SiRF Technology and GeoMicro Help You Get Where You Want To Go Free software for iDEN GPS phones demonstrates power of Location-Based Services SAN

SiRF Technology, Inc., the leading provider of GPS-enabled silicon and software location platforms, and GeoMicro, Inc., a leading provider of desktop and Internet mapping solutions, today began offering GeoLocator, a free software utility that makes it easier for users of SiRF’s SiRFLoc-enabled, Java-equipped mobile phones to get where they want to go. Demonstrating the power of Location-Based Services, the GeoLocator Java application instantly displays the distance and compass heading to any U.S. street address tapped into the phone, as well as the address nearest the user’s current location.

SiRF and GeoMicro cooperatively developed the free utility, which currently runs on Motorola model i88 and i58 iDEN mobile phones offered by Nextel. It provides a simple hands- SiRF and GeoMicro Help You Get Where You Want to Go on example of how many of the building blocks available today can be used to deploy LBS for mobile enterprise applications.

Multimode GPS mobile phones and other wireless devices can provide accurate location information under a variety of conditions as a result of their built-in, high-sensitivity GPS technology from SiRF. This, combined, with Internet-based geographic information systems like GeoMirco AltaMap allows organizations to track products or vehicles, dispatch resources, and tag business information with location data.

Businesses are beginning to use location as an important piece of information in streamlining their mobile operations, said Marc Prioleau, director of Enterprise Products for SiRF Technology. The SiRF multimode GPS technology used in the Motorola i88 enables the GeoLocator utility and other LBS applications to work equally well in narrow city canyons, tree-covered suburbs, and wide-open rural areas.

The Motorola i88 mobile phone is location-enabled by SiRF’s SiRFstarIIe/LP chipset, which combines the industry’s highest GPS performance with extremely low power consumption. The SiRFLoc multimode location software technology used in the phone allows a choice between the high sensitivity stand-alone GPS location and A-GPS technology for weak signal strength environments, enabling it to provide location information equally well in a variety of environments without tying up unnecessary carrier network bandwidth.

Although simple in concept and use, GeoLocator utilizes some of the most complex technology available today, combining SiRF’s multimode GPS technology with our Internet-based AltaMap geographic information system software to provide accurate, instant location-based information under a variety of conditions, said David Ransier of GeoMicro. GeoLocator demonstrates how GeoMicro can simplify the complexity of Internet-based mapping and LBS.

GeoLocator sends the address entered into the phone by the user and the current location data generated by the phone’s built-in GPS receiver over the Internet to GeoMicro, where the AltaMap Geocoder translates the latitude and longitude information into the user’s postal address and computes the distance and compass heading to the destination.

As users walk or drive toward their desired locations, they can update the distance and heading information to zero in on the destination. The free GeoLocator utility requires nothing more than a GPS-enabled, J2ME-equipped mobile phone like the Motorola i88 iDen phone. For more information, on the latest GPS News see gps cell phones.

Author Notes:

Marcell Novak contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.handheld-gps-reviews.com.  A wealth of information about Global Positioning Systems for commercial or personal use.