Earthcomber has been awarded a patent for a location-based search system that allows individuals to constantly sweep their surroundings for their personal interests. The company's free eponymous service - available for Palm OS and Windows Mobile PDAs and smartphones as well as Java-capable cell phones - combines free maps with data to notify travelers about people, places and things nearby that match that person’s specific preferences.

These could include a hot spot, coffee store, ATM, office supplies, fast-food, banks, restaurant, car rental, historic sites, museums, schools, public buildings, parks, convenience stores, pharmacies, cleaners, fuel, eye-care, a pet store, etc. It supports over 2.5 million points of interest in the U.S. in all right now.

While the service works better with one, a GPS connection isn't essential for Earthcomber. You can still get the same data, just not automatically without user intervention, over an Internet connection.

Advertising is an important revenue generator to Earthcomber that will only become more essential as time goes on. The company expects the patent will be a key enabler for mobile advertisers, including directory publishers such as Yellow Pages and newspapers, especially since by law advertisers cannot transmit messages to wireless consumers without their permission.

Through Earthcomber’s method an advertiser’s message only reaches the user if the user has stated an explicit preference for something that the advertiser offers, and if the advertiser is within the user’s specified range.

“Personalization and privacy have become so important to mobile users,” said Earthcomber CEO & founder Jim Brady, founder and CEO of Earthcomber. “With our approach, users build profiles to suit their preferences – essentially a ‘DNA’ of all your personal tastes and interests. Then, when you do a search, you get back only those things nearby that match your preferences.”

Brady added, “Mobile advertising is the perfect medium for one-to-one marketing I is one thing to send somebody an -email offer. It’s a whole new ball game when the advertiser can communicate to consumers when they are nearby, and show them a potential transaction they are deliberately looking for. Our approach transforms mobile search into a positive environment in which buyers and sellers connect for mutual benefit.”

Earthcomber views its patent as possible foundation for social networking on mobile device, since its technology can alert users to when friends or others are nearby based on common characteristics.

Most recently, Earthcomber added the ability for mobile devices to wirelessly retrieve free maps and data over-the-air and on demand to its service. The purpose was to give travelers a convenient way to explore their surroundings for places that would make their trips complete without having to remember to pre-load information ahead of time.

"Imagine if your flight has been delayed, or your meeting extended, so now you're going to be spending a little time where you didn't expect. Up until now, you had to pre-load Earthcomber (or any quality vector maps for Palm or Windows handhelds) before your trip," Brady said to PDAStreet last month. "But now, you tap the U.S. map, pick a state, pick a city, and now you're downloading not just the full vector map for the area, but local business and events data that's up-to-the minute."

At the time of this feature's introduction, Brady said his company planned to take additional advantage of live wireless connections by adding more capabilities to the informational layer of the service, where the points of interests lay. Where today, for example, a restaurant listing maybe hasn't been updated in quite a while, in the future a user's smartphone may reflect changes made to its menu listing in the last 24 hours.