'You are here': Mobile mapper aims for US

A mobile software company that serves up 3D maps and walking directions to Japan's mobile phone users is attempting to break into the US market.

John Ellenby, CEO of GeoVector, said the company is now negotiating with US carriers.

The software is fairly self-explanatory. Point the phone at a building, and the phone will troll the internet and bring back information on what you're looking at. Key in "Chinese restaurant", and it will list the nearby ones and give you walking directions.

Ellenby said: "Coffee is a big one. If you put in 'coffee' it will come back with five or six coffeehouses. Pointing is simplest way we interact with the world."

Location-based services are of great interest to search companies as well as cellular providers. AOL, Google and Yahoo!, for instance, see revenue in delivering advertisements to callers looking for dinner spots and dry cleaners.

You what…?

Bust through tech jargon with silicon.com's Cheat Sheets.

Ellenby, who helped found laptop pioneer Grid Systems, came up with the idea with his sons, in part to compensate for his own weak sense of direction.

Phones that have the software installed also have GPS chips and compasses. The software has been tested in New Zealand as well as in Japan.

The mapping isn't as good in the US as in Japan. But the biggest problem has been to overcome the reluctance of the carriers.

US carriers are also historically cheap, Ellenby said, and they expect to keep most of the revenue culled from users adopting the new service. In Japan, carriers let the application vendors take a larger portion of the revenue. Revenue can be generated by packet use, or by ads.

Michael Kanellos writes for CNET News.com