Tag Archives: mapping

I love UrbanSpoon. It was one of the first iPhone apps I ever installed and I often submit restaurant reviews from my wine blog. There’s even a rivalry between two food-related bloggers in my city to see who can be ranked #1 on UrbanSpoon for Cincinnati. So it’s a popular app, both on the iPhone and online.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that UrbanSpoon is adding augmented reality to the iPhone app. According to the New York Times, augmented reality is “a feature that superimposes data or information over the live feed from the phone’s camera.” Think about that for a minute. Your phone interprets the data taken from the camera and uses that, with the GPS, to determine where you are located at any given point in time. It’s either fascinating or frightening, depending on your worldview.

UrbanSpoon’s implementation, called Scope, allows you to aim your camera in any given direction. The app then displays a map with nearby restaurants, including their distance and UrbanSpoon rating. You can drill down to more details by selecting any one restaurant. If the technology is slightly off, then you can adjust your position on the map.

There is a catch, of course. Scope (and other apps with augmented reality) only work with the latest and greatest iPhone – the 3GS. Scope was released to the world on Wednesday morning. If you’ve got a 3GS, it might be time to update your apps.

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by Michelle Lentz

Launching today, ZoomProspector is a free service that helps you find a place to locate your business. Locations are based on a wide range of criteria – from age demographics and education levels to costs, venture capital, highways, commute times, and proximity to airports. At first, I was skeptical. After all, there are more companies going virtual now than there are those looking for locations. However, the mission of ZoomProspector is to help businesses and communities survive and thrive in the current economic environment.

Whether new or relocating, factory or office, choosing the right location is even more critical in these unstable economic times. ZoomProspector does this by aggregating an unprecedented wealth of demographic, socioeconomic, and commercial real estate data in a single location, enabling companies to easily find the best community that matches their particular workforce needs, target customer base, and infrastructure requirements.

“Approximately 750,000 businesses look for a new facility nationwide each year. With the unprecedented challenges facing businesses of all sizes today, including skyrocketing fuel costs, the credit crunch, rising unemployment and a global economy, businesses cannot afford to make anything less than the most informed business location decision. While the larger of these companies may have the resources and expertise to conduct an exhaustive demographic search and analysis, smaller and mid-sized companies typically have not had access to community data beyond property listings. They’ve essentially been making the most important decision for their company’s long-term success wearing a blindfold,” said Anatalio Ubalde, CEO at ZoomProspector.

Once a user identifies a general area (for instance, Cincinnati), ZoomProspector will then display speificic communities, potential competition and eventually, specific properties. Commercial realtors can showcase their available properties to a highly targeted audience.

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