location

Data crunch: Where did people go during Internet Week?

Just how powerful can the data behind a location-based application be? Extremely.

Earlier this month, the second annual Internet Week New York took place, and Dropio founder and certifiable data nerd Sam Lessin crunched a bunch of numbers based on what his contacts on urban navigation and friend-finding service Foursquare were doing. Lessin was working with a group of fewer than 100 contacts, almost all of whom are involved in the tech and new-media industries (this is the scene that birthed Foursquare and its predecessor Dodgeball, after all), and yet it's a fascinating peek at just how much this … Read more

Failed to produce results

This free program lets you performs searches by category and location. We would have liked to have seen more flexibility with the search categories, but of greater concern were that lack of any results in our test searches.

Kijiji Reader has a simple and pleasant user interface that is easy to navigate. A field for entering your keywords resides at the top, and tree-menus for selecting your search categories and locations reside on the left of the window. While the program offers a decent selection of search categories, you're limited to only those categories. Search locations are limited to … Read more

Podcast: Glympse launches mobile location sharing

Location-based services like Loopt have been around for a few years, but a new player-- Glympse, is launching its public beta service. Glympes CEO and co-founder Bryan Trussel says that his service is easier to use and safer because a user allows him or herself to be tracked for a specified period of time--never more than four hours--so that once it expires they are no longer transmitting their location.

Google launches apps for sharing Latitude location

Google has two new applications that let users of its Latitude service share their location with people who are not using the service.

The first, for Google's Talk service, will update your chat status with your location (at a city level) every time you check in with Latitude. The other is a badge you can stick on your blog or social-networking profile that shows precisely where you are.

It looks like this:

Just like embedding a Google Map, you can pick the terrain type and zoom level, and it pumps out some simple code for you, including a link … Read more

Is convenience worth a Google toolbar?

It will only work on Internet Explorer, and only in the U.S. right now, but if you're looking to extend the same timesaving search convenience of Google's mobile apps to your desktop, the new Google Toolbar (download) from Google Labs will do it.

The My Location feature found in Google Maps for Mobile--and recently integrated into Google Mobile App--uses cell tower triangulation or GPS to find your approximate or exact location. That localizes your search terms, so queries for "weather" or "coffee" pull up results close to you, and save you from … Read more

Google spreads labs approach to toolbar

Google on Thursday introduced Toolbar Labs, a mechanism to let users of the browser add-on try experimental new features--including the first two, a locator service and support for simplified Chinese.

The move is the newest demonstration--and the second in a week after the relaunch of Google Labs--of the company's beta-testing philosophy. The company uses labs experiments to launch products rapidly even if they're still half-baked, to get early feedback on products it needs to steer in the right direction, and to draw attention to its technology.

"A few things to keep in mind as you check … Read more

The 404 321: Where Jason bringeth thy camerath

The 404 studio starts its transition from toxic-waste dump site into a full-on video production system with the help of Buzz Out Loud star Jason Howell. Seriously, there are about six cameras in here pointed at things I don't even want to mention.

Lots on today's show. First, the Interwebs have tracked down the location of the suspected Domino's Pizza where a few employees rolled dough down their backs and stuck cheese up their nose. Speaking of douche bags, there's a new book coming out highlighting the antics of "that guy." You know, the one that strikes up a conversation at the urinal or, like Justin, who sends you pictures that leave you having nightmares. Rounding out the first half of the show, a 6-year-old boy can't return a brand-new PSP to Wal-Mart after he discovers pr0n on it.

On the second half, we've got some great voice mails, including a call from a special someone in Hawaii who wants to have Justin's babies. Stephen Colbert gets a treadmill named after him aboard the International Space Station. If you're addicted to the Internet, there's an application on the Mac that will help. And finally, AT&T allows parents and jealous boyfriends and girlfriends to track the location of their loved ones. Call it a social network and it's not big brother; it's awesometown.

Again, please RSVP for tomorrow night's BOL and 404 meetup at the Delancey in New York City at 7:30 p.m. Right now, only age 21 and up can come. We're working on trying to get 18+ to get in, but no guarantees. It is a bar, after all. If you can't make it though, please call in at 1-866-404-CNET (2638) to leave a callback or message about something asinine one of us said.

EPISODE 321 Download today's podcast |  Subscribe in iTunes |  Subscribe in RSS… Read more

AT&T launches family-tracking service

AT&T is offering a new service that allows parents--or potentially jealous spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends--to track loved ones using their phones.

AT&T's service, called FamilyMaps, allows people to track the location of any cell phone on AT&T's network from a mobile phone or PC. The person being tracked receives a text message informing him or her that he or she is being watched. The service periodically informs the tracked individual that he or she is being watched, just in case one text message reminder wasn't enough.

Users can either track someone in … Read more

Mobile start-ups Brightkite, Limbo to tango

Brightkite, one of the half-dozen or so companies vying for market share in the location-based social-networking space, has merged with another mobile start-up called Limbo. The official branding of the company will be Brightkite now, but its home base will now be at Limbo's headquarters in Burlingame, Calif.

Limbo's focus is on mobile games, as well as text-message alerts: sports scores, celebrity gossip, weather, horoscopes, and the like.

It's not totally clear how the two will merge their technologies, but a little bit of background was provided on the Brightkite blog. Brightkite will have access to Limbo'… Read more