Google Maps and Google Earth in Mobile, Googles Agreement with Tele Atlas

Google the Great!!!!!!!!!!!
Google up its position in the digital navigation world by signing a long-term agreement with Tele Atlas that gives the search engine company access to Tele Atlas maps and content in more than 200 countries.

The deal, announced Monday, could also eventually place Google and its Android Open Handset Alliance in stronger competition with Nokia .

The Google-Tele Atlas agreement covers Google's map-based services and navigation offerings in the mobile, online, and desktop universes, including Google Maps and Google Earth services and some mobile applications like Google Maps for Mobile.

"This agreement ... gives us access to input from a significant online community of map users, whose feedback can help us keep our maps fresh and accurate," Tele Atlas CEO Bill Henry said in a statement . Atlas noted that by increasing geospatial data, global search is enhanced by organizing data and delivering results on location.

A subsidiary of TomTom, Tele Atlas has some 2,500 staff members and contract cartographers in 24 countries. With the help of millions of GPS globally, these workers track and validate changes in real time to develop and enhance accurate digital maps and dynamic content.

TomTom recently received approval from the European Union to acquire Tele Atlas , setting the stage for competition with Nokia's Navteq navigation operation. Nokia recently unveiled a partnership with France Telecom's Orange with a goal of signing up 10 million Mobile Maps users by 2010.

The TomTom-Tele Atlas union had been aimed more at automotive navigation, while Nokia-Navteq seemed to address the pedestrian side of navigation. As the navigation market advances quickly, the two groups seem to be seeking to become major players in both the automotive and pedestrian markets.

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In the face of increasing competition from Nokia and Google, mobile Linux group LiPS has merged with the LiMo Foundation

The Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum on Thursday announced it will roll is activities and members into the Linux Mobile Foundation (LiMo) in an attempt to create a stronger entity for pushing mobile Linux.

 

The groups hope the move will help bolster the mobile Linux developer community and increase the adoption of mobile devices in the face of increasing completion from open source competitors like Symbian and Android.

 

"LiPS Forum is proud of our standardization efforts, development activities and other achievements of the last three years," LiPS Forum president Haila Wang said in a statement. "Our membership agrees that LiPS's greatest impact can be realized by adding our members' expertise and resources to LiMo Foundation. Together, the member companies can better strive for a unified and ubiquitous Linux-based mobile platform."

 

The realignment is not completely unexpected because both groups have been working toward a similar goal. LiPS sought to create a formal standard for mobile Linux, while the LiMo Foundation wanted to create a Linux framework that can be quickly designed into a handset. Additionally, many members of LiPS, like Trolltech, MontaVista, and France Telecom, have already joined LiMo.

 

The move comes as mobile Linux faces increasing competition. On Tuesday, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) bought Symbian and said it would convert it into a free, open source operating system under the Symbian Foundation. This foundation features a broad range of partners, including Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson, Motorola (NYSE: MOT), AT&T (NYSE: T), and Samsung.

 

There also will be competition from the Linux-based Android operating system, which is being supported by companies like Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Broadcom (NSDQ: BRCM), and Sprint (NYSE: S). But, the LiMo Foundation should be the first to have handsets on the market, with the first wave expected within a few months.

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Android gains traction or not in the face of a free Symbian may not matter

Nokia's decision to buy the rest of Symbian it didn't already own and set it free was supposed to help it better deal with competition from open-platform rivals such as Google ( NSDQ: GOOG) by attracting consumers with free software. But has Nokia's move done the exact opposite, giving its burgeoning rival in the mobile market a boost instead?

 

BusinessWeek argues that by helping nurture the mobile web and create demand for cell phone applications, Nokia's move has done just his. Sure, Google's mobile OS Android will get some stiff competition from Symbian, and maybe Android won't emerge as the dominant OS, but in the end, with an established mobile web, Google wins anyway?with the ads it sells.

 

With sales of ads via desktop search is slowing down, Google needs to increase usage on mobile devices. Analysts are predicting that Google could easily transfer its dominance on desktop search to mobile search, thanks to its strong brand presence with consumers, as early data has shown that mobile consumers are going to the mobile sites of their desktop favourites. So whether Android gains traction or not in the face of a free Symbian may not matter, just as long as Google locks in mobile search.

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Google in to BlackBerry

                Search giant Google recently launched a number of enhancements to its U.S. mobile search results pages for Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry browser, resulting in more types of results being displayed on single pages, including images, Web and news, as well as lists of related queries.

 

The tweaks come on the heels of a number of similar changes meant to enhance the Google mobile search experience for smartphone users. Earlier this month, Google modified its home page to speed up load time for mobile devices, but the company has also been busy making device-specific enhancements such as iPhone Google News search, international search shortcuts for Nokia phones and a Windows Mobile Google plug-in.

 

Many of the new BlackBerry-browser-specific changes copy the functionality of Google's current desktop search. They are as follows:

 

-- A wider variety of result types for search queries. When BlackBerry users surf to Google.com and search, they now will find results from Google's product, blog and news archive engines instead of just Web or current news results.

-- Simpler selection of result types. More kinds of search results may appear on query pages, but they are easier to navigate. That's because of text at the top of each results page links directly to, say, Google News or image search results.

-- More text from Web pages displayed within results. Along with a headline and link to relevant stories, the results pages show more text from those stories. You are more likely to find what they're looking for without ever leaving Google.

-- Related search terms. At the bottom of any results pages, BlackBerry browser users will now find a selection of related search terms to help tweak queries.

 

"We have taken desktop elements that have tested well on mobile and further optimized them for the mobile use case," reads a post on the official Google Mobile blog. "Improving mobile search is a continuous process and we hope you find the releases this past month to move the needle on what we care most about: quality, speed and ease of use."

 

On the BlackBerry front, Google also offers a tool to help RIM smartphone users locate all of its available mobile search services and ensure those services are up to date. The free Google Mobile Updater application, currently available only to BlackBerry users, includes several features:

 

-- makes it simple to download and access Gmail;

-- Google Sync lets you sync your Google Calendar with your BlackBerry;

-- Google Reader, a mobile RSS reader;

-- Google Docs, a Web-based documents application;

-- the Picasa photo app;

-- the Google Maps mapping application;

-- and both Google Web and News Search engines.

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