ASIA : The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and agis Pte Ltd, a Singaporean software developer, have completed the first phase of the world’s first Digital Map Application Platform for smart phones (Project Spaceman).

The Software Development Kit (SDK) and the Application Programming Interface (API) document have been developed by agis and are currently available for public download.
Objectives

The project aims to achieve the following objectives:

1. Make available a smart phone-based low cost street directory available for the mass market;
2. Create an open application map platform that allows 3rd party software developers to add a simple map layer (e.g. WLAN hotspot locations) and/or display map locations on the smart phones;
3. Provide an alternative method of providing location information.
IDA hopes that with the creation of the open map platform, it will help to grow the Location Based System (LBS) eco-system and enable software developers to create compelling LBS applications for the Singapore market. IDA also aims to use the Spaceman project as a showcase to encourage developers to create more cutting edge applications for the emerging smart phone platform. Typical applications that may be developed on the Spaceman map platforms include directory services (for example bus guide and food guide), taxi booking and navigation guide. Although the application currently works only on Symbian platform, there is plan to support Windows Mobile platform in the near future.

What’s Next?

The project is currently in its second phase which is to develop a few sample applications to demonstrate how 3rd party LBS applications can be developed on this platform. At the conclusion of the second phase, IDA will release its in-house developed application and sample codes to encourage further development on this map platform.