Overview of Live Search for Devices

Article
10/16/2009

Windows CE 5.0 Not Supported Windows Embedded NavReady 2009 Supported

10/16/2008

With Live Search for Devices (LS4D), you can enable users of a portable navigation device (PND) to retrieve search results from Windows Live Local Search that represent Points of Interest (POI) located in a specified search location.

Live Search Overview

LS4D connects to the Live Search Engine to retrieve listings from the White Pages (residential) and Yellow Pages (commercial) online phone books.

Users can submit search requests through an application that uses LS4D and provides search parameters, such as specific categories or keywords. For example, users can choose the "Coffee & Tea" category to retrieve a list of coffee shops residing in a specified search location, or type "Fourth Coffee" keywords to find out whether a Fourth Coffee shop is in a specified search location.

To provide location-aware search results, the geographic location of the search request, which can also be the current GPS location of the portable navigation device (PND), together with the current locale, must also be added to the search request. Before you configure LS4D, consider your user privacy requirements.

LS4D can enable you to build search experiences into your portable navigation device (PND) that provide up-to-date, relevant, and location-aware Point of Interest (POI) data. POI data includes nearby restaurants, banks, coffee shops, movie theaters, taxi-cab service, postal services, or hotel accommodations. POI data can also include non-commercial locations that are not listed in the Yellow Pages, such as national parks and monuments. With valuable information about the user's POI, a navigation application can provide turn-by-turn directions to help users get where they want to go.

Live Search Applications

To utilize LS4D, you can build a Live Search application that enables users to query the Live Search Engine and view search results on a Windows Embedded NavReady powered device. You can also integrate POI data with a third-party navigation application so that users can view the location of the POI on a map, together with the POI name, address, phone number, and other useful information.

With the user's POI plotted on a map, a third-party navigation application can generate turn-by-turn directions to the POI from the current GPS location of the Windows Embedded NavReady powered device.

All Live Search applications must follow the user-interface (UI) guidelines. For more information, see Live Search UI Guidelines.

Types of Live Search Queries

You can build UI functionality into your Live Search application that enables users to create various types of queries to send to the Live Search Engine.

LS4D supports the following types of queries for the Live Search Engine:

Standard Query: a search request that includes a text string with includes a keyword to search; for example, "Fourth Coffee", "Sea-Tac Airport", "Marymoor Park", or "William Ngoh".
Advanced Query: a search request that includes multiple text strings and search operators. For example, one string can contain the keyword, and another string can contain the name of a city. Live Search recognizes the " symbol that a user can type to encapsulate a complete phrase to search for; for example, a user could search for a White Pages listing by using the following advanced query:
```
"William Ngoh" Seattle
```
Filtered Query: a search request that only returns results from a specific online phone book, either the Yellow Pages or the White Pages. Filtered queries are available for English (United States) and Spanish (United States) only.
Category Queries: a search request that uses one of the categories provided by LS4D; for example, "Banks", "Airports", and "Hotels & Motels" are all examples of standard categories.

LS4D Server

The LS4D server is the Web-service component that serves as a bridge between the Live Search application on the device and the Live Search Engine.

It provides the following features and benefits:

The ability to use one Device Group ID for identifying and allowing thousands of devices produced by a single OEM to pass through to the Live Search servers.
The ability to monitor and report query usage for capacity planning.
The flexibility to expand service offerings that are targeted to portable navigation devices (PNDs).

All search requests must pass through the LS4D server, which logs the Device Group ID of the request. If the request is permitted to pass through the LS4D server to the Live Search Engine, it is parsed and translated into a Live Search SOAP request that is compatible with the Live Search Engine. For more information about the LS4D server, see LS4D Architecture.

LS4D API

The LS4D API enables developers to retrieve search results from phone-book listings for select markets (White Pages and Yellow Pages) on the Windows Live servers.

The Live Search for Devices (LS4D) API can also interpret queries from users that consist of a keyword, a Point of Interest (POI) name or city name, or a ZIP Code/Postal Code, and return phone-book listings and location-based information relevant to the search location.

Note

Zip Code/Postal Code queries are available for U.S. markets only.

Live Search capabilities of LS4D API include:

The ability to return phone-book listings by providing the latitude, longitude, and radius of the search.
The ability to change the ranking (relevance) of search results based on the latitude, longitude, and radius that is provided.
The ability to interpret keywords.
The ability to sort phone-book results by distance (which is the default sort order) or by relevance.
The ability to find the geographic center of cities, towns, and subdivisions within select regions.

Live Search Regional Market Availability

For a complete list of possible supported markets for Live Search, see this Microsoft Web site. At this time, Live Search for Devices (LS4D) only supports the English and Spanish languages for U.S. markets, the English and French languages for Canadian markets, and the French language for French markets. It is beneficial to build your client devices to dynamically allow support for future cultures and countries/regions as they become available at the LS4D server.

Zip Code/Postal Code Requirements

To conform to legal requirements, do not display the Zip Code/Postal Code in the initial search-results list. The Live Search application UI should display this value only in a More Info screen. For more information, see Search Results Guidelines.

Privacy and Personal Information

If an OEM implements LS4D, the OEM must provide a privacy notice to its End Users in the About section of the Live Search application. The About section means a screen linked directly to the Live Search application UI that the End User can access in one interaction. For more information about the privacy statement for LS4D users, see Help Menu Guidelines.

Live Search Additional Requirements

LS4D requires data connectivity to communicate with Windows Live servers. When you use Bluetooth for data connectivity, the following additional requirements apply:

Bluetooth Dial-up Networking (DUN) profile connection to a Bluetooth-enabled device that has an Internet connection, or ActiveSync Desktop Pass-through (DTPT) connection to a desktop computer
If a Bluetooth DUN profile connection is used, a paired device that supports DUN is also required

LS4D has the following additional requirement:

Third-party navigation application