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30 items tagged "Navigation"

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Want Turn by Turn Directions on iPhone?

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 2:33pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

C|net asks. Thus far: "yes." Mostly, I think they are looking for conspiracy stories about why we don't yet have that feature. The license forbids it, though no one knows quite why.
Garmin to Support uLocate's WHERE

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 2:25pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

No word yet on which of Garmin's devices (the nuvifone?) might support the platform and its apps (GasBuddy, Yelp, etc.)

- C|net
Assemblyman Proposes Making Dash-mounted GPS Legal in California

Posted: August 9th, 2008, 3:56am CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

A current law bans anything from be affixed to the windshield (with few exceptions) or dashboard. Senator Jenny Oropeza has introduced Senate Bill 1567, the GPS Windshield Safety Act, which allow drivers to mount their devices on their windshields without fear of citation and out of reach of any restless back-seat toddler. So far so good: "Editors at several newspapers, including the Torrance Daily Breeze and the Long Beach Press-Telegram, have given it their stamp of approval. And both houses of the Legislature on Aug. 4 overwhelmingly approved the bill with broad bipartisan support." Now, on to the governor.

- California Chronicle

Corrections made 8/12. Source above cites Oropreza as author of the article and the bill and an Assembly member. She is, per comment, a State Senator. Her website confirms that.
The Street to Garmin: Keep it Simple

Posted: August 6th, 2008, 6:02pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

"Most experts say the maker of GPS-based navigation systems has been confusing customers, lowering buyer satisfaction and taxing the company's operations by offering 30 models of its "Nuvi" car navigation systems that range from $200 to $1,000 in price."

- The Street
Garmin Criticized for Offering GPS Dataset for Bars

Posted: July 29th, 2008, 1:51pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

This from CokePubandBar.co.uk, which holds a CocaCola copyright:

Garmin offers a digital version of the "Good Pub Guide" for their Global Positioning System (GPS) gadgets. Some, like Margaret Decker, from the Scottish Campaign against Irresponsible Drivers, think that's irresponsible. "It is irresponsible to offer customers directions to pubs. Police campaign to stop drink-driving but the number caught doesn't seem to be falling."

Garmin gives more credit to those who use the system and the database. I wonder if Garmin (and its peers) would get the same reaction if it offered a database of locations of legal gun sellers?
Rear View Mirror GPS Comes to US August 1

Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

DSUS Technology of China will offer a GPS-integrated rear-view mirror featuring Navigon Mobile Navigator 6.5, "Reality View and 12 map updates from FreshMaps."

The DSUS SmartMirror has a four-inch screen for GPS maps, built-in Bluetooth capability and a back-up camera. Price: $799.

- US News/Jalopnick
1 in 50 in UK Survey Blame Crash on SatNav

Posted: July 22nd, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

British insurance company Direct Line carried out the survey for the newspaper The Mirror about satnavs and accidents. Highlights:

300,000 motorists have crashed because of a device
1.5 million drivers have suddenly veered in busy traffic while following a device's directions.
Five million have been sent the wrong way down a one-way street.
One in 10 drivers with a satnav says following its instructions made them take a dangerous or illegal turn.
Reader's Digest Pits Signs + Directions vs. Maps vs. Satnav

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 3:31pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

The winner in the 989-mile "race" which included finding 12 locations along the way in the UK was the "signs and directions" car. It "won" followed an hour and a half later by the "map" car and three hours later by the "satnav" car. Coverage in The Scotsman highlights the genders of the drivers if you are interested. Local knowledge is certainly best, and a mix of tools will work well for many drivers. The big challenge? People become slaves to their satnavs.
TomTom CEO: We'll sell 15 million devices in 2008

Posted: July 7th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Reuters reports:

The chief executive of navigation device maker TomTom NV (TOM2.AS: Quote, Profile, Research) expects to sell 15 million navigation devices in 2008 despite difficult economic conditions, Dutch daily De Telegraaf reported on Saturday.

Harold Goddijn knows of the economic downturn and rising gas prices, but feels confident. I'm surprised the GPS vendors haven't already started marketing the devices as money-savers to consumers.
SatNav's a Treasure Trove for Detectives

Posted: July 3rd, 2008, 3:22pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Unsuspecting criminals with GPS devices are sharing far more than they may think in their satnav devices. Deleted data, it turns out, is not deleted in some cases, meaning detectives can track past destinations. Further, if used in conjunction with a cell phones, the devices may store old phone records of incoming and outgoing calls. TomTom was not aware of London's Metropolitan Police reporting on the use of devices in crime investigation in a scholarly journal (Digital Investigation). The company states they only turn over data with a court order.

Also of note: Met detectives learned the tricks of the trade from GPS wikis that detail how to share POIs and the like.

- New Scientist
TA Chief: There Will be iPhone Turn by Turn Directions

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 4:46pm CEST

Tags: Navigation

This tidbit was in Reuters coverage of today's Google/Tele Atlas deal:

De Taeye said he expected real-time, turn-by-turn navigation applications to be available for Apple's iPhone despite reports that Apple's rules for developing iPhone software appeared not to allow it.

"We are making sure that navigation is an application that is allowed," De Taeye said. "If there is any restriction on the platform, that indeed has to do with the restrictions that we have in our contracts. Navigation is allowed, provided that the right fees are paid."

Get out your checkbooks!
Garmin Down, TomTom May be Up on iPhone

Posted: June 11th, 2008, 2:49pm CEST

Tags: Navigation

From The Street:

GPS-based navigation devices maker Garmin(GRMN - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) fell $2.85, or 5.8%, to $46.74 after Apple showed off location-based services including navigation on the iPhone. Apple's move could hurt demand for Garmin's devices, believe some analysts. Meanwhile, Garmin rival TomTom already has a version of its navigation software running on the iPhone, according to a report by Reuters.
SatNav Teddy Bear

Posted: June 5th, 2008, 3:20pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

iXs Research Corporation did things right. It licensed a patent from Fujitsu, which holds rights to "doll-based" navigation. Then it built a 1 foot articulated bear that can point in the direction to go and speak the details. There no mention of how you program the bear, nor about its antenna(e) to received signals, but the bear is apparently equipped with an alcohol sensor.

Hoax? Hard to tell as it's sourced to a Japanese article by Pink Tentacle. The company's English site is quite dated and the Japanese version does not seem to note the product in it's news section. The bear was introduced, per Pink Tentacle on June 3. (Of course, some companies are not able to update their websites when they launch new products...) The bear does have history: 2006 on Engadget, when the bear was white, not brown, like that noted above.
DASH Price Drop: Now the GPS Unit is $300

Posted: June 2nd, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

The original price via the company and on Amazon was $400. Recall that the Internet-connected nav system also requires a monthly fee. Now, Amazon is offing it for $300, but the DASH site is still $400. Engadget wonders if the price drop is due to low sales. Most reviews have been positive, though many noted a rather steep price. The original list was to be $600, but at lease it was $400.
Australian Police: Take a Map Along when using SatNav

Posted: May 30th, 2008, 2:20pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Reminiscent of this post describing Scottish officials warning ambulances not to trust satnavs, come this story from Australia. After several incidents were motorists were lead onto unsuitable roads in rural areas, The Age newspaper reports:

Police are now urging motorists to take maps instead of blindly following instructions from a GPS.

These warnings will no doubt increase, but it doesn't seem to impact GPS purchases or perhaps common sense.
TomTom May Head Down Dash Path - and quickly

Posted: May 21st, 2008, 12:59pm CEST

Tags: Navigation

Tele Atlas CEO Alain De Taeye spoke at the Reuters Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in Paris on Wednesday noting that once the TomTom Tele Atlas deal closes the company will jump into new offerings, including some powered by data gathered by users.

The idea is to tap into data collected by TomTom users and push it into Tele Atlas mapping products and TomTom services. How soon? Six months suggested De Taeye. In particular:

TomTom has gathered extensive data on maps and driving conditions -- its users submit about 10,000 corrections to maps every day, and a large number of drivers have also allowed the company to gather anonymous statistical data from their devices.
...
[It] would also make new products possible in areas such as real estate and urban planning.

TomTom has amassed 1 trillion data points, the equivalent of driving every road in Europe and the United States a thousand times.

This data can make routing more accurate and also opens new opportunities for Tele Atlas' geographical information services business. A buyer may for instance use it to learn what traffic around a property is like throughout the week.

Not a big surprise here; the trick will be integrating the two companies' technologies.

- Reuters
Scottish Ambulance: Use Maps, local knowledge, then Satnav

Posted: May 19th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

A memo leaked to the Sunday Mail from the Scottish Ambulance Service details how drivers are to use maps over in car devices installed a year ago in 460 vehicles at the cost of L5 million. In particular the memo states:

"The system will guide you through the main route, which is not always necessarily the most direct or quickest possible.
"The systemis most effective once you are in close proximity to the address and is an aid to finding the correct location.
"A map route should always be used and should be available."

Saturday night the Ambulance Service stated:

"The satellite navigation system is not the primary navigational aide for staff.
"Drivers are advised to use ordinance survey maps and local knowledge.
"The mapping system we use, however, is constantly updated."

The devices were installed in reaction to an incident where an ambulance got lost and could not save a teen in a rural area after an accident in 2001. One paramedic clearly understands when the devices are helpful:

"It's only useful for finding remote or difficult locations like farms and country cottages or if you are lost.
"In most cases drivers know where they are going so there is no need to use it.
Consumer Reports Gives Garmin 3 of Top Five Satnavs

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 4:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Rounding out the top five scoring units were the Garmin Nuvi 760 ($600), Garmin Nuvi 660 ($500), TomTom Go 920T, ($650), Garmin Nuvi 350 ($350), and Magellan Maestro 4250 ($400).

- Kansas City InfoZine
The OEMing of LBS

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 3:36pm CEST

Tags: Navigation

Wow, it's getting deep as everyone wants to brand location-based services. This article (in GovTech) on a AAA/Motorola app drove it home to me.

The Motorola MOTORAZR 2 V9m phone equipped with AAA Mobile, gives users turn-by-turn audio navigation and visual route maps. Powered by Networks in Motion, the AAA Mobile application is available on several GPS-enabled cell phones and smartphones via Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Alltel.

So, Motorola wants its name on a cool phone with a cool app. AAA wants its name on the app. NIM wants to be the technology provider. Oh, and NIM white labels deCarta's services. This is going way beyond the days of Intel inside!
Is sharing user generated content social networking?

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

I ask that question based on a discussion of POIFriend.com, a site that let's anyone share points of interest with others for use in websites and GPS units. There are social aspects - visitors can comment, join groups, create avatars, and send updates to those who originate POI lists. Is that enough to make it a social networking site?

Also noteworthy: the site's business model: paid listings, but no ads.

- Digital Journal
Audio Stories for SatNav "Tied" to Location

Posted: May 1st, 2008, 3:56pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

The project is called 230 Miles of Love (that's the length of the UK's M6 highway). You can download, for free, "satcoms" short skits, that play (manually or automatically, depending on your satnav device). Some stories, reports the Guardian blog are more location connected than others. Donations for charity are accepted. I'm not sure how compelling this is, but clearly folks are looking for new ways to link "new media."
Shouldn't this data be freely available?

Posted: April 24th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and the Tampa Bay Estuary Programs Manatee Awareness Coalition (MAC) want to save manatees. But for years, no mapping company's would put the manatee and homeland security zones in Tampa Bay on the navigation maps. But now Garmin is. The information is on all new chart plotters and updated SD cards.

Kipp Frohlich, leader of the FWCs Imperiled Species Management Section, said This marks a breakthrough that can save a lot of manatees. We tried unsuccessfully for years to get any mapping company to put the zones in their map covers. Garmin stepped up to the plate and did it.

This is a great story and I do appreciate that Garmin stepped up, but if we all really want to save manatees, shouldn't this data be freely available to install on any unit? Perhaps that's naive and it's not how the boating navigation GPSs/charting tools work, but I thought I'd ask.

- TCPalm
If you think there should be....

Posted: April 9th, 2008, 2:52pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

My Mom (now retired) was a librarian. She taught me early on that if I thought there should be a book about some topic, there probably was. She was right, of course. These days I tell people if they think there should be a website or mashup about some topic there probably is, though it might harder to find than books in the library. Now we are getting to the point where we can almost say "if you think there should be a spatial data set on a topic, there probably is."

This was driven home to me today when I read this press release about a free website and for-fee downloads for sat navs of points of interest for celiacs (folks intolerant to gluten). You can download for $5 or $10 per state locations of bakeries, groceries, restaurants and the like that cater to celiacs.

As I don't have a satnav I've not researched this, but is there a clearinghouse for such offerings? That is, does someone offer an index to all the POI layers downloadable for satnavs, perhaps by brand? The one noted about is "CSV formatted as points-of-interest (POI) for your Garmin or Navman."
New Tool to Combat GPS Theft?

Posted: April 7th, 2008, 5:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

A mostly "old news" article from CBS News talks about GPS thefts and advice to prevent them. (Don't leave them in plain site; wipe off "fingerprints" of suction cups.) But, ends the article with this:

GPS manufacturers like Garmin and TomTom are trying to make their products less tempting to steal. New models now require you to enter a 4-digit pin number to work, the hope being if thieves know they can't use it, maybe they won't steal it.

Think that'll work?
Garmin Rumors

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 12:05pm CET

Tags: Navigation

Rumors are floating that Garmin may be entertaining a deal with Nokia for a nav device. The stock folks wonder if this is a sort of back up plan should the Nokia/NAVTEQ deal fail. Chin strokers suggest that if that and the TomTom/Tele Atlas deal fail, Garmin would be in a safe place.

- Seeking Alpha
Theives Using Stolen GPSs to Pin Point Homes to Target

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: Satellite Navigation

The Age reports on such occurrences in Britain and suggests they may happen worldwide. If the device is found in a car far from home, it may be a good time to visit the house for further thievery. The article suggests securing the private info (like your home address) on the devices (if in car) and keeping removable devices out of sight.
Quote of the Week

Posted: March 11th, 2008, 2:05pm CET

Tags: Navigation Satellite

"Computer-aided Surgery: Assessing the Accuracy of a Navigation System"

- Title of a paper from ORTHOPEDICS reprinted at OrthoSuperSite that deals with orthopedic surgery. Does this give people confidence?
Quote of the Week

Posted: February 27th, 2008, 3:08pm CET

Tags: Satellite Navigation

A researcher at Chrysler told me that navigational systems in cars have an 80%-20% rule, only it's more like 95%-5%. 95% of the time gps is used by 5% of the people, and the majority of those folks are salesmen, and on the road most of the time. 95% of the time we get into our car, we know how to get to where we are going, and don't need directions. This may be changing as features like "best route" and "congestion avoidance" are added, but still seems to ring true.

- Leslie Rule writing at Media Shift Idea Lab (a PBS blog)
Hertz NeverLost Offers "Plan Ahead" Service

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 2:34pm CET

Tags: Navigation

The idea is that before you pick up the rental, you use your computer to key in your destinations at the NeverLost website, then save them to a USB device. When you pick up the car, you insert the device and off you go. This solves the time consuming task of keying in the information to the in-car device.
- Hertz Online Trip Planning
TomTom Offers More Options for Sharing

Posted: February 13th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: Satellite Navigation

TomTom Home got better today. Geekzone offers details.

First off users can share goodies like voices, routes, POIs, etc.

Second, they can rate the content.

Third, there's now automatic update of content already downloaded: "if someone updates a POI set of favourite restaurants, their changes would automatically be sent out to TomTom HOME users who have previously downloaded that set."

Map Share got updates, too. It's possible to request updates based on areas of interest (by country/region) to save space. There's also "a status indicator which keeps users informed on how up to date their maps are."

TomTom is doing everything right to create a community around its nav device. I can't wait to see how this plays out once Tele Atlas is involved.

- via Jalopnik

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30 items tagged "Navigation"

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 2:33pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: August 19th, 2008, 2:25pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: August 9th, 2008, 3:56am CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: August 6th, 2008, 6:02pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: July 29th, 2008, 1:51pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: July 22nd, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 3:31pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: July 7th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: July 3rd, 2008, 3:22pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 4:46pm CEST

Tags: Navigation

Posted: June 11th, 2008, 2:49pm CEST

Tags: Navigation

Posted: June 5th, 2008, 3:20pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: June 2nd, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: May 30th, 2008, 2:20pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: May 21st, 2008, 12:59pm CEST

Tags: Navigation

Posted: May 19th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 4:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 3:36pm CEST

Tags: Navigation

Posted: May 5th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: May 1st, 2008, 3:56pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: April 24th, 2008, 1:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: April 9th, 2008, 2:52pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: April 7th, 2008, 5:00pm CEST

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: March 25th, 2008, 12:05pm CET

Tags: Navigation

Posted: March 17th, 2008, 12:00pm CET

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: March 11th, 2008, 2:05pm CET

Tags: Navigation Satellite

Posted: February 27th, 2008, 3:08pm CET

Tags: Satellite Navigation

Posted: February 19th, 2008, 2:34pm CET

Tags: Navigation

Posted: February 13th, 2008, 1:00pm CET

Tags: Satellite Navigation