Mapping

BlackBerry-maker RIM has just promoted its free BlackBerry Traffic app from beta status to a general software release. Now that its available in the BlackBerry App World beginning today, BlackBerry Traffic could threaten competitors like Waze.

BlackBerry Traffic is a driving tool that estimates the real-time distance between you and your destination. The app sources a combination of historical traffic patterns and real-time data taken from other BlackBerry Traffic users in the area. Like competitor Waze, which also crowd-sources its traffic details, BlackBerry Traffic displays travel times, alternate routes, and incident reports. There's a sharing feature so you can … Read more

If at first, second, and third you don't succeed, try, try again.

Google is taking another crack at a social service, this time with Hotpot, a tool designed to capture local knowledge and recommend establishments such as restaurants or stores you might want to visit. Google unveiled an early version of Hotpot in a blog post yesterday, and I think Hotpot has some attributes that could help it achieve modest success.

"With Hotpot, we're making local search results for places on Google more personal, relevant, and trustworthy," product manager Lior Ron said in the post, calling … Read more

I have never been a Nicaraguan general, but I imagine that the job has its fun parts.

So one might just put it down to naive enthusiasm that Eden Pastora--such an idyllically peaceful name for a general--might have accidentally wandered with his troops into territory that would seem to be owned by its neighbor, Costa Rica.

And yet, no. General Pastora doesn't blame general euphoria. No, he blames Google Maps.

The dispute that has ensued over Google's version of the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border has become rather serious. So much so that the secretary general of the Organization of … Read more

The United Kingdom's Information Commissioner has found that Google violated the country's Data Protection Act when it collected data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks with its Street View vehicles.

"There was a significant breach of the Data Protection Act when Google Street View cars collected payload data as part of their Wi-Fi mapping exercise in the U.K.," the Information Commissioner's Office said in a statement today.

The country's Data Protection Act, which was enacted in 1998, determines policies related to the safekeeping of personal information in the U.K. The Information Commissioner's office … Read more

This story was updated at 4:50 p.m. PDT with a new headline, and additional comment from Microsoft.

Microsoft has taken the covers off a future update to its Bing Maps service that removes the need for its Silverlight browser plug-in to view an alternate mapping layer, and has also announced that it plans to remove its 3D map viewer. The changes will arguably make the service more approachable to the masses, but indicate that the company is going in a different direction with its online tools and technology platforms.

In a post on the Bing community blog, Bing … Read more

Google will take another swing at the Yellow Pages today, integrating local business listings directly into search results.

The company is set to launch Google Place Search as a standalone search option, much the same way Google users can search for images, news, or products. It will bring the Google Places listings that business owners can claim into the main search results pages, rather than confining them to searches done within Google Maps as was the case prior to today.

Google has been encouraging local restaurants, hardware stores, and dry cleaners to "claim" their business within Google by … Read more

Satellite schmatellite.

Frank Taylor, author of the Google Earth blog who's on a five-year sailboat trip called the Tahina Expedition, supplied Google with aerial imagery that's much higher-resolution than the usual fare obtained from cameras in orbit. The imagery is arriving on Google Maps and Google Earth.

The process has some complications satellites don't have to worry about, though. "Due to the sun getting low in the sky, we weren't able to cover a large part of the village," Taylor said Monday of shots from Manihi atoll in French Polynesia now arriving in Google Maps. &… Read more

Yesterday morning, thousands of New York-based users of geolocation service Foursquare received a "check-in" that had nothing to do with a friend announcing her presence at a Starbucks or a co-worker logging a breakfast meeting in midtown: It was a news alert from The Wall Street Journal, informing them that Metro-North commuter rail service was suspended due to a fire on a bridge over the Harlem River.

If you were, say, a Philadelphia-based Foursquare user who "followed" The Wall Street Journal account, you wouldn't have received the alert. Nor would it have shown up on … Read more

Four-buck iPad app My Friends from social-aggregation company Sobees has a new trick up its sleeve as of this morning that makes browsing through your friends' Facebook Places check-ins a more eyeball-friendly experience.

The app, which acts as a dolled-up interface for Facebook, now lets you browse Places check-ins in chronological order, as well as see them on an integrated Google Map. The feature joins other familiar Facebook mainstays like photos, chat, and events--all of which My Friends has skinned to fit within the iPad's rectangular interface.

The Places browser in My Friends offers up the same general experience … Read more