Today we announced a number of new partners that are using Loki to power their sites and drive a location-aware experience for their users.

Be sure to head over to their sites and use Loki to discover the world around you. Below are snippets from the press release…

Geocaching.com is the world’s largest geocache listing site with over 3 million participants worldwide. “Loki allows us to deliver location-specific geocaching search results without a user needing to submit their location. This is just another way in which we can support our community, allowing geocachers access to information in a way that best serves them,” said Jeremy Irish, Groundspeak’s president and CEO.

Krillion is a premier provider of local shopping search information, serving today’s ready-to-buy consumers who research products online for purchase from retailers in their neighborhood. Krillion’s success comes from its ability to provide online shoppers with real-time, location-specific product availability information from major retailers in the U.S. “Loki’s technology provides us with the ability to instantly locate the user who is researching products online, show them the closest retail outlets with the item in stock and, most importantly, provide instant directions from their exact location to the store,” said Joel Toledano, CEO and founder of Krillion.

FireEagle is the secure and stylish way to share your location with sites and services online. We want to make the whole web respond to where you are, and to help you discover more about the world around you. See the announcement from earlier too.

Whrrl (Loki integration is not launched yet), a new social discovery service from Pelago, Inc. uses elements of social networking, local discovery and user-generated content to create a unique medium for finding and sharing local information with friend networks. Whrrl delivers real-time updates, reviews and locations of people, places and events in the physical world through both Web and mobile platform. “It is crucial for us to deliver seamless location experiences - whether via mobile device or a laptop - and Loki allows us to do that through some very impressive geotargeting capabilities,” said Darren Vengroff, CTO and co-founder of Pelago.

CitySquares is a local Boston company that brings together local businesses and their consumers to provide rich, hyper-local content for urban and suburban communities. With its recent expansion, CitySquares’ footprint extends from Boston to the Route 128 belt and offers information on over 65,000 local businesses.

UpNext is the new and exciting way to explore and discover your city in 3D. Rather than sifting through pages and links of data, UpNext enables you to glide around your city, virtually. Exploring has never been easier.

Skyhook Wireless is in the news. Check out some of the recent coverage of Wi-Fi location on the iPhone and iPod touch in the Boston Globe and USA Today (with photos and a video podcast!).

I’ve never seen a better video podcast in my life. I’ve seen a lot of video podcasts.

That’s what Steve Jobs had to say in the Macworld keynote about the new Wi-Fi location positioning feature on iPhone and iPod touch. Using Skyhook Wireless’ location technology, iPhone and iPod touch users can now locate themselves in the Maps application with the tap of one button.

Isn’t that cool?

To get it now, simply upgrade your iPhone or iPod touch to the latest firmware now available through iTunes. Select Maps, and then click the locate me button. Use it to find your location, get directions, and search locally.

It’s really cool.

Today Skyhook Wireless was named in the FierceBroadbandWireless Fierce 15.

These annual awards recognize the fifteen companies that are shaping the emerging wireless broadband industry. In naming Skyhook as one of the 15, Fierce identified the ways that Skyhook’s Wi-Fi Positioning technology will play a critical role in supporting all different types of LBS applications. An ever-increasing number of applications, in fact, as Wi-Fi technology continues its explosive growth and is deployed in billions of instances across many mobile device categories.

Yep. That’s fierceness.

Using Wi-Fi Positioning from Skyhook, area/code has released Plundr, the world’s first location-enabled game for the PC. Skyhook’s technology plots a player’s location and area/code integrates that information into gameplay.

Check out some recent Plunder coverage here. The game is a pretty sweet pirate adventure all based on player’s current locations. Players travel from island to island and ship to ship selling goods and fighting for booty. Depending on the player’s location in the physical world, they will find different islands to pillage, ships to raid, and goods to loot.

To play now, click here.

Plundr will be up on the DS real soon - and then we can all get our game on outside, in the fresh air and sunshine! Imagine that!

Last night at the MITX Technology Awards, Skyhook Wireless won the Impact Award for Web 2.0 Enabler. Skyhook was selected to receive this award because our WPS technology was identified as one of the most innovative and competitive technologies offered by all of the high-tech companies in the Boston area. It also demonstrates that in developing WPS and by deploying the Loki application, Skyhook has made a significant impact on content distribution and the development of Web 2.0.

Unbeknown to us until a sharp Loki user across the pond told us, the BBC’s Kate Russell profiled Loki on her TV Show Webscape . Go here and then click ‘Watch Now’ on the right hand side. Fast forward to minute 23 and bada-bing - we have landed on the shores of Her Majesty’s doorstep. There’s also a transcript for those who prefer the ancient art of reading.
This is all part of our plan for world domination through better location. Stay tuned for more information on Skyhook/Loki coverage in Europe and Asia…and country/region specific channels and content soon after!

Skyhook’s 2007 World (ok, nationwide) Tour will soon be rolling into a city near you. Our VP of Marketing, Jed Rice, a frequent commentator on location, mobile and more, who has stunning, absolutely marvelous speaking skills (he’s my boss, what can I say? But really, he’s pretty good), is making the rounds.

On Wednesday, May 23, Jed will be in Detroit moderating a panel at Mobile Location Enabled Services on mobile search and location.

A week later on Wednesday, May 30th we will be at Where 2.0 in San Jose talking about convergence and Location Based Services.

See you on the road, or maybe backstage?

Last week, our Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) was selected as a finalist in two major industry awards.

Right in our own backyard, WPS was named as a finalist in the 2007 Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX) Technology Awards. These annual awards recognize the individuals and organizations developing the most innovative technologies in the New England area. We are thrilled - to be nominated alongside notable innovators in our hometown area, and also to see location recognized as a key feature in the mobile space.

In London, WPS was also nominated for the Best Wi-Fi Product or Service in the 2007 Wireless Broadband Innovation (WBI) Awards. These awards honor innovative applications in Wireless Broadband from all across the world. In this nomination, Skyhook’s WPS is recognized alongside others developing cutting edge Wi-Fi based services and applications.

It was a pretty good week! Wi-Fi Positioning has made a splash in the industry awards season for innovating both the mobile space and the use of Wi-Fi technology.

Skyhook and Navteq, a leading provider of digital maps, have announced a global agreement for Navteq to resell Skyhook’s Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) in conjunction with its market leading map data. Our first collaboration with Navteq was on the iriver w10, where iriver implemented Skyhook’s WPS for positioning and navigation and Navteq’s data for mapping and point of interest info.

We are psyched - the agreement will allow Skyhook and Navteq to together launch more exciting collaborative projects like the w10. Who knows what else is around the bend. And hey, this also sets a new capability standard for Wi-Fi devices… all in a day’s work.