Natural Area Coding System Extended to Mobile Location
Based Services Network (MLBS.NET)By Glenn Letham, June
20, 2003 (Printer
Friendly)
 You may (or may not) be familiar with the Natural Area Coding
System (NACS). If not I suspect you will be in the
near future. Last year I was fortunate enough to have been
contacted by the developer, Xinhang Shen, President, NAC
Geographic Products Inc. Recall we featured a story by Dr.
Shen which introduced us to NACS (See Digitize
the Entire Earth). The Natural Area Coding System has been
developed in order to generated Natural Area Codes for all
areas from the size of thousand kilometers to one meter or
even smaller derived from longitude/latitude coordinates. The
derived eight or ten character Universal Address has a similar
length of telephone numbers, can easily fit into the limited
space of business cards, yellow page listings, advertisements,
etc., and perhaps most important, they can be pinpointed on
all maps with Universal Map Grids no matter the scale. They
can also be displayed on all GPS receivers without support of
databases or maps.
Since publishing that original
article, Dr. Shen has taken NACS to the next level... The
Universal Address System on MLBS.NET - a wireless location
based services application providing driving directions,
street maps and location based searches of businesses for
entire North America and most of Europe. MLBS.NET provides
highly efficient, cross-nation and cross-language
Location-Based Services.
MLBS.NET is best
described as a comprehensive wireless LBS. The technology is
powered by NAC technology and Microsoft MapPoint Web Service.
Users of the service have access to driving directions,
location based business search and maps for more than 30
countries in Europe and North America. MLBS.NET supports wired
and wireless devices including desktop PCs, PDAs, Pocket PC,
cellphones, and other devices. Get this... the service is
supported in eight languages: English, French, German,
Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and Swedish.
Using
MLBS.NET, users can specify street addresses, intersections,
Universal Addresses, Natural Area Codes, points of interests,
place names or ZIP/postal codes to specify starting and ending
locations for driving directions. If a Universal Address or
Natural Area Code is specified, the derived driving directions
service can be extended to include 25 countries: Andorra,
Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland (Helsinki only),
France, Germany, Ireland (limited outside of Dublin), Italy,
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Monaco, Norway (Oslo only),
Portugal, Puerto Rico, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, and Vatican City.
Imagine specifying the following command... "please provide
driving directions from The Vancouver Trade & Convention
Center, BC., Canada to The London eye please"! If street
addresses, street intersections, points of interests, place
names or ZIP/postal codes are used, the driving directions
service covers 18 countries.
Figure 1
MLBS.NET
allows users to use Universal Addresses to specify either or
both the start and end locations for the driving directions
service
For coarse resolution searches,
ie. from Toronto to New York the NACS codes would be 8c q8
(Toronto) to 8s pr (New York). Don't know the NACS code for a
place? Don't worry, this service will always display the
Universal Addresses for both start and end locations in the
results page (See Fig 2 below).
Figure 2
Example UsesLets Produce a simple map. In this
example I specify a location (Vancouver, BC, Canada) with a
range of 10 km. An attractive MapPoint-generated map appears
(see below), along with the resulting NACS centroid, in this
case, our NACS code is 4Q5JN R6DH3
Other
applications include:
- Routing: limited to Andorra, Austria, Belgium,
Canada, Czech, Denmark, Finland (Helsinki only), France,
Germany, Ireland (limited outside of Dublin), Italy,
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Monaco, Norway (Oslo
only), Portugal, Puerto Rico, San Marino, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States,
and Vatican City
- Address Search: limited to Austria, Belgium,
Canada, Denmark, Finland (Helsinki only), France, Germany,
Italy, Luxembourg, Norway (Oslo only), Portugal, Puerto
Rico, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United
Kingdom, and United States
- Locator: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Canada,
Czech, Denmark, Finland (Helsinki only), France, Germany,
Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway
(Oslo only), Portugal, Puerto Rico, San Marino, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom
(excluding Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Cannel Islands,
Jersey, and Guernsey), United States, and Vatican City
- Street Maps: All the above countries plus these
individual cities: Acapulco Mexico, Athens Greece, Auckland
New Zealand, Bangkok Thailand, Beijing China, Bogota
Colombia, Brisbane Australia, Budapest Hungary, Buenos Aires
Argentina, Cairns Australia, Cairo Egypt, Calcutta India,
Charlotte Amalie U.S. Virgin Islands, Christchurch New
Zealand, Delhi India, Dublin Ireland, Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam, Hong Kong China, Istanbul Turkey, Jakarta
Indonesia, Jerusalem Israel, Johannesburg South Africa,
Kingston Jamaica, Kinshasha Congo, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia,
Kyoto Japan, Lagos Nigeria, Lima Peru, Lisbon Portugal,
Manila Philippines, Mazatlan Mexico, Melbourne Australia,
Mexico City Mexico, Moscow Russia, Nairobi Kenya, Nassau
Bahamas, Osaka Japan, Perth Australia, Prague Czech, Puerto
Vallarta Mexico, Rio de Janeiro Brazil, San Jose Costa Rica,
San Juan Puerto Rico, Santiago Chile, Santo Domingo
Dominican Republic, Sao Paulo Brazil, Seoul South Korea,
Seville Spain, Shanghai China, Singapore Singapore, Sydney
Australia, Taipei Taiwan, Tehran Iran, Tel Aviv Israel,
Tokyo Japan, Warsaw Poland.
ConclusionMLBS.NET adds another dimension to the
already popular MapPoint.Net web service. The combination of
some very innovative technology developed by Dr. Shen and the
comprehensive database and routing functionality provided by
Microsoft will serve to further simplify the consumers' search
for Amusement Places, Car Rentals, Cinemas, Gas Stations,
Hotels, Restaurants, and Theaters. Are the people at MapQuest
shaking in their boots? Maybe not, but maybe they should be!
For more additional
information or requests to reprint this article, please
contact mailto:editor@wirelessdevnet.com
or search for me at NACS 7RSB7 N2JW9
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