In the quest for a unified database of places , geo-location startup Factual is making big strides. Today it is announcing a major partnership with SimpleGeo to maintain and power its places database, which up until now has offered a competing database of places in the eyes of developers. The merged database will have 30 million places, and be maintained and updated by Factual. Developers will be able to access the database either through SimpleGeo or Factual. "It’s Factual’s dataset, our interface," says SimpleGoo CEO Jay Adelson.