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Geovector -- point your phone at the cafe, and flirt with the barista

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GeoVector
Finally, GeoVector has launched. It is almost a year late, but it's a pretty cool company based in San Francisco. It leverages a tiny compass sensor to give your cell phone new tricks.


For example, it will let you point your cell-phone at things like restaurants or cafes and then lets you call them. There are all kinds of things you can do, as we mentioned in this story more than a year ago.

The only catch is that it doesn't work in the U.S. yet. The company signed its first deal, about a year later than expected, with Japan's Mapion, to provide search services for mobile phones in Japan.

...Users can walk down virtually any street in Japan and point at over 700,000 buildings, retailers, restaurants, banks, historical sites to instantly retrieve information on what they are looking at, or find what they are looking for just by pointing their phone. Mapion was the original developer of Yahoo maps and provides content for AOL Japan maps and Excite Japan maps.

Soon users will point their mobile phones at restaurants to get reviews, point at billboards to shop at the advertiser's website, point at a movie poster to buy tickets, or play a game by pointing at their friends, said John Ellenby, president of GeoVector. "With the real world as your desktop, the potential is enormous."

Hope the U.S. telecom carriers don't stifle this one. It's great stuff.


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Comments

I am deaf and this is just what the doctored ordered. When in a new town it is impossible to get directions ... knowing how hard it is when you can hear ... just think how hard it is when you can't hear a sound. I have been trying to find out information about this wonderful technology since I read the NY Times article June 28,2006.

No go. You would think for the deaf and disabled it would be made available but the Public Utilities Commission thinks a little differently.

Wish I had this or at least was able to sell it to my friends who would love it. But the business will go to the Sprint's and Verizon's and once again we get thrown into the back of the bus ... that is when the bus arrives.

Cheers,
Mark

Mark Finn on June 30, 2006 8:29 PM
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When is Geo Vector stock going public? This invention is indeed a Godsend for the directionally impaired individual like me!

harriet daniel on July 23, 2006 11:49 AM
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