Wednesday, July 02, 2003

Verizon vs. Nextel Reported in Wireless Week: Verizon Wireless is launching a legal battle with Nextel Communications, alleging Nextel unlawfully accessed the carrier's network and its prototype phones. The lawsuit comes just as Verizon readies its network for launch of its instant chat service, which is aimed at providing walkie-talkie like services similar to Nextel, which has long been the market leader with its Direct Connect push-to-talk service.   I mentioned that I am testing a Samsung i700 on the Verizon network.  Add push-to-talk capability, with expanded radio features to this device along with built-in 802.11 and Bluetooth and it would become very powerful indeed.  2:17:41 PM    comment []

Wireless Portal? I met with the Utah Product Management Council today and we discussed the need to develop information and applications that are more friendly to wireless PDA users.  Every department discussed ideas for citizen-facing and employee services that might be in demand by mobile users.   UDOT has already implemented an electronic field book application that is in use by contractors and employees who are using IPAQs.  Other potential DOT applications for mobiles might include commuterlink, customer service log (requests for service such as pot holes, roadkill, etc.), and field inspections.  Here's what Virginia offers currently for mobile users. Our online help is creating a greater need for interaction between departments to resolve online issues and UII has created an admin function to facilitate it.  Salt Lake City is also now participating in the live help network that will support our One-stop Business Registration and Utah Business Portal.  As of yesterday, no additional fees are charged for online vehicle registration.   We had 1200 online renewals yesterday.  Motor Vehicle Dealer orientation and certification courses are available through the Mountainland Applied Technology College.  Mountainland delivers online courses through ed2go which supports about 1,200 colleges and universities. 11:37:55 AM    comment []

Feds Launch Geodata The GeoSpatial One Stop launched yesterday under the URL geodata.gov.  Take a look at the national map.  Selected feature sets change automatically as you drill down to more detail. We have had a similar site up for several years called maps.utah.gov.  Atlas.utah.gov is a dynamic, interactive map service.  Quite a few new maps have been added to this resource, including the SGID interactive map. Rob Salzman mentions the Oregon Coastal Atlas, a product produced by the Oregon Coastal Management Program. 7:35:36 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.