Find What’s Nearby

We’ve long enjoyed the ability to get “spatial context” by seeing what’s nearby on Zenbu.

You can see the nearest 5 entries on each Zenbu entry page.

You can search for the nearest “anything” in your Zenbu mobile application to see what’s around too. (If you didn’t know that, the secret is to search for a single space character)

It would be self-assuming to believe that the search giant Google was emulating Zenbu but it is a nice compliment to see them release a similar feature – what’s nearby. Well done Google!

Mobile Zenbu

Data costs on NZ cellular networks have been somewhat prohibitive for the average user for a long time but have finally become affordable. For $10 a month I get a 100MB package of data as an addon to my Vodafone account. It won’t have you cancelling your broadband connection but it does give you the freedom to do simple online lookups at will.

In order to provide mobile users with a more tailored experience, www.zenbu.co.nz now comes in a mobile-optimised format. This means pages stripped of graphics with static maps that will be fast to load on your 3G or Edge connection. Just go to the same URL as always, the server will auto-detect mobile browsers and show appropriate content.

For the Zenbu junky like myself it means it’s dead simple to lookup and edit business details while I’m there staring in their window. I dream of an army of Zenbu editors correcting details on the things they visit every day so that everybody can have online, real time access to the very same information we could see walking down the street. (Not quite as catchy as Martin Luther King’s dreams but each to their own!)

Another nifty development on Mobile is the GeoVector World Surfer application available on iPhone and Android. It’s an American company with development based here in NZ that uses appropriate local channels to serve relevant local search results. I found out last week that Zenbu is one of the feature channels for New Zealand users which is very cool! (So pretty to see the Zenbu logo alongside internet giants Google & Yahoo on the GeoVector Channels page!!) They are using the Zenbu XML api to get live search results. More about GeoVector on Stuff.

World Surfer is the closest thing I’ve seen to Augmented Reality (AR) using Zenbu data, or any NZ data at all.

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmentedby) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality.

AR is something I think we’ll see a lot more of in coming years. Today’s leading mobile phones, and tomorrow’s everyday phones, can use their full array of sensors (GPS, digital compass & live video) with data sources like Zenbu to present us with depths of information about the world around us. Part of me sees it as gimicky, part of me thinks it’s very cool indeed. The applications using it and real world use cases are still coming. What do you think of  (the possibilities of) AR?

iPhone New Zealand

The team at www.iphonenewzealand.co.nz have written an article about the Zenbu iPhone app and given it a glowing recommendation. Thank’s guys!

It’s a new site but they’re rapidly putting up some great content so if you have an iPhone then I recommend checking it out.

Zenbu for Windows Mobile

The Zenbu app which has been on iPhone since September is now out on Windows Mobile. (Be jealous no more!)

http://download.cnet.com/Zenbu-Windows-Mobile/3000-18495_4-10911689.html?tag=mncol

With Version 1.03 you get full text search of 68,801 Zenbu listings from www.zenbu.co.nz (exported Mar 23) with full detail display, all without a network connection which is great for those of us not on a big data plan. The download package is a mere 18Mb (or as Apple would say “4 MP3s”).

It’s free and we look forward to any feedback. Here or wm@zenbu.co.nz