WirelessDevNet LBS NewsWire #1

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LBS BUSINESS

A week prior to CTIA, MapInfo announced a major partnership with Vodafone and Siemens to deliver location-based services to wireless customers. Since Vodafone is the largest wireless operator in the world, millions of people will now be able to receive personally relevant services that make their lives much easier. For example, you need a taxi. You tell your cell phone "Find a taxi." Your phone pinpoints your location, contacts the nearest cab and sends it to you. MapInfo's mobile location services platform, miAware, makes this possible and was shown at MapInfo's booth at the show. With miAware, all wireless carriers are able to maximize customer retention and generate additional revenue with unique, custom-built services for both businesses and consumers.
See http://www.mapinfo.com/wireless/developers.cfm

LocatioNet Systems, the global technology leader in wireless Location-based Services, announced that it has opened a new European front office in Germany. "Because Europe is the most advanced market for cellular value-added services, LocatioNet has been keeping that region in our spotlight for our array of LBS products," says Ofer Tziperman, President & CEO of LocatioNet. "We have seen significant growth in our activities in Europe which called for a local European front office. Further, we believe that the LocatioNet Platform best suits the requirements of the European mobile operators that are focused on a comprehensive open LBS solution rather than a simple tailor made vertical application". The European office will serve mainly as a sales office, as well as a local base for customer support. This recent addition joins previously established LocatioNet satellite sales and marketing offices in New York, and Sao Paulo, Brazil."
See www.locationet.com

AvantGo, Inc., and Spacient Technologies, Inc. (Spacient) have announced a strategic alliance to deliver mobile and wireless field force automation and location-based solutions to the utilities and telecommunications industries. By combining AvantGo(R) M-Business Server with Spacient's Fieldport(TM) mobile operations management software and services, AvantGo and Spacient are providing a mobile and real-time wireless solution that provides the utilities and telecommunications industries with an integrated web and wireless application for managing mobile field service operations and resource productivity. The solution allows managers, supervisors and office and field employees to perform critical business operations using the Internet and a variety of wireless devices, including Palm OS, Pocket PC, Symbol and BlackBerry Wireless Handheld(TM) devices. The solution operates as a stand-alone application or in combination with customers' existing customer relationship management (CRM), geographic information system (GIS), or enterprise asset management (EAM), systems.
See www.avantgo.com & www.spacient.com

CellPoint Inc., a global provider of mobile location software and platforms, announce the launch of the world's first commercial location-based services across a live General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) or '2.5G' network. Using commercially available GPRS handsets from NEC with CellPoint's Mobile Location System (MLS) platform and Mobile Location Broker (MLB) middleware, these new services were launched on CeBIT2002 in Hannover and are available to consumers as part of the successful introduction of i-mode(TM) by E-Plus and NTT DoCoMo in Germany. The i-mode(TM) GPRS 'smart-phones' allow high data transmission speeds of up to 53.6 kbps compared to the 9.6 kbps currently available in 2G GSM. The combination of high speed and large color screens offers an excellent way for mobile users to experience new high-fidelity location-based services such as 'find-a-friend', local information, navigation, community services and gaming.
See www.cellpoint.com

NavCom Technology, Inc. has announced the addition of three new Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) products to its product line of high-quality, high-accuracy, high-performance GPS instruments; the RT-3010S, the RT-3020S and the RT-3020M. The RT-3010S is a full survey quality RTK GPS sensor, enabling instantaneous on-the-fly (OTF) initialization within one to two epochs, delivering reliable centimeter level RTK accuracy in typically less than 10 seconds with greater than 99.9% confidence.
See www.navcomtech.com

Later this month, Motorola will announce several new microcontrollers that are designed for use in GPS systems in aircraft, remote surveillance equipment and precision farming technologies.

LBS NewsWire #1

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