Open Symbian...

This is going to be talked and blogged about... The very quick story is that Nokia will buy out all of Symbian and turn that into the Symbian Foundation which will provide the Symbian OS to all interested players as Open Source. This targets both Microsoft and Research in Motion's closed mobile operating systems as well as emerging challenges from Google's Android Open OS just now delayed till sometime next year. The move to Symbian Open Source will also create lots of comparison to Apple's apparently closed code and business model.

Symbian to go Open Source

To compete with Google and LiMo on an equal footing, Symbian will also become an open-source based platform. The Symbian Foundation will make some parts of the operating system available as open-source code at launch. More code from the project will be made available over the next two years under the Eclipse Public License, according to a statement.

During the first quarter of 2008 Symbian had a smartphone market share of 57.1 percent, followed by Research in Motion and Microsoft, at 13.4 percent and 12.0 percent respectively. Linux was the fourth largest platform with a market share at 9.1 percent, according to Gartner.

Also announced on Tuesday was the formation of the Symbian Foundation, which will come into being during the first half of next year with members including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, and Vodafone Group. All will get access to the Symbian operating system under a royalty-free license.

The deal will unite Symbian's OS and S60, UIQ (which is run as a separate company, but owned by Sony Ericsson and Motorola), and MOAP, the software platform for NTT DoCoMo's FOMA service, to create one open mobile software platform and a stronger competitor in the battle with other platforms.

Mommy, I want an Android!

PND increasingly loosing their future to Smartphones

Just assume that all mobiles being sold in the US currently have GPS buildt-in... and that adverstment ain't going to pay the bills... or "Mommy, the screens too small!!! I want an Android!"

SAN FRANCISCO — The rising availability of connected portable navigation devices (PNDs) and continued growth of location-based services were big topics at the GPS-Wireless 2008 conference here.

To make a point about where the market has gone in 10 years, Marc Prioleau, deCarta's vice president of marketing, held up a bulky, mid-1990s-era PCMCIA card with integrated GPS. "At Trimble, we sold about 10 of these. Now, companies like Nokia have GPS integrated into 35 million devices," he said.

Services available on the mobile phone, such as navigation, will continue to be one of the market drivers for LBS, said Doug MacMillan, Nokia director of technology insight and promotion. "It's going to be clearly about services. Right now, we have about 40 percent market share," he said. "In North America, there will be 85 percent of phones [with navigation capability]. That number is about 50 percent in Europe and 10-15 percent in Asia."

The sale of advertising around traffic information has been a $300 million-a-year business for Westwood One, said Bill Martin, the company's senior vice president for interactive traffic services. "When we expand the model into the telematics space, the automobile is one our biggest single [markets]," he said. "What doesn't help the market is some of the interfaces that most drivers see. When selecting a specific route, seeing an icon on a 2.1-inch screen isn't the best option, as it is not actionable. The interface has to allow the driver to make a decision."

My conclusion... Google's future will be in your hand with a screen just big enough...

Shifting StreetViews

This is a short story about this camera, Point Grey's Lady Bug II

versus this other camera, Doduca from IMC.

Or how IMC made millions by dealing Google out?

StreetViews immersive imagery as introduced on Google Maps is captured by stitching together five or more video camera feeds resulting in 360 degree moving panoramas termed as "immersive video". Immersive video prior to Google's interest was very much a niche media type and just another "wazzo-camera". Immersive video is a very cool digital product and its pioneers include iMOVE, Point Grey Research, and IMC or Immersive Media Company. And there are a number of new entrants coming along as well...

Links: iMOVE, Point Grey Research, IMC.

Google sometime in earily 2007 made a deal with the Canadian company known as IMC. Immersive Media Company has been pushing and trying to find a market place for a very complex immersive video camera they call a "do-de-ca" or dodecagon or dodecahedral spherical camera or 12 sided. But at 2.5 megapixels per frame and 30 frames a second, well it just didn't have that necessary internet snap. Further, IMC provided an exclusive license with Google to use their collection of immersive video for a number of US cities. I guess this sort of a deal could be called a loss lead as Google received content to kick-off Streetview and IMC got PR and a stock blip? Google announced Streetview around the 5th of July 2007.

"Trading of Immersive Media stock was halted the day the Streetview functionality was announced. This was to prepare for massive stock activity that the announcement of Immersive Media's licensing their image data to Google would generate. What instead we see from the stock price is a steep rise a week before the announcement followed by a brief peak and then a decline in stock price. I guess the insiders who bought up stock before the announcement managed to unload it all in a day or two." Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

Just ten days later, IMC continued to make hay on their "special" but mysterious deal with Google...

Calgary, Alberta, July 12, 2007 – "Immersive Media Corp. [TSX-V: IMC] (the "Company") announced today that it has closed its previously announced underwritten private-placement. The underwriters exercised their option to increase the size of the offering by 1,023,000 common shares, resulting in the issuance of 4,116,000 common shares at a price of $4.85 per share for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $20 million. The net proceeds of the offering will be used by the Company for general working capital purposes. The common shares are subject to a hold period of four months from closing." IMC

As you can see from the stock chart above, even on the announcement of StreetViews and the increased interest in IMC, the stock just did not perform. Why? Apparently IMC had given Google exclusive access to its content but Google had no exclusive deal with IMC? They reserved other options on populating StreetView with content. Enter Point Grey Research and its Lady Bug spherical video solution...

The Ladybug®2 is the next generation of spherical digital video cameras from Point Grey Research. The system has six HD cameras that enable the system to collect video from more than 75% of the full sphere (lower blue sky index), and an IEEE-1394b interface that allows streaming to disk at 30fps.

With the Internet's excitement for StreetView, Google rapidly expanded its use of Point Grey Research's LadyBug cameras over IMC's "Dodeca-camera". Rumor was they could equip ten cars for the cost on one Dodeca camera without all the licensing strings IMC demanded. So the only way out was for IMC to terminate their once promising opportunity with Google... ouch!

October 1, 2007
GeoImmersive™ Google Imagery Content Licensing Agreement
ends on December 27, 2007

Calgary AB – October 1, 2007 – Immersive Media Corp. announces the termination of its content license agreement with Google Inc. effective December 27, 2007. Although IMC may experience some modest decreases in revenues in the short term as a result of the termination of the agreement, in the medium and long term, management of IMC does not anticipate that the termination of the agreement will have a material adverse effect on revenues.

But all is not lost for IMC. A most interesting comment appeared on December 28, 2007 from a stockholder that attended the recent Annual Stockholder Meeting for IMC...

The first half hour or so, was dry, dealing with election of directors and other typical business affairs. Once this was concluded, Myles McGovern took center stage and discussed every major transaction from the beginning of the year, to the end. Juices started to flow. Two graphs were presented and these caught the audience's attention, the first showing the share price run up to July or thereabouts. The second, the decline from July to Dec/07.

A pin could of been head, if one was dropped. This was what everyone came to hear. Why and what was going to be done. To no ones great surprise, the finger was pointed at the general market environment and the loss of the affiliation to Google..... Formerly and Frankly , I was quite disturbed by the slide of the share price but once I got my mind wrapped around tax loss selling and the direction of the company, I was quite relieved. Hammeron2 - an IMC Stockholder

Walk On Dude!!

(Microsoft used LadyBug to document Katrina's destruction of New g Orleans....)

Picasa Mobile Photos - Mobile Photo Mapping Next?

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/put-your-photos-on-map-and-picasa-on.html

Picasa Mobile Image Mapping Mobile Picasa Albums with Maps!

If you've ever seen a great picture and wondered where it was, wished you could visit that exact spot yourself, or found yourself itching to share a great photo with somebody -- but you were away from a computer, we've got two new features on Picasa Web Albums to help you out. First, we're excited to let you know about 'Map My Photos' -- it lets you show exactly where you took your favorite snapshots. When you share an album with friends, they can see your best photos arrayed on a map (or even Google Earth). It's the perfect way to showcase a memorable road trip or a globe-trotting vacation.

Here's how to get started: when you create a new album, just fill in the optional 'Place Taken' field. You can even drag and drop individual photos directly onto a map, and use built-in Google Maps technology to pinpoint exactly where each was shot. For a quick peek at what the results look like, check out our test gallery.

But wait! There's more. We're also launching the first version of Picasa Web Albums built specifically for mobile devices. You already have a couple of pictures stuffed in your wallet, and maybe even a few wallpapers stored on your phone. But what about all those snapshots you can't carry around? With Picasa Web Albums for mobile devices, your favorite pictures are always with you. So next time you're at a loss for words when describing just how awesome, cute, or beautiful something really was, just grab your phone for visual backup.

Of course, the mobile version of Picasa Web Albums lets you keep track of photo updates from friends and family, too. Just click 'My Favorites' from the main screen to see the latest photo albums that your contacts have posted to Picasa Web Albums -- you can even post a quick comment on their photos, using your phone. Thumbnails and photos are automatically re-sized for your device's screen, so pictures look good and download fast. All you need to get started is a phone with a web browser and a data plan; learn more here.

As you enjoy your summer travels, remember to take plenty of snaps, and share the most beautiful places in the world (and don't forget to use your phone to show off pics from back home!).

Top- Growth Sites for Google and Yahoo - Statistics

Comparing HOT sites for Google and Yahoo...

Microsoft and Yahoo might make finally good use of Virtual Earth ... if they can get together and their bloggers decide they will not (or can not) mash to Google Earth/Maps? It interesting that Flickr didn't make it ot Yahoos top sites...

Yahoo versus Google - No more Mashing???

Ran accross this today as sort of a foot note and wonder if its an Uh-o, or a dead "bird in the mine" regarding the commercial interests limiting of the total freedom "Mashing" enjoys? If I see the signals right, in the most current licensing facts of Yahoo's APIs versus mashing the results with Google, well I guess Yahoo has decided what is Yahoo's is Yahoo's? I am going to bet its going to be a VERY HOT topic very soon? Flickr's geotagging value didn't come from Yahoo but from several of the very best Mashups that tied Flickr images to Google Earth. But that was way back when mashing was new news within the Wall Street Journal?

Essentially it looks like Yahoo does not want nor will they permit their API to geocode/geotag information that is later mashed or passed-over to Google Earth or Map? Something here IMHO...

"Phoogle Maps (pronounced like Foogle Maps) is a PHP class that integrates itself with the Google Maps API and with the Yahoo Geocoding API to make an easy to use interface to display Google Maps on your site."

Mapperz Note to Users: Check the Yahoo Maps API Terms and Conditions before investing time on this. There maybe infringement using the Yahoo Geocoder with Google Maps.

Mapperz's Phoogle Maps Blog Article