ALK Technologies announced that customers of its
CoPilot Live mobile phone navigation system will be able to benefit from an integral connection to Microsoft’s Live Search™ API.
About a year and a half ago Microsoft integrated Live Search into its
Microsoft Streets & Trips 2007 software, and I've had a chance to use it numerous times. The Live Search database is more up-to-date, and it contains many more POIs than what's included in Streets & Trips. I suspect it is going to be he same with the ALK product, when comparing built-in POIs with on-line POIs of Live Search.
In my experience the Live Search POI icons are occasionally placed even more than several hundred feet from the exact location, even though the included address is correct. Because of that I would normally use the Live Search feature just to get the address I need, and then I would enter the address to the software program myself. The geocoding is better in the US than up here in Canada, though, and it has also improved somewhat since I first played with it a year and a half ago.
The integration of Live Search would be a welcome addition even in ALK CoPilot Laptop. Let's hope this is not just a feature ALK will keep only for mobile phone users
.
