Offline GPS navigation to Windows Phone by Navigon

Using the Bing Maps navigation functionality in Windows Phone Mango is really decent. However, the fact that you have to tap to hear each turn is lame. I look forward to seeing what Nokia brings to the table with their navigation solution, but at this time that is a big unknown on Windows Phone. One new application we do know will provide an excellent navigation experience, with offline mapping support, is NAVIGON for WP7 that is coming soon.

I’ve used NAVIGON in Android device and thoroughly enjoyed it. WPCentral has a few details on this new version that runs on Mango and takes advantage of the new Mango features. The following statement appears in their press release:

NAVIGON’s premium navigation app soon will be available for Windows Phone 7 users. The app includes many signature features that have made NAVIGON’s apps successful on Android devices and the iPhone, including on-board maps, spoken turn-by-turn directions, visual lane guidance, live traffic information and rerouting, among many other features. NAVIGON’s new app runs on Windows Phone 7.5 and also takes advantage of new features made available to developers with this new release. These features include the augmented reality function Reality Scanner, which provides an instant and effortless way of identifying nearby destinations while on foot; an option to select address information directly from the phone’s contact list; and the ability to save a favorite or home address as a shortcut on the start screen.

It is good that they are offering full support for a walking mode with their Reality Scanner too since I often use GPS navigation solutions when traveling in new cities and often that is on foot. Their lane assistant is also one of my favorite features since there are some confusing highways out there. I plan to get this on my Windows Phone Mango device as soon as it is released.

They also announced updates to their Android and iPhone apps that include new map management from a web browser, redesigned user interface, and much more so if you have the app on those platforms go check for the free update.

by zdnet

Share|

The Bing Maps WPF Control

Since rejoining the Bing Maps team, I’ve been heads down focusing on the developer experience for Bing Maps. As a result, we’re releasing the Bing Maps WPF Control Beta on the Microsoft Download Center. What is WPF? The Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) provides developers with a unified programming model for building rich Windows smart client user experiences that incorporate UI, media, and documents.

The WPF Control has everything you’d expect from a Bing Maps control including the ability to present information via a WPF native control such as:

· Map Styles: Road, Aerial and Hybrid

· The ability to place shapes on the map via lat/lon – pins, polylines and polygons

· Navigating the map with pan and zoom keyboard controls

 

We’ve also opened up a lot of the abilities within the control to empower the developer to take control of the user experience. So, you’ll notice there is no default navigation, no default pushpins and none roll overs – this is truly a blank (er, map-based) canvas – we want to see you do some killer things with.

Perhaps the most notable facet to this WPF control is support for Microsoft Surface. That’s right. The Bing Maps WPF Control Beta is touch-enabled with support for Surface v 2’s Pixel Sense technology. So, for those of you using WPF in your Surface applications you’ll have native support for touch features.

We worked closely with the Surface team and have had a constant need to support our WPF developer community with mapping. In the past, we’ve pushed to have WPF developers use the Bing Maps Silverlight Control (or our Bing Maps AJAX Control v7) in a web control, but it’s just not the same as having managed code libraries to work with.

The WPF control supports full rotation and inertia with options to turn both off. Plus, infinite scroll maps, touch to lat/lon to pixel conversions (think touch to add a pushpin) and the ability to plug into the Bing Maps REST API for geocoding and routing or the Bing API for search.

We hope you enjoy the control. It’s a beta, so we’re looking for some feedback on what you think, what works and what doesn’t. All questions/comments/feedback can be directed to the MSDN Forums. We hope to see some awesome applications built in WPF and Surface applications with our Bing Maps control.

Share|

Google APIs Client Library for .NET

Over the last year, Google launched a number of developer APIs, such as the Tasks API, the Books API, the Search API for Shopping, and the CustomSearch API. At Google I/O we announced a number of developer tools, such as the APIs Explorer and the APIs Console. Over that time, we have been actively developing a library to support the Microsoft .NET Framework.

Today we are announcing a major milestone by releasing the Beta version of the open source Google APIs Client Library for .NET. This includes service-specific libraries and samples for Google APIs, built on our new client library generation infrastructure. We’re now comfortable enough with the stability and features of the library that we want you to start building real production applications. Currently we support Microsoft .NET 3.5 and 4.0 and Mono 2.6.7 (and higher). In the future we hope to also support Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft Silverlight.

To demonstrate how easy to use the library can be, here is a snippet from the goo.gl sample to shorten a URL using the goo.gl service:

// Create an instance of the UrlShortener-service. var service = new UrlshortenerService();

// Make a "Shorten URL" request. string urlToShorten = "http://maps.google.com/";

Url response = service.Url.Insert(new Url { LongUrl = urlToShorten }).Fetch();

// Print the shortened url. string shortUrl = response.Id; Console.WriteLine(urlToShorten + " -> " + shortUrl);

Share|

Hotkeys in Google Earth

 

GoogleEarthHotkeys.jpgDavid Tryse has written a variety of useful tools for Google Earth in the past few years. His latest is quite simple, but very useful — Google Earth Hotkeys.

It does exactly what the name describes; you can set various hotkeys to show/hide any of the built-in players, as well as any customer layers that you have inside of your “Places” folder.

From his site:

You can configure F1 – F12 (and shift F1 – F12) to show or hide any list of layers you want. Layer names are case sensitive, and to hide a layer start the layer name with a minus sign. To change several layers at once separate the layer names with a pipe character (|). It actually works for My Places custom layers as well as built-in content under Layers.

By default F6/shift-F6 shows/hides Borders and Labels and 3D Buildings, F7 hides all layers and F8 shows nearly all layers. F12 opens the window to edit the hotkeys.

The one downside, of course, is that it’s Windows only. However, if you find yourself often toggling various layers on and off as you work in Google Earth this could be a very useful time-saver.

Share|