By Ian Paul
January 10, 2009

By David Coursey
November 12, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Google has added new features to its Latitude location mapping and tracking service, allowing users to see where they have been and automatically be alerted (warned?) when friends are nearby.
“One of the most popular ideas was for Latitude to keep track of location history, allowing you (but not your friends) to see where you’ve been at any point in time. Another popular idea was to notify you when you’re near your Latitude friends so you can easily meet up or grab lunch,” wrote Google’s Chris Lambert in an announcement on the Google Mobile Blog posted late Tuesday.
“Today, we’re happy to introduce both Google Location History and Google Location Alerts (beta) to let you do even more with Latitude.”

Latitude is a free service, introduced last February, that allows users to selectively reveal their location to friends in real time, offering a tracking capability previously only available in paid applications, typically offered by wireless carriers.

(Here is an in-depth look at Google Latitude, posted shortly after its introduction).
The new features allow users to see where they have been, manage those tracks, and be alerted when friends are nearby. The application “learns” from location tracks so that alerts are not issued for locations where users typically congregate, such as at home or work.

Latitude updates are shown as part of the iGoogle homepage, Google Maps, and the Google app on a variety of wireless devices, specifically not including the iPhone. On that handset, Latitude is available only as a browser application.

On an opt-in basis, users can have their location and picture shown on the maps of other users. A family could, for example, use Latitude to show everyone’s location at any given moment.

Locations are provided by the GPS receiver in supported handsets, which also need a multitasking operating system to transmit location updates back to Google’s server in the background. On desktops, locations can be entered manually.

The lack of multitasking and, perhaps, opposition from AT&T, which offers a tracking app of its one, are seen as reasons why a Latitude app is not offered for iPhone.

“Unfortunately, since there is no mechanism for applications to run in the background on iPhone (which applies to browser-based web apps as well), we’re not able to provide continuous background location updates in the same way that we can for Latitude users on Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile,” wrote Google’s Mat Balez in a July 23 blog post announcing the feature.
“Nevertheless, your location is updated every time you fire up the app and then continuously updated while the app is running in the foreground.”

Google Latitude is attractive for some users and applications and could be the beginning of better location-based search results and other information for Google users. Including advertising, which many will doubtless see as a mixed blessing.

It also has the potential for abuse, however, particularly if location information transmitted to Google were made more widely available without users’ consent.
In addition, these changes to Latitude remind us that some features really work only when everybody uses them. For that reason, Google should consider opening Latitude to location fixes from outside Google applications.

November 5, 2009

IP Converge, the information technology & telecommunications division of publicly listed IPVG and Geodata Systems Technologies have entered into a strategic tie-up that brings the most complete fleet management system to the Philippine and South East Asian market.

Under the partnership, IP Converge brings together Convoy FMS and Geodata’s ArcLogistics and Archibus to create a comprehensive, end-to-end fleet management solution that outperforms existing fleet management systems in the marketplace.

“This partnership combines world-class fleet management solutions in Convoy FMS, ArcLogistics and Archibus that address the deficiencies of other fleet management systems. Beyond tracking vehicles, the collective solution expands management’s ability to set and enforce protocols for vehicle users and optimizes fleet utilization to save on overhead and contribute to the bottom-line,” says IP-Converge President, Reynaldo Huergas.

Convoy FMS is a Web-based, user-friendly GPS fleet management system developed by Lazer Technology Solutions that uses Google Maps as a platform. Convoy FMS delivers detailed information on a vehicle’s activities to a laptop or Web-enabled mobile device in real time. The solution has nationwide coverage and two-way communication is done between a device installed in the vehicle and the end-user through GPRS (General Packet Radio Service).

IP-Converge was recently appointed by LazerTech as the exclusive distributor of Convoy FMS in the South East Asian region. The Miami-based IT solutions and applications development company chose IP-Converge for its robust sales force and its proven track record in advancing Web-based applications in the Philippine market. LazerTech’s fleet management system has several thousands of licenses issued with installations in ten countries spanning five continents.

ArcLogistics is a stand-alone management application created by Environment Systems Research Institute, a global leader in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and mapping solutions. The application is designed to solve vehicle routing and scheduling problems and set the optimum routes to maintain efficient use of resources such as time and fuel. ArcLogistics is dynamic and adjusts as problems or roadblocks arise ensuring that deliveries arrive on time and customer satisfaction is preserved.

Archibus Fleet Management, a product of total Infrastructure and Facilities Management Solutions company, Archibus, based in Boston, Massachusetts, maintains an organization’s fleet of mobile assets and is crucial to the safety and efficiency of fleet operations. Through Archibus, fleet managers can optimize utilization and performance of fleet assets by tracking every vehicle’s usage, availability and maintenance schedules. This information improves management’s ability to control costs and assign resources.

“IP-Converge’s vision for this fleet management product is compatible with ours and we look forward to working closely with them in identifying growth opportunities and achieving a high rate of adoption across markets.  The Philippines and other South East Asian countries have robust and resilient economies and this partnership illustrates an opportunity to help companies better manage their fleet assets and enable them to drive their business and be more competitive in their respective niches,” says John Morales, senior VP of Geodata Systems Technologies.

IP-Converge is a regional data center whose core competency is managed data services particularly server co-location, connectivity solutions, and network security. IPC is also one of the Philippines’ leading business solutions and services providers, promoting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Geodata Systems Technologies, Inc. is an information technology company focused on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping solutions and GIS ready data products.

By Chris Brandrick
October 3, 2009

Google has come a long way in its eleven-year history, from its humble beginning as a Stanford University research project in 1998, to the global, multi-billion dollar online presence Google enjoys today.

Earlier this week, the company celebrated its 11th birthday and choose to mark the occasion with an all new Google Doodle, a fun take on their colorful identity. The unique logo illustrated Google’s eleven years in operation by adding an extra L to the company’s name to form a number eleven.

Google’s actual founding date is subject to debate. There are those who think that Google should bring out the cake on the September 4, the day in 1998 that Google filed its incorporation papers and officially became Google, Inc. Still others think that Google should recognize September 15, 1997 as its founding date, as that is when Google registered the google.com domain. But despite the debate, Google has celebrated its anniversary on September 27 for the past few years now, making the date somewhat official.

Any birthday offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past, so just what has Google been up to in the last eleven years?

Early Days: 1998
With 1997 behind them, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin dropped the original BackRub moniker in favor of Google, a play on the mathematical term “googol.” With the Google.com domain registered and a healthy $100,000 investment from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, the two Stanford students rented out a $1,700 a month garage space in California’s Menlo Park.

With a makeshift office in place, Google made it official and filed for incorporation as “Google Technology Inc” on September 4, 1998. As the rest of year played out, Google began to receive positive support in the press, and the company also hired their first employee, Craig Silverstein.

Money And Moving: 1999
Thanks to its growing workforce, the fledgling company moved twice in 1999. Google outgrew its modest garage and relocated briefly to a more suitable location in Palo Alto. In June, the company released its very first press release, detailing how the firm had secured $25 million of funding.

During the second half of the year, as the company reached forty employees, Google moved once again to offices in Mountain View, with an in-house chef included. This year also saw Google drop the exclamation mark from their logo and settling with its now world-famous branding.

Growth & Expansion: 2000
2000 was a year of growth, as along with the search engine reaching a milestone of one billion pages indexed, the website also expanded to support over fifteen languages including Chinese, French, German, Japanese and more.

How things change. This year (2000) also saw Yahoo! reveal that they will be using Google as their default search provider. At the time this was a big deal, as Yahoo! was once one of the darlings of search, which Google had originally set their eyes on to compete with; mission accomplished? Of course today paints a very different picture as now both Yahoo! and Microsoft are collectively attempting to compete with the search giant that Google has become.

Before the year was out Google also found time to launch the immensely successful AdWords program, and their Toolbar browser plug-in. With the year drawing to a close it was pretty clear that the search engine was on a meteoric rise, as Google was now handling nearly 100 million search queries a day.

Going Global: 2001
With the search engine now available in over twenty-five languages, it only seemed right that the company would expand on a global level with the opening of its first international office in Tokyo. 2001 also saw Google hire ex-Novell chief executive Eric Schmidt, who started at Google as the Chairman of the Board, before quickly moving on to become the CEO.

With the Google search index approaching three billion webpages, it seemed the perfect time to tackle a new type of search: Images. Google launched its Image Search service in July, and initially had an index of over 250 million images.

Getting Geeky: 2002
The year 2002 saw Google launch a range of new products, including the shopping tool Froogle, the experimental Google Labs, and the popular Google News service, a product of the company’s so-called “twenty percent time“. Geeky Google also decided to offer a Klingon translation of the site for all those Star Trek fans out there, bringing the total number of supports languages to over seventy. Spiderman, Warcraft 3 and pop star Shakira were amongst the most common search terms of the year.

The Written Word: 2003
2003 was one verbose year for the search-engine giant. It began in February when Google acquired Pyra Labs, creators of the Blogger service, which allowed the masses to publish their thoughts online with ease. Soon after the acquisition, Google’s company name was announced as a recognized verb, to “google it” had become synonymous with search, however Google strived to steer clear of dictonaries and protect their strong brand.

In December the controversial Google Print was launched: Now known as Google Book Search, the service allows users to view excerpts from thousands of books in digital form. Classic books and their film adaptations, such as Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter, were some of the most searched for terms on Google in 2003.

Email, Google Style: 2004
Without a doubt 2004 biggest Google news was the introduction of Gmail. The beta launched on April Fools Day, but Google made sure that Gmails was no joke, offering a then-unheard-of 1GB of storage along with a speedy user experience and the beauty of Google’s search technology built right in to your inbox. The service launched as a strictly invite-only affair, which resulted in an online gold rush of those hoping to land an invitation. After five years, Gmail finally disposed of its beta status early in June of 2009.

2004 also saw Google move to its Mountain View, California “Googleplex” headquarters, where the company still resides today. In addition, Google opened a research and development center in Tokyo and a European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. With over three thousand employees, a range or products under its belt and over eight billion items in its search index Google’s growth continued to amaze.

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By Chris Brandrick
October 3, 2009

Mapping The World: 2005
In 2005, Google’s ongoing effort to organize the world’s information continued as they released Google Maps. Since then, Google has continually improved the mapping service, adding new features such as satellite views and directions, as well as increasing the number of new searchable locations. Google Earth, a 3D satellite photography-based mapping application, soon followed, further complimenting Google’s range of location services.

2005 also saw the release of the iGoogle customizable home page, Google Reader RSS feed manager and Google Analytics. Optimized mobile versions of Gmail, Blogger, and Search were also released.

Oh, and could you imagine naming your newborn baby “Google”? It happened.

A Message From Chad & Steve: 2006

Ending months of speculation, in late 2006 Google finally revealed that they had bought online video site YouTube in a massive $1.65 billion stock transaction.

The Growth Continues: 2007
The year started with Google expanding into new territories once again, with Google Maps making its way to Australia and the Google Docs suite of tools being made available in several additional languages. Gmail was also made available to all, no longer requiring an invitation.

The biggest innovation from Google in 2007 was the addition of street level photography to Google Maps. Dubbed Street View, the service lets you view and explore a number of US locations at street level. Naturally, Street View’s introduction caused some controversy as it raised quite a few privacy concerns.

Popular search terms in 2007 included the iPhone, Facebook and Second Life. Since Google acquired YouTube in 2006, the popular video site has grown into an outright juggernaut: Even the Queen of England has her own YouTube channel.

Going Full Circle: 2008
Last year Google celebrated their tenth year in operation, and showed no signs of slowing down. The company released its first iPhone application, expanded Street View’s coverage to include a number of additional countries, revealed a new version of its Picasa photo management app, and launched Knol, a Wikipedia-type service.

In its biggest move of the year, Google announced that it would enter the browser wars with its own take on the humble Web browser. The open source Google Chrome appeared in September of last year, and featured a minimalist interface and home page with shortcuts to frequently visited pages–features that have made their way into other browsers since then.

Later in the year, Google’s foray into software continued as the first ever cell phone to use Android, Google’s open-source mobile OS, hit the scene.

Google At Present: 2009

2009 has been a busy year so far for Google, and it isn’t over yet. So far Google has added offline access to Gmail, introduced its Latitude location service, taken you to Mars with a new version of Google Earth, and re-launched the GrandCentral phone service as Google Voice in the US, to name but a few things.

Google also unveiled its Wave service in May of this year. Wave combines a range of communication and social networking activities into a single web application and is expected to be available to the masses later this year.

The biggest news from Google this year came when the firm announced that it plans to release an operating system. Google Chrome OS is expected to land next year, and will initially be aimed at low end devices such as netbooks. Several hints at what the OS could look like have leaked online, but Google have yet to comment on any supposed screenshots.

A rumored screenshot of Google’s Chrome operating system.

What Does The Future Hold?
With eleven years behind them, Google is still innovating and tweaking. What we can expect next from the search giant is anyone’s guess, but in the immediate future we can look forward to taking Chrome OS for a spin, trying out new versions of Android, and watching countless videos on YouTube.

Just be sure to remember this, Google: Don’t be evil. Please.

Google has announced the push of the second round of Google Map Maker edits generated by local users in the Philippines to Google Maps, Google’s dynamic, collaborative geographic search platform.  Some of the areas that received a virtual facelift in the latest push to Google Maps are Baguio City and Angeles City in the north; Bacolod City and Iloilo City in the Visayas; and Cagayan de Oro City and Koronadal City in Mindanao. Aside from adding street-level details, users have utilized other useful features of Google Map Maker for plotting landmarks and tourist attractions around the country, including the Merville Access Road.

“We are truly amazed at the enthusiastic and passionate response for Google Map Maker in the Philippines which is the number two country in the world for this product. There are now thousands of local users that have contributed hundreds of thousands of edits to Google Map Maker in the past six months,” said Derek Callow, head of marketing, Google Southeast Asia. “On behalf of the millions of people all over the world who can now see and use the improved Google Maps of the Philippines, we’d like to thank all those exceptional Filipino contributors who proudly, selflessly and tirelessly continue to enhance the virtual face of their beautiful country.”

The map of Angeles City, Pampanga, March 2009 ( click image for a larger view )

The updated map after edits have been applied, May 2009 ( click image for a larger view )

Callow added, “We have seen an increase in Map Maker edits for the areas outside of the main cities which indicates the interest among Filipinos across the country to map out their local communities and contribute to this national effort. The next step is to encourage fun community-level activities to accelerate the mapping momentum, so we created a Mapping Party Kit to help Filipinos map their entire country and all 7107 islands, one party at a time.”

Google Map Maker was launched in the Philippines in October 2008 to provide map enthusiasts a fun, easy-to-use web-based tool to personally contribute to the building and updating of online map data for the country. The first batch of local Map Maker edits was pushed to Google Maps in March 2009, covering a substantial part of Metro Manila and provinces such as Rizal, Cebu, Davao, Guimaras and Iloilo.

Mapping the Philippines, one party at a time
Google recently organized an exclusive international Google Map Maker User Conference in Bangalore, India, to recognize and reward Mapping All-Stars from all over the world for their contributions. The top three Map Maker contributors from the Philippines — Dr. Leonel John Foronda, a physician; civil engineer Dante Varias; and Wayne Dell Manuel, a university student studying in Singapore — attended the conference where updates on mapping tools and progress reports were presented to the delegates.

“I was excited to join the conference and proud to be part of this grand project to map the entire world. I am happy that Google recognizes the individual efforts of local mappers like me and our impact on making Google Map Maker an accurate and dynamic reflection of the Philippines. Of course, what makes me even more honored is that my edits to Google Map Maker are now in Google Maps, where they can help many people in the local community in many future ways,” said Foronda.

“It felt good to meet the engineers and product managers responsible for Google Map Maker. It gave me a sense of comfort that there is a dedicated team of Googlers who are constantly improving the product and evaluating contributions from users like me. It was also nice to know from the product development team that they are intensely interested in receiving user feedback and exchanging ideas to make Google Map Maker more useful and relevant for local users,” said Manuel.

Among the highlights of the conference was the launch of the Google Mapping Party Kit, a set of materials that local contributors can use to organize informal meetings with friends, family and other map enthusiasts to spread the fun and value of contributing local geographic knowledge to the world. The kit includes instructions, handouts, presentations, videos, blog posts, photos, testimonials, tips and tricks.  It is accessible online and may be downloaded at https://sites.google.com/site/mapmakeruserhelp/mappingkit.

“It was a great experience to meet other mapping enthusiasts from around the world and to hear their wonderful stories about how their contributions benefit their local community.  One of our main goals as dedicated contributors should be to spread the word about Google Map Maker to other Filipinos as ultimately, mapping the country is a team effort. I am glad that Google’s Mapping Party Kit is available to help contributors like me to encourage more people from our local communities to join in the fun. I am planning to organize my own mapping party using the kit,” said Varias.