps. Google said in November that it will add indoor information to Google Maps, using a crowdsourced model. Navteq has indoor navigation and routing, but Google doesn’t have that yet. Once those things are in place, CSR’s technology could be great for airports, train stations, shopping malls, convention centers, and casinos. The map and application companies are working on creating accurate indoor maps, based on building blueprints.

The SiRFstarV family of chips will go into production later this year, and devices using it could debut sometime in 2012. CSR is a big chip maker that has grown bigger with the mergers of Sirf and Zoran.

Bullock showed me how he could use an app to search for a booth at CES in the South Hall of the convention center — a cavernous place. The map showed all of the major booths inside the hall and green arrows (see picture) pointed out which way to walk. You could judge your progress by looking at major booths along the way on the map trail.

Now there is no escape, and no excuse for getting lost. Unless you lose your phone.

The test, conducted by the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Systems Engineering Forum, found that 69 of 92 selected GPS devices “experienced harmful interference” within 100 meters of a LightSquared base station.

“LightSquared signals caused harmful interference to majority of GPS receivers tested,” according to a draft of the test report. “No additional testing is required to confirm harmful interference exists.”

For months, LightSquared has been facing criticism from the GPS industry and government agencies over the spectrum used by its LTE network, which is dangerously close to the wireless spectrum used by GPS devices. LightSquared has said that it’s working on reallocating the spectrum its network uses, but it also blamed the GPS industry for creating devices that don’t stay within their required spectrum ranges.

Most recently, LightSquared has said that a new antenna could help to alleviate GPS interference. It’s unclear if that new antenna was being used for this test. The company is also planning to run its base stations at lower power levels than the government test, which should interfere with fewer GPS devices, executive vice president Martin Harriman told Bloomberg.

Reston, Virginia-based LightSquared was founded by billionaire Philip Falcone with the goal of reselling its LTE mobile broadband network, which will cover up to 260 million people, to others. That’s not going to happen until the company can fix its GPS problems.

In an e-mail to Bloomberg, Harriman said LightSquared is “outraged by the illegal leak of incomplete government data… This breach attempts to draw an inaccurate conclusion to negatively influence the future of LightSquared and narrowly serve the business interests of the GPS industry.”

Waze is launching a program to let any broadcast network take advantage of its citizen traffic data, which gives networks access to instant updates about traffic conditions. The company has partnered with 12 launch stations, which have been featuring Waze’s data in their traffic reports for months, including KABC Los Angeles, KGO-TV San Francisco, and KFAA Dallas.

Waze’s free apps, which are available on the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian phones, offers free turn-by-turn directions. But Waze’s true value is its vast amount of live traffic data. Crowdsourced entirely from its users, the data makes Waze a far more useful alternative to standalone GPS units.

“We’re thrilled to officially offer up our citizen traffic reporting to broadcasters,” Di-Ann Eisnor, Waze vice president of partnerships and platforms, said in a statement today. “We’re learning that the best local stations work at startup speed, so we can get each station up and running seamlessly in just under a week.”

Waze says it’s providing tools specifically for broadcast stations, including the ability to create branded commuter groups within its apps. This lets broadcasters directly communicate with their viewers, allowing for things like contests to choose a specific user’s traffic report. Waze says that ABC7 in Los Angeles has nearly 3,400 active members in its commuter group. While on-air, traffic reporters use an iPad to get access to Waze’s live data.

The company also announced that its apps are now being used by over 9 million commuters. That’s a jump of 2 million users since October, when Waze announced it raised an additional $30 million in funding. Clearly, the company has been growing like wildfire over the past few years, and this jump to powering TV traffic reports will only further its popularity among mainstream users. Once viewers see what Waze’s free apps can offer, they’ll have a hard time resisting the siren call.

Waze is based in Palo Alto, Calif. and has raised over $55 million thus far.

With Maps version 6.0, which arrived on Android devices today, users can now find the nearest bathrooms, ATMs and the locations of individual departments inside some of the largest retail stores, such as Ikea, Home Depot, and Macy’s locations nationwide.

The maps update will also provide detailed location information for 18 major airports in the U.S. and mass transit stations in the U.S. and in Japan.

“Today when most people go to an airport, or a shopping mall, or a large retail store, they try to hunt  down an information kiosk to figure out where they are, and find where they need to go,” Google Maps product manager Steve Lee told VentureBeat. “What we’re trying to do with Google Maps 6.0 is bring that information kiosk with you on your phone.” The new update gives accurate interior information within 5 or 10 meters (15 to 30 feet).

Getting the familiar blue dot to work properly indoors was one of the biggest hurdles, and the 3D environment of a store or transit station, with multiple floors,  added to the difficulty. ”One of the big challenges indoors is that GPS is not always available, or is not as strong.” said Lee. This was overcome by getting detailed floor plans from Google’s partners, so that even on the fourth floor of a building the app still knows right where the user is. “Instead of a static ‘you are here,’  symbol on that information kiosk, the Google Maps blue dot will show you where you’re at inside any of these venues.”

Google has been making a very aggressive push lately to chart alternative spaces. In October Google Streetview added business interiors to its Maps product, and the in early November parks across the world  were also included.

iOS users will certainly be interested to see Maps 6.0 come to the iPhone and iPad, but Lee said there is no announcement for any other platforms at the moment. Since the iOS Maps application is made by Apple and still lacks plenty of features that Google has brought to Maps on Android, I wouldn’t hold my breath for these newer features.

Waze also confirmed that it has topped over 7 million users, thanks to its aggressive global expansion.

The news comes on the heels of Waze’s recently launched 3.0 version, which boasts a revamped design, search integration, and more. The company’s free app, which is available on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian phones, offers free turn-by-turn directions. Waze’s claim to fame is the generous amount of live traffic data it has access to, which is powered completely by user contributions.

The company says it will use the additional funding to support its growing user base, as well as help bring its service to China. “Expanding to China, the world’s fastest growing automotive and smartphone market, is an obvious next move for us,” Waze CEO Noam Bordin said in a statement today.

Along with the funding, Waze is adding to its board John Malloy, managing partner at Blue Run Ventures, and Jason Wong from Horizon Ventures. Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker is also joining as a strategic advisor and board observer, and she’s joined by Josh Silverman, former Skype CEO and currently president of American Express’s US consumer division.

Palo Alto, California-based Waze previously raised $25 million in funding last December.

Regulators are still reviewing LightSquared’s network to determine the extent of those interference problems and won’t allow the company to deploy without approval. The company is understandably anxious to get the network up, since its core business model depends on providing wholesale wireless access to other companies.

The Reston, Virginia-based company claims that GPS device manufacturers failed to comply with wireless filtering standards recommended by the U.S. Department of Defense that would have prevented interference.

Of the estimated 500 million GPS-enabled devices in use, less than half a million experience interference issues  — or 99.5 percent of all commercial devices, a LightSquared spokesperson told VentureBeat. Devices that are susceptible to the interference include mostly construction and industrial machines with GPS capability.

“We realize that those devices are crucial to the country’s economy and want to work with the GPS industry for a solution,” the spokesperson said.

LightSquared made a new proposal to the FCC in June that moved it to the lower 10 megahertz-block of its wireless spectrum, which cost the company about $100 million. The company also pledged resources to front the cost of developing solutions to the GPS interference for that 0.5 percent of devices that experience problems. Still, regulators are demanding even more restrictions before approving deployment of LightSquared’s LTE network.

One of the measures communication regulators are asking for is a “guard band” between the lower portion of LightSquared’s spectrum and the higher end, which would help keep GPS free of interference. But the suggested level of that guard band is 8.5 times as wide as the DoD recommendation.

“If all spectrum users demanded the irrational guard band solutions that GPS manufacturers are demanding, we would not have broadband in this country and efficient spectrum use would take a backseat to the squeakiest wheel,” wrote LightSquared executive vice president for regulatory affairs & public policy Jeffrey Carlisle in a letter to the FCC. “This type of precedent would set back the United States’ competitiveness by decades.”

The reason for the push back from the GPS industry is the time, money and effort associated with altering devices that are susceptible to interference.

LightSquared’s business model relies on supplying outside companies with wholesale access to its high-speed wireless network, which operates on a portion of the wireless spectrum that causes interference to GPS. That interference prevents the estimated 500 million GPS-enabled devices and services — like airplane tracking, clock synchronization, weather forecasting, emergency communications and several others that are in use — from working properly.

Communications regulators are currently evaluating LightSquared’s network following months of testing that confirmed it does interfere with GPS.

Yet LightSquared has submitted a new plan that fixes the GPS interference problem while allowing the company to retain its network deployment schedule without delays. The plan states that LightSquared will use a different block of its allocated range of the wireless spectrum that’s farther away from the GPS block.

However, a FCC official said creating such a “guard band” between LightSquared’s airwaves and those used for GPS will leave a large swath of spectrum underutilized, according to the report.

Any underutilized portion of the wireless spectrum is unacceptable. Both the country’s four (soon to be three) major wireless carriers and President Barack Obama have stated several times that additional portions of the wireless spectrum are necessary for fueling faster internet speeds, economic growth and innovation.

The FCC official also said that regulators would like to find a solution that is better for long-term spectrum policy and allows efficient use of the airwaves.

Do you think LightSquared should be allowed to operate given the problems with GPS interference and/or the possibility of hogging valuable portions of the wireless spectrum?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

The news is good for Sprint, which reported an $847 million second quarter loss. The LightSquared deal would give Sprint $9 billion in cash and credits over 11 years to build a 4G LTE network that LightSquared can sell wholesale and Sprint can offer to its customers.

The deal suggests Sprint will likely move to LightSquared 4G from its current Clearwire-backed WiMax 4G. Clearwire and WiMax 4G have been a strain on the company, so moving to 4G LTE with a partner that has cash on hand makes sense.

The deal “presents tremendous opportunity for both companies,” according to Dan Hays, who regularly follows the telecom industry for global consulting firm PRTM.

“For Sprint, this will defray a significant portion of its planned capital investment while providing an opportunity to tap into LightSquared’s 4G technology,” said Hays via e-mail. “For LightSquared, this deal will dramatically reduce the cost and time required to deploy its nationwide, mobile broadband network to hundreds of millions of Americans.”

Reston, VA-based LightSquared has raised more than $2.3 billion in the last 12 months, with $265 million being invested early this month. The company has been in the news recently because its proposed 4G LTE technology apparently causes network interference problems for GPS devices. The company responded to these claims by moving the launch of its network to a new slice of spectrum, which “resolves the GPS interference issue for 99.5% of all commercial GPS devices,” it said in a statement.

Ron Westfall, an infrastructure research director at Current Analysis, said another issue with the deal will be winning FCC approval. The FCC has yet to approve LightSquared’s efforts to resolve the aforementioned GPS issues.

“The LightSquared proposal misses fully resolving LightSquared’s GPS interference issues, since specially designed high precision GPS receivers also use the same spectrum,” Westfall told VentureBeat. “Thus there is concern the FCC may give LightSquared the thumbs down.”

Sprint has a clear incentive to better its 4G technology for the future. If AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile goes through, Sprint will be the lowest-cost carrier in the U.S. and the clear budget alternative to Verizon and AT&T.

But in the short term, the deal won’t affect Sprint’s ability to compete with AT&T and Verizon in the 4G battle and it will have to rely on WiMax to keep attracting customers.

“It’s too early to judge how much this deal will drive Sprint’s ability to compete more effectively with Verizon and AT&T in the 4G realm,” Westfall said. “If all goes according to plan (and there are plenty of ifs here), then it will prove good news for consumers and businesses, especially in rural and underserved markets.”

What do you think of the Sprint and LightSquared deal?

Shudder at the thought of checking in your luggage at the airport? Bagtrakka may be the solution for you.

Developed by UK-based startup Global Location Systems, Bagtrakka is a small device that can track your luggage in case it gets lost or stolen.

GLS chief technology officer Alex Paterson announced the device at our MobileBeat 2011 conference today as part of our startup competition. Bagtrakka uses GSM (cellular) and GPS technology to triangulate your bag’s location, which is accessible on smartphones, the Web or via text messages. The device itself resembles a typical luggage tag, except it sports a braided steel cable so that it can’t be easily removed by thieves.

Paterson said 42 million bags are mishandled annually and 1.26 million are never returned to their owners, according to a 2007 SITA report.

Bagtrakka is powered by the company’s Global Locating Operating System (GLOS), which allows third-party developers to tap into the power of the device. It also means that Bagtrakka can easily be branded and deployed by airlines. The company is aiming to release Bagtrakka to consumers in a few months, with pricing potentially around $100.

The device can roam on GSM networks globally, thanks to a partnership with the Swiss company Sunrise Business Communications, which provides the SIM card and roaming agreement. Bagtrakka also has several sensors on board, including an accelerometer and light sensor.

Using those sensors and a patented process, the device can turn itself off when it enters a plane’s cargo hold, saving precious battery life. That also allows it to turn off wireless communications so that it can comply with airline regulations. Typically, Bagtrakka can stay powered for 4 to 5 days, Paterson said.

GLS has been working on the technology since 2009. At the moment, the company is self-funded and is seeking investors in the US.

Photo via Jonl1973 on Flickr

LightSquared says the solution will “protect the public’s stake in GPS” and won’t delay launching the company’s wireless network in the first half of 2012, which could be an overly positive estimate judging from the assessment of problems associated with correcting the interference problems.

“This is a solution which ensures that tens of millions of GPS users won’t be affected by LightSquared’s launch,” said Sanjiv Ahuja, LightSquared Chairman and CEO.

Last month, a pair of government agencies completed tests showing that LightSquared’s 4G LTE network interferes with GPS signals, affecting aircraft and automobile navigation systems and emergency response services like OnStar. Fixing the problem could be both costly and time-consuming, according to the agencies.

According to LightSquared’s plan, the government agencies’ test results indicated that only a certain portion of the company’s 10MHz block of frequencies caused interference to many GPS receivers, and those happen to be the same set of frequencies the company planned to use for the initial launch of its nationwide wireless broadband network.

However, the company said it determined that a different, lower portion of its 10MHz spectrum block didn’t create the same risk of interference because it’s lower on the spectrum band and located further away from the GPS frequencies.

“Test results show this lower block of frequencies is largely free of interference issues with the exception of a limited number of high- precision GPS receivers that are specifically designed to rely on LightSquared’s spectrum,” the company stated, adding that it planned to use the lower portion of its spectrum to accommodate its customers over the next few years anyway.

To ensure it reaches its wireless network launch deadlines, LightSquared has struck a deal with Inmarsat, the satellite company that controls the alternative block of spectrum in the L Band. LightSquared will also modify its FCC license to reduce the maximum authorized power of its base-station transmitters by over 50 percent — limiting LightSquared to the power authorized for use in 2005, which will provide additional protection to GPS, according to the company.

The Virginia-based company recently reached a 15-year deal with Sprint to provide high-speed wireless service for the carrier’s 4G LTE network. Yet, there was no mention of the deal in LightSquared’s release.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. We’re also accepting entries for our mobile startup competition at the show. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com.

The news doesn’t bode well for the Virginia-based wireless startup company, which needs the Federal Communication Commission’s approval to launch its LTE mobile broadband network. LightSquared’s business model relies on selling wholesale access to its network to outside companies.

Devices that use GPS technology like mobile phones, General Motors’ OnStar emergency response receivers, turn-based navigation units like Garmin, and airplanes would all be affected by LightSquared’s network.

GPS receivers either lost signal strength or were completely disabled by LightSquared’s signal within the testing zone, according to tests conducted by National Space-Based PNT Advisory Board in May. A separate test conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration found that GPS would be unavailable to aircraft flying below elevations of 2,000 feet in metro areas — like airports, for instance.

Results from both sets of tests were presented Thursday during a federal government advisory group hearing.

The company acknowledges the GPS interference problems and is committed to finding a solution, Lightsquared Executive Vice President Jeffrey Carlisle told the Wall Street Journal. However, those solutions would likely be expensive for both the company and GPS device makers and could take years to complete.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. We’re also accepting entries for our mobile startup competition at the show. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com.

This was StartX’s second demo day. Students and companies spend months preparing to present at the event. It’s a chance for them to get face time with some of Silicon Valley’s most well-known venture capital firms and angel investors — and a chance to pick up some funding for their companies.

“This is going to be one of the top three accelerators in the world,” said Charles River Ventures investor George Zachary, who was an investor in Twitter. “The most exciting things in the Bay Area are YC, StartX, AngelList and 500 startups — the list drops off after that.”

The program has received more than 1,000 applications and has accepted 24 total. Around one in every five people who have participated in StartX have been women. Two recipients of the Thiel Fellowship, a $100,000 award that encourages college students to drop out and start companies, have also participated in StartX.

The team of each company doesn’t have to be composed entirely of students, but the founders that are students have to hold a majority equity stake in the company. So it is geared more toward student entrepreneurs and gives them a chance to try building their own company from scratch with some help.

Here’s a list of the companies that presented today and a brief description of what they do:

6dot Innovations: This company has created a portable braille embosser that can quickly create braille labels. The device has a few buttons that let blind individuals type out messages, mathematics, music and other types of information in braille on a line of tape. The company plans to make money off labeling tape and third-party software add-ons. 6dot Innovations expects to launch the main product in the fourth quarter this year.

Clear Ear: This company is trying to solve “the earwax” problem. The company is creating a device that automatically cleans out an ear canal. It’s designed to be safer and quicker than typical earwax cleaning procedures, which can lead to complications. There are three products that project light into the ear to make it easier to see where the earwax is in a person’s ear.

GameClosure: GameClosure is an application that lets developers quickly build online social games like Zynga’s FarmVille. It is basically an HTML 5 game development kit. The games work across both mobile devices and web browsers on regular computers. The company has already built one game — called Pop Star Defense — that works across most devices.

Juntos Finanzas: Juntos Finanzas is a text-messaging based system that tracks spending practices. Whenever a user leaves the supermarket, they can text a number with how much money they spent. At the end of the month, the user receives an email message or a physical letter that includes a story of how much money was spent over the month and what kind of spending habits the user has. It’s like online financial advisory app Mint.com, but for low-tech users who don’t have ready access to the web and smartphones.

Kitchit: Kitchit gives consumers direct access to chefs and tools to help them plan private events. It also gives chefs a way to find cooking gigs so they can focus on cooking rather than the logistical details of running a restaurant. You can think of Kitchit as a social catering network — for graduation parties, weddings and other events.

Leglytics: Leglytics is a legal document search engine designed for lawyers and legal researchers. It’s designed to be a simple search engine — like Google search – for legal documents instead of more complicated search engines like LexisNexis. The search results are visualized with an array of dots, with larger dots representing more important documents or legal cases. The company doesn’t actually host its own data — it’s basically an application programming interface (API) that ties in with other sites that carry all the data.

Qwhispr: Qwhispr is an application that aggregates data from social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. The app filters the information it gets from the social media sites — such as unimportant content like a happy birthday note. The app extracts important keywords and returns them to the person executing the search.

PredictiveEdge: PredictiveEdge has an app to help retailers determine an optimal price point for products. It determines price based on the price for other products that are somewhat similar or carry similar characteristics. The actual product will be a web application that’s sold as a subscription.

WiFiSLAM: WiFiSLAM is working on an indoor global positioning system that uses WiFi hotspots to figure out where an individual is within a building. Current GPS technology doesn’t typically work in buildings and can’t pinpoint an exact position. A phone scans for WiFi hotspots and checks the signal strength of all nearby routers. The application then determines a person’s position based on the signal strength of nearby WiFi routers. The app should be compatible with current smartphones. It uses as much battery power as a typical WiFi connection.

Waze says the funding will be used to “expand corporate and marketing initiatives,” build up its core infrastructure, and increase its staff as the company moves its headquarters from Tel Aviv to Palo Alto. In an interview, the company told VentureBeat that its investors were particularly enthusiastic over the phenomenal engagement it’s seeing from users. Waze just recently surpassed 2.2 million users — up from a mere 500,000 in January.

The company’s app, which is available on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian phones, offers free turn-by-turn directions. Waze’s claim to fame is the generous amount of live traffic data it has access to, which is powered completely by user contributions.

Given its tremendous growth, Waze tells me that it will be spending quite a bit of time scaling its infrastructure. Everything on the platform is done in real-time, so the company can’t afford to have any slowdowns as it attracts more users.

Waze says its next big goal is to open up its platform, perhaps with some sort of API so that developers can take advantage of its data. Potentially, that would allow Google to take advantage of Waze’s live traffic data in its Maps Navigation app on Android phones. The company tells me that it’s also looking into bringing its application directly into cars that support apps, like those equipped with Ford’s Sync technology (which is developed by Microsoft). Waze could make its way into cars as early as two years from now.

The funding round was led by Blue Run Ventures and saw participation from other existing investors Magma Venture Partners and Vertex Venture Capital. Qualcomm Ventures also joined in on the round as a new investor.

If the patent sounds a lot like targeting social network users using their smartphones and allowing them to check in to addresses, then you’ve pretty much described all of the location-based services available today, including popular mobile apps Foursquare and Gowalla.

Here’s the abstract:

Systems and methods for automatically locating web-based social network members are provided. According to one embodiment, contact content including an associated GPS identifier and status for web-based social network members located at or near the same location automatically appears on a GPS-enabled device. A further exemplary system includes a GPS-enabled device configured to receive a GPS identifier and a status representing a location and a current state for a web-based social network member, a processing module that associates the received GPS-identifier and the received status, and a communications module that sends the associated GPS-identifier and status to a server comprising a web-based social network database. Contact content in a web-based social network database record in the web-based social network database is updated to include the associated GPS identifier and status for the web-based social network member.

The patent was filed in February 2007. Just a few months later, Loopt, which first launched as an app on Sprint’s network, was considered the first location-based service and was a way to see your friends and what was happening from restaurants, shopping and nightlife in your general area. Since then, numerous services ranging from social networks to mobile games have popped up. It’s not clear why Facebook decided to wait so long after it filed a patent to launch its own service.

As pointed out by TechCrunch, it’s unknown how Facebook plans to use the patent. Theoretically, the company could use it to squash the competition, especially with future features. But companies frequently use patents defensively, to forestall lawsuits from other patent holders. Facebook could also use the patent as leverage in business deals with other location-based services to encourage them to integrate closely with its Facebook Places feature.

Facebook recently acquired a broad portfolio of patents and patent applications from social-network pioneer Friendster, covering much of the basic functions of a social network.

Using the iPhone’s GPS and accelerometer, the app lets you track not only your pace, distance, and calories when you go out for runs, but visually maps your run routes on Google Maps, showing you where you went and at which exact points you sprinted or slowed down.

Unlike previous Nike+ iPod offerings, no special sensors or kits are required for the app to function.

A couple of features worth mentioning are voice feedback — which lets you know how you’re doing — and the ability to tap on the map at anytime to see how far you’ve come. Additionally, some will appreciate its integration with the popular PowerSongs feature from other Nike+ apps, which lets you setup and play specific songs for different types of runs.

The app also syncs with Nikeplus.com, Nike’s online community, which has grown to over 3 million members since its debut back in 2006. Using the site, users can set challenges and track and share their progress through Facebook and Twitter.

While designed for the iPhone, users with an iPod Touch and iPad can also use it, albeit without the GPS tracking capabilities. The app is available on Apple’s App Store for $1.99.

We’ve covered a couple of similar applications before. RunKeeper launched an iPhone app that maps runners’ progress back in March of this year. And the San Francisco Country Transit Authority launched something similar for bicyclists in November 2009 called CycleTracks.

The problem with that analysis? After reading Apple’s patent, which details methods for accessing travel services on portable devices, it’s clear that Apple isn’t intending to steal the app’s functionality — it’s merely using it as an example.

Pictured in Apple’s patent app is a home screen that is unmistakably the same as Where To’s user interface (see picture above). It was reported last week that Apple has begun filing patents for mobile app ideas — something that is already highly contentious, since many believe software patents shouldn’t exist in the first place. Since it appeared that Apple copied someone else’s idea, the response by many was venomous.

Nobody was as surprised as FutureTap, the company behind the Where To app (which it purchased for $70,000 in 2008). Founder Ortwin Gentz writes in a blog post:

At first, we couldn’t believe what we saw and felt it can’t be true that someone else is filing a patent including a 1:1 copy of our start screen. Things would be way easier of course if that “someone else” would be really an exterior “someone else”. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

We’re faced with a situation where we’ve to fear that our primary business partner is trying to “steal” our idea and design. So how to deal with that? — As some of you know, we’ve always been more than grateful for the platform Apple created. And, in fact, still are. However, we can’t ignore it if the #1 recognition value of our (currently) only app potentially is under fire.

He goes on to say that he’s unsure of the legality of using Where To’s interface in the patent app, but it “doesn’t feel right.” In the end, that may be the big problem with the situation. Apple should have at least let the developer know that it would be mimicking its interface for the application, which would have avoided much of the controversy.

GigaOm commenter Gary Watson explains why the image itself isn’t a huge deal: “After reading the claims, it’s clear that the spinning wheel image stolen from the 3rd party app was not part of the claimed invention at all and was just an illustration. You see this a lot in patents, where an exemplar device such as a Dell laptop is used in a drawing but is not part of the claims.”

FutureTap remains suspicious of that explanation, particularly since Apple’s patent application goes on to to describe the basic functionality of its Where To app. Apple also has a history of copying the work of smaller developers — most recently, with the design of its iBooks app on the iPad and iPhone, which looked very similar to both the Classics and Delicious Library apps.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup, which also has offices in Israel, is building what it calls a geo-community: Users are creating content for the service by leaving the app running, feeding traffic and map information into Waze for other users to access. Now, Waze wants to beef up social navigation with real-time messages and information on friends’ whereabouts.

Twitter has had geo-tags, or location information attached to the tweets users post on the microblogging service, for a while. Waze is utilizing that feature. Tweets that have a geo-tag will be displayed on the Waze map, enabling users to report on traffic congestion, roadside accidents or weather conditions in almost real-time. The system looks for tweets marked with the hashtag code #wazelive, which can then be displayed to other users to show tweets that are relevant to their route. The tweets Waze displays are from users of the app as well as official sources like the Department of Transportation.

According to Waze VP community geographer Di-Ann Eisnor, Waze is trying to make time spent in the car more informative and interactive – while being safe. Tweets can be a driver’s “eyes and ears on the road,” said Eisnor.

“Twitter has taken the geo-community vision and brought it to many more people,” explained Eisnor. “I see Twitter becoming a kind of geo-infrastructure, particularly for cities. I see roads, bridges, landmarks and exits becoming entities that tweet.”

Eisnor pointed out that the real-time relevance and location of tweets are what create “real value” to a service like this.

And Twitter is happy to see people using its technology in novel ways. The more interesting apps are the ones that go beyond just using the Twitter stream and try to create broader experiences, with a Twitter dimension to them, said Othman Laraki, director of geo, the industry’s shorthand term for location-based services, at Twitter.

”Twitter is obviously about user-generated content and community, and I think the ability for users to create interesting content is one of the mechanisms that will have a big impact on geo,” said Laraki. “The community can provide information on things where getting information would previously have been expensive or not viable in other ways.”

While the idea of bridges that tweet are definitely “very interesting” to Laraki, the industry is in the very early stages of seeing fast, real-time communication being merged with geo data.

“Geo is similar to the social networking apps in the sense that it will become a part of the infrastructure in a few years,” said Laraki. “Now, geo is a novel thing that is taking advantage of the fact that mobile phones can easily provide lat-long information, but in the future it will be an assumed part of the infrastructure on top of which people build their apps.”

And the way Waze’s Eisnor sees it, navigation is going from something that’s used once every few weeks to something that’s part of everyday life: “It will be navigation the way you need it and want it: informed, connected, and, yes, social.”

As for the Facebook integration, Waze users can provide their Facebook information to the Waze app and have images of their friends displayed on the map. Users can conceivably see which of their friends are nearby, or maybe driving to the same beach.

“We’re living in a world where we can spontaneously run into our friends and connect with them – the car should be the same,” Eisnor mused.

Crucially, because Waze is designed to passively broadcast a user’s location, it takes advantage of the ability to run in the background on updated iPhones. That feature was already available for Waze’s Android app. And if you’re a fan of drivers keeping both hands on the wheel, Waze’s location-broadcasting model makes a lot more sense than the active check-in process of services like Foursquare.

Waze even has that angle covered, though: The new version also includes integration with the location-based check-in service Foursquare (users can announce their locations to friends with the Waze app and earn badges on Foursquare).

Don’t miss MobileBeat 2010, VentureBeat’s conference on the future of mobile. The theme: “The year of the superphone and who will profit.” Now expanded to two days, MobileBeat 2010 will take place on July 12-13 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Register now. Tickets are going quickly. For complete conference details, or to apply for the MobileBeat Startup Competition, click here.

The report indicates that smartphones have already become the most important platform for maps and navigation, and the number of smartphone-based navigation systems will increase tenfold this year, not to mention hitting numbers nearly forty times bigger by 2014. Last year, smartphone-based navigation systems (ie. phones with navigation systems either preloaded into them, or downloaded after purchase) hovered at 8 million units. This year, the projection is 81 million units, and by 2014 the number of units will explode to 297 million.

While this means declining sales for actual GPS navigation devices (like the ones manufactured by Garmin, TomTom, Magellan, or Nokia), the demand for software will increase. Nokia is including its Ovi Map turn-by-turn navigation software in its smartphones for no revenue, because it owns the map supplier, Navteq. Google offers its navigation for free on phones with its Android operating system such as the Nexus One and Motorola’s Droid. Other handset manufacturers will need access to low-cost maps –- which are increasingly available -– to offer free, preloaded navigation systems on their smartphones.

The iPhone dominates the market currently for aftermarket navigation (iSuppli’s term for navigation systems downloaded into smartphones after purchase) by accounting for nearly half of all sales, estimated at 2.9 million applications in 2009. And Apple makes revenue for the sales of navigation apps as it gets a 30 per cent cut from apps sold in its App Store -– $87 million in Apple’s pocket this year, calculated at 5.8 million units with an average price of $50.

However, the market for preloaded navigation systems will completely overshadow the navigation systems downloaded later on, the study predicts — embedded applications will account for some 250 million units by 2014, leaving downloaded applications at around 40-50 million units.

Even though smartphones are gaining a strong foothold in the navigation systems market, in-car devices still have a few advantages, not least of which is a large screen for easy reading. That being said, the stand-alone devices will have a rough ride in the future as they are squeezed between smartphones and so-called in-dash devices (or pre-installed devices in cars.) And it shows: Garmin’s revenue fell by 15 percent to $221 million in the previous quarter, as reported by Reuters.

Don’t miss MobileBeat 2010, VentureBeat’s conference on the future of mobile. The theme: “The year of the superphone and who will profit.” Now expanded to two days, MobileBeat 2010 will take place on July 12-13 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Register now. Tickets are going quickly. For complete conference details, or to apply for the MobileBeat Startup Competition, click here.

The price cut is more indicative of the current volatility of the IPO market than TeleNav’s prospects. Investors are skittish about how their portfolio companies will perform at higher prices. The 1,000 point drop in the broader market last week (which forced four companies to withdraw IPO filings) has prompted many analysts to say the IPO market is freezing over again.

This makes the Sunnyvale, Calif. company relatively special. It launched on the same day as clothing retailer Express and freight transportation company Roadrunner Transportation Systems, and both of those companies saw a drop in price, 1.5 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively.

TeleNav’s success is actually more surprising in light of its recent decline in revenue. But it appears that lower prices have helped the brand recruit more users and bump its net income 57 percent to $31 million in the last fiscal year. These results probably contribute to the rise of the stock, which hit a high point of $10.30, and is still up at $9.15 at press time.

This is in no small part due to one of TeleNav’s investors, Menlo Ventures, gambling on its ability to go public in shaky conditions. The firm actually purchased more shares in the company after it decided to lower its sights from $11 – $13 to $9 – $10.

Menlo may have been duly rewarded for its loyalty (we’re trying to figure out how much right now), but TeleNav isn’t sitting pretty yet. Even though it has landed lucrative and exclusive contracts with both Sprint and AT&T, the company is confronting a new foe: similar applications offered for free by the likes of Google, Nokia and now Microsoft, which are building their own location and navigation services in-house. Add them to dedicated GPS device makers like TomTom and Garmin, and its clear TeleNav is swimming in shark-infested waters.

For now, probably with these concerns in mind, the company appears to be playing it safe, watching to see what happens with this first exit before a second offering.

The San Francisco Country Transit Authority (SFCTA) launched an app called CycleTracks on the iPhone and Android platforms last November. Designed and developed by Mopimp, the application is used to record a user’s bike trip. Like many other such apps for smartphones (iMapMyRide or CycleMeter, for instance), it collects data on the distance, actual route and time spent on it using the phone’s GPS technology. Users get information on the distance they traveled, the time it took, and their average speed, and they can view their trip by having it projected onto Google Maps on the smartphone. And then they can tag their trip as “Commute”, “Work-related”, “Exercise”, or any other option before uploading the data to SFCTA. As a result, the organization gets valuable data on popular bike routes in the city at certain times of day or week. (Any personally identifiable information, such as gender and email addresses, will be kept confidential, says SFCTA.)

All this is of great use to SFCTA when planning and improving bike routes, and traffic management in general, says executive director José Luis Moscovich (pictured below). Having worked with SFCTA for 18 years, Moscovich is a man on a mission: He wants better design for better living in an urban environment.

Moscovich took me on a bike ride Wednesday morning from the Mission district to Middle Market and all the way up to Patricia’s Green on the corner of Octavia and Hayes Streets. Early on our trip, we stopped under the I-280 overpass, next to the Caltrain tracks on the corner of 16th and 7th Streets. Pausing CycleTracks, Moscovich explained to me that University of California San Francisco’s Mission Bay campus on 16th, for instance, draws great numbers to the area daily using different modes of transportation.

“Now, if we see that a lot of people take 16th Street to make their daily commute on the bike, we can plan for it and improve the experience. Right now, the street doesn’t have a bike lane all the way. If our data shows demand for a bike route, it is far easier to try to make that change with this evidence.”

Since it’s launch, around 6,000 trips have been recorded with the application, which is a significant amount of data, says Moscovich. There are 450-500 registered CycleTracks users in the city of San Francisco, and this number only represents a fraction of all of the city’s bicyclists — according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, there are 120,000 regular bicyclists in the city. Small sample and voluntary use may obviously produce skewed data, as active bikers who are also tech-savvy may be represented disproportionately. Still, this is far better than the traditional way, which is to have people standing on street corners with clickers counting the number of bicyclists they see and handing out questionnaires to bikers. And considering CycleTracks cost the city under $20,000, such an app is a cost-effective way to gather such data for as long as people keep using it. It’s at least a step in the right direction.

Heading up to Market Street on 7th, I forget to resume my recording of the trip, which is something that happens quite often with my trips. Moscovich says the system has ways of disregarding data that is obviously incorrect — say, a three-block trip that took three hours — but for the user this is inconvenient. One way to improve the user experience would be to use the smartphone’s accelerometer so that the phone will automatically register whether or not the user is in motion and pause and resume recording accordingly. (Some applications have this option, such as the Sports Tracker, which is available for Nokia handsets.) Some users have had issues with the battery drain that happens when running GPS on a smartphone, or inaccuracies with the GPS positioning, which can throw off the actual distance traveled. SFCTA has been thinking about these and other improvements, too, such as suggesting popular — and flat — bike routes to bicyclists unfamiliar with San Francisco, maybe co-operating with an existing service like Google Maps, which brought bicycle routes to the mobile version of the application recently.

Still, CycleTracks is a tool designed first and foremost to help city authorities manage traffic. While it is fun to use, at least this version is not heavy-duty enough for people wanting serious data on their exercise (for which there are tons of other applications, such as the RunKeeper, covered earlier on VentureBeat), but lightweight enough to keep everyday commuters engaged. But, while the number of bicyclists in San Francisco is high, says Moscovich, there are many more “latent bikers” who could be encouraged to ride bikes, cutting back on automobile traffic.

“This is all connected, transportation is not an island,” Moscovich says in Patricia’s Green, where our trip has come to its end. Octavia Street is an example of successful traffic planning that revitalized a section of the city after tearing down a freeway. Now, the area has a boulevard that provides space for cars, bikes and pedestrians alike, and the businesses on Hayes Street are bustling with activity.

“I do believe that the city is the best place for people to live. This park, like the agora of Ancient Greece, is where citizens can meet and communicate with each other. This is where arts and science happens, and it leads to social acceptance, to a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society,” Moscovich muses, gesturing at the park.

The city’s CycleTracks project is funded through the end of June, which means the study SFCTA is conducting with the app is drawing to a close. Some of the things that CycleTracks has provided data on are obvious, such as the fact that Market Street, recently adorned with green bike lanes, has lots of bicycle traffic (no need for an application to point that out). But more complex patterns need more data and more time to completely stand out. As the project wraps up, it’s unclear whether users will be able to go on using CycleTracks to contribute to SFCTA data, but the organization is very happy with the project and may conduct some sort of follow-up.

[Photos by JP Manninen]

[This story is part of a weekly series on location-based services, written by VentureBeat's JP Manninen. If you have an idea for a story you would like to see in this series, drop a line at jp@venturebeat.com]

Don’t miss MobileBeat 2010, VentureBeat’s conference on the future of mobile. The theme: “The year of the superphone and who will profit.” Now expanded to two days, MobileBeat 2010 will take place on July 12-13 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Early-bird pricing is available until May 15. For complete conference details, or to apply for the MobileBeat Startup Competition, click here.

Founded by Andrew Graham and John Warner in 2003, the duo originally envisioned a location-based app for tourism that would trigger relevant content when a visitor passed a certain location. But realizing that GPS on cell phones was still very much in a nascent stage, and that out-of-towners are not among the earliest of adopters, they shifted their focus to a demographic that is always eager to adopt new tech: Athletes.

The application, launched in February of 2006 and dubbed BiM Active, is purchased by an over-the-air download and costs a monthly subscription of $5.99 to $9.99 depending on the carrier. Once purchased, BiM Active tracks a runner or biker via GPS and calculates distance, speed, caloric burn, route, elevation, weather, degree of difficulty and allows you to wirelessly upload all this content all the data a central server, so you can show off your monster run to fellow enthusiasts. The program can also be used by snowboarders, hikers, rowers — pretty much any activity where it’s helpful to know how far you traveled and how quickly you did it.

The program gives some easy branding opportunities for companies in the same space. Currently, the program can be found at the Runner’s World website with the Runner’s World brand slapped on top. The company hopes to reach out and strike further sponsorships deals with other athletically-inclined brands.

Bones in Motion was, according to co-founder Andrew Graham, “one of the first LBS apps to go up on Sprint and Verizon. The carriers were looking for a very friendly face to put on location-based technology, something not so Big Brother.” The program has also garnered a couple of awards, winning the Navteq Global LBS Challenge in 2005, and the Brew Developer’s Award in 2007. The company has received only angel funding up until this point, with no institutional support, though Graham says that the company has been offered term sheets. However, Graham says, “Our next big carrier deployment will mean we’ll be able to cover 75 percent of the US subscriber base, so we’ll be getting to the point where it makes sense to get institutional support.”

Compared to what’s already on market, the most obvious advantage of BiM Active is price. A basic GPS unit for bicyclists from Garmin starts at around $250, or around 41 months of service from BiM Active. However, there are several things that may give hardcore athletes pause. BiM uses United States Geological Survey data, supplemented by GPS, to track altitude which is accurate to 10-20 meters. Garmin and others use barometric pressure combined with GPS to give altitude readings, which are accurate to about 3 meters. BiM Active also doesn’t have support for via Bluetooth heart rate monitors such as those put out by Alive Technolgies or Polar, which any athlete in training is going to want to see (though the application does support imported heart rate data from third-party applications). While runners probably won’t mind keeping their phone on an arm strap or pants pocket, bicyclists like to mount GPS units on their handlebars for easy viewing, something that may be difficult with a cell phone. Also worrying is that traditional GPS units are weather-proofed; cell phones, as I can personally attest to, are not.

Still, as GPS continues to appear on more and more cell phones, location-based apps that help track fitness training are going to become more popular, and Bones in Motion is well-positioned to be at the forefront of that particular niche.