Google Maps 6.0 for Android makes interior layouts 3D (and can find toilets, too)

Google Maps for Android has just launched a new update  that tackles some of the toughest navigation challenges around: the interior world.

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 … Continue Reading

CSR demos technology for tracking mobile devices indoors

CSR is adding the new feature of indoor tracking to its line of SiRFusion location technology, the company announced today.

The chip-making company is demonstrating the technology today at the Locations & Beyond Summit in San Francisco. CSR has pulled together several different technologies to create reliable and accurate indoor navigation possible, according to chief marketing officer, Kanwar Chadha.

The company’s SiRFusion platform and its SiRFstarV mobile chip architecture amount to the latest navigation technology … Continue Reading

Foursquare finally lets you keep home addresses private

Location-based social network Foursquare has quietly added the incredibly welcome ability to hide home addresses to its privacy features.

One of the biggest problems I’ve always had when scanning my friends’ Foursqaure check-ins has been seeing people checking in at their homes. While theoretically you’re sharing with just friends, surely there are at least a few people you’d prefer not to show off their exact address. Furthermore, many people who are the “mayor” of their … Continue Reading

สวัสดี, Foursquare! Checkin app adds five new languages

By adding five new languages, location-based social network Foursquare has opened the door to 1.5 billion more users. The company launched translations of its app in Bahasa Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Thai, it said today on its blog,

Foursquare currently has more than 10 million members globally, and the application works on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. The company launched French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish translations in February 2011. According to the blog, the … Continue Reading

Flickr now lets you geofence your pics for improved privacy

Flickr is introducing a new security feature intended to keep creepers away from your most sensitive location information.

The photo sharing service is now letting account holders cordon off custom geographical areas, called geofences, and set specific privacy controls for those locations.

“For example, you might want to create a geofence around the your home or school that only allows Friends and Family to see the location of the photos you geotag in that area … Continue Reading

Google brings voice search to Maps

Starting today, Google is letting users search Google Maps and get directions with just their voices — no typing required.

For now, this new feature relies on Chrome web browser functionality. From the browser, users can simply click the small, blue microphone icon in the search bar, begin speaking and see results accordingly.

The speak-to-search function has also been available in Google Maps mobile interfaces for a while, since hands-free directions are pretty important to … Continue Reading

Foursquare wins major victory with death of Facebook Places

While Facebook was rolling out some changes to its privacy policies today, the company also quietly announced it was killing off the Foursquare-like Places function inside of its mobile app.

The Facebook Places feature was unveiled a year ago and let users “check-in” to various locations. Many saw this as a serious threat to other social location services like Foursquare and Gowalla because Facebook has an incredible number of users. But by October you could … Continue Reading

Urban Airship, SimpleGeo partner for simpler, sexier mobile location data

There’s got to be a better way to use location data for mobile technologies, and Urban Airship and SimpleGeo say they’re rolling it out this fall.

The two back-end-tech companies are partnering to bring better location and proximity data and services to mobile apps. This isn’t the kind of tech end users will be downloading themselves; rather, these will be tools developers use to add new features to their apps and to send the right … Continue Reading

Locationary raises $2.5M to improve local business data and management

Locationary, an online and mobile service that lets you search “place” data, such as local businesses, announced Wednesday that it has raised $2.5 million to hire new staff and launch a powerful new local data management system.

“We want to take the data management process to a bigger level,” Locationary founder and CEO Grant Ritchie told VentureBeat. “We’re working with publishers, app developers, and more to make this happen.”

If you’ve ever used Google Maps … Continue Reading

With Bagtrakka, you’ll never lose your luggage again

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 … Continue Reading

Foursquare Android app gets notifications update before iOS

Usually Apple’s iOS platform gets the freshest apps and biggest app updates before Google’s Android OS does. But location-based service Foursquare bucked that trend Tuesday with the release of an update that adds a cool new notifications panel to its Android app before its iOS counterpart.

Foursquare is the most popular location-based social network running today, with more than 10 million users, and its innovations routinely catch the eye of other major social players like … Continue Reading

Senators introduce mobile location privacy bill

Two US senators on Wednesday introduced legislation aimed to make companies like Apple and Google obtain consent before collecting and sharing a customer’s location data. Senators Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) co-sponsored the bill, which is titled the Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011.

The location information obtained by firms such as Apple and Google and by app developers likely made consumers nervous back in April when it was revealed Apple’s iPhones were … Continue Reading

Groupon launches instant local deals spinoff Groupon Now

Daily deals juggernaut Groupon has just launched Groupon Now, a spinoff service which looks to break its traditional deal-a-day model and offer real-time deals based simply on the user’s location.

Revealed in March, the service works both through the web and its location-aware iPhone and Android mobile applications. Irrespective of the time of the day and their location, users can use either component to find deals, which have time-restrictions set by the businesses that offer … Continue Reading

Matchbook launches an easy way to bookmark cool locations

If you’re the kind of person who’s constantly writing down recommendations for restaurants, bars, and so on, a just-launched iPhone application called Matchbook can help you keep track.

I played with the app earlier today, and the interface is pretty straightforward. Whenever someone tells you about a location that you’d like to remember, you can search for it in Matchbook’s location database (which uses Foursquare’s application programming interface), bookmark it, and add tags like “Mexican” … Continue Reading

Apple blames bugs for iPhone tracking scandal, software fix coming soon

Apple finally has officially responded to reports that iPhones store user location data in the form of an unusually revealing Q&A.

The company says it’s not actually tracking iPhone locations, instead it’s been compiling a crowdsourced database of cell tower and WiFi hotspot locations — “some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone,” Apple stresses — to speed up GPS services on the iPhones. Apple says it’s simply … Continue Reading

Microsoft: Windows Phone 7 doesn't store your location

Microsoft guarantees that smartphones with its Windows Phone 7 operating system doesn’t store location history like iOS and Android devices do, PCMag reports.

That’s good news for the small handful of users with Windows Phone 7 devices.

Microsoft was the only manufacturer that answered PCMag’s query about storing the location. PCMag also contacted Nokia, RIM, HP and Google about storing the user’s location information but they didn’t answer.

The location storing issue came into light … Continue Reading

Apple's iPhone/iPad location-tracking may be a bug

Why is Apple tracking the locations of iPhone and iPad users? The reason is probably less Big Brother and more Big Glitch, according to blogger John Gruber.

Gruber’s source told him that the much-maligned tracking file is just a cache for location data, and that the historical data isn’t being cleared due to a bug or an oversight. But the source didn’t downplay the implications of the issue, according to what appears to be a … Continue Reading

Nielsen: Smartphone users do care about location privacy

Earlier this week we reported on how Apple has been recording the locations of iPhone and iPad users and storing that data in unencrypted form on the device.

New research from Nielsen (carried out before the Apple story broke) shows that the majority of smartphone app users, and in particular women, are concerned about sharing their location via a mobile phone. 59 percent of women have privacy concerns versus 52 percent of male app users. … Continue Reading

Why is Apple recording iPhone and iPad users' locations?

Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices have long been storing positions and timestamps in a hidden file on the user’s computer. That’s according to developers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden, who plan to report their finding at the Where 2.0 conference today in Santa Clara, Calif.

Allan stumbled on the discovery while looking through iTunes’ backup files on his computer. Author of the book “Learning iPhone Programming” for O’Reilly Media, Allan came across “consolidated.db”, a backup … Continue Reading

PhoneTag app promises to keep social media meet-ups private

Smartphone app startup Ripple Mobile today debuted its PhoneTag application, which uses GPS-based technology to help mobile device users share a user’s real-time location and coordinate connections privately with their friends and contacts.

PhoneTag lets a user select as many people as they want to be in a session — whether those people are contacts from their address book, someone they just met, business associates or anybody else with a smartphone. Users can set the … Continue Reading