PocketGuide partners with hip, global travel group for Latin American expansion

The last few weeks of summer are upon us! In case you missed our post at the start of the season, read up about how summer sparks creativity. Take moments to enjoy the natural world around you; find action in relaxation and you’ll find the necessary inspiration for innovation. Most importantly, travel!

Put down the heavy city guidebook and your mediocre map, PocketGuide , a new travel application from GPS City Guide, Hungary-based start-up, covers all this and even has voice instructions. The app runs on GPS positioning and will tell you interesting stories and relevant information as you travel throughout a city- just like a personal tour guide. And best of all, once the app is downloaded, you don’t need a WiFi internet connection to use it. PocketGuide also enables users to make stunning 3D travel videos – merging Google Earth map, personal photos, videos and the user’s voice recordings and then share the videos via email or Facebook. As of August 2011, PocketGuide covers the top 20 European destinations featuring 10 different trails and 500 attractions.

Watch the video here for a full demo:


Pocket Guide

To expand into the Latin America market, PocketGuide has just finalized a strategic partnership with Washington, DC-based Croft Global Travel. Founder Ryan Croft was appointed Director of Latin America and will oversee the launch of all future Latin America destinations, starting with the most popular cities in South America. “We’re excited to join the PocketGuide team,” says Croft. “The PocketGuide app’s technology represents the future of connected international travel.” Croft also runs a daily deals company aimed at tech savvy travelers called CityCiao, which we covered this spring.


Pocket Guide from Pocketguide on Vimeo.
PocketGuide is available for iOS, Android and Symbian based mobiles. Download here.

Also read: 10 Must-Have Travel Apps for your iOS device and Best of 2010: Travel Apps for the iPhone

Skype For Android Now Supports Video Calls, Works Over WiFi And 3G

Thanks to an update of Skype’s Android application, you can now make one-to-one video calls over both WiFi and 3G connections. You can download the Skype app from the Android Market or point your browser to Skype.com/m from your phone.

Note that your smartphone needs to be running Android Version 2.3 (and above) and have a front-facing camera. Supported handsets include the HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo, Sony Ericsson Xperia pro and the Google Nexus S.

New Yahoo App for Android Mixes Shazam & iTunes Genius [EXCLUSIVE]

Yahoo is about to muscle further into the music business Thursday with the launch of Play by Yahoo. It’s a free Android app that combines one of the best features of iTunes — the ability to make instant playlists based on a song or a mood — with music-identifying apps like Shazam.
Play’s bare-bones home screen offers three options: Library, Shuffle and Identify. Library, naturally, takes you to your tunes (all stored locally — no trendy cloud music here). Shuffle is the Genius-like option. You can create a playlist based on a single song, or simply tell the app to create a playlist based on the kind of tunes it knows you listen to a lot. This is the algorithmic option for when you stumble to your car in the morning, bleary-eyed and decaffeinated, and want to listen to music that works for you, but you don’t want to make any decisions.
Identify is where the Shazam-like functionality comes in. Yahoo doesn’t yet have quite as extensive a library as Shazam; In my tests, I managed to fox it completely with the 1 Giant Leap album, for example.


But where the Identify feature shines is its “Continuous” option. As you’d imagine, this listens continuously to the music playing — taking samples every 30 seconds or so — and builds a list of tunes. At a party or a club where you really like the music but don’t want to bother the host or DJ for the full set list? Enjoying the light rock set on the radio but can’t name any of the songs? Then your app has arrived.
Play is a little too bare-bones at the moment. There’s no way to purchase songs once you’ve identified them, though Yahoo says that’s coming soon. The option to play from the cloud — or from Google Music‘s local cache — would be great. And of course we’d love to see an iPhone version, as would Yahoo, but good luck getting an app that threatens iTunes into the iOS app store.
But overall, this is a strong showing from a company that many consider to be on the ropes. Taking two popular services like Genius and Shazam and not only combining them in a single app, but improving on the functionality of both? That seems to be a sign that Yahoo genuinely understands the needs of users and has the talent and focus to create great things.