Friday, August 22, 2008

Nokia takes 'Lonely Planet' mobile
Posted by Marguerite Reardon on C/Net News.

Tired of lugging a big travel book on vacation? Some Nokia phone users won't have to. They'll be able to download Lonely Planet travel guides directly onto their mobile handsets.

On Tuesday Nokia announced a deal with the travel book publisher Lonely Planet to sell maps and city guides to Nokia Maps 2.0 users. The service will initially allow users to download information for more than 100 cities, with more destinations to be added.
Each download, which costs 7.99 euros, or about $11.75, provides maps with directions and some background on important sites.
Nokia first announced city guides for Nokia Maps users in February when it upgraded the maps service and launched new phones that take advantage of the service. When the service first launched it included city guides from other travel publishers, such as Berlitz. But now Nokia is expanding the guides and has included Lonely Planet, whose travel guides were initially geared toward low-budget travelers and backpackers.
The city guide downloads are available in the Extras menu on select Nokia phones. The maps used in the Nokia Maps 2.0 service are provided by Navteq, which Nokia bought earlier this year, and TeleAtlas.

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