Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

Location-Based Services, TomTom, Nokia and more

posted by Satri on Thursday December 13, @11:19AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the the-winning-set-is-location-location-location dept.
Location-Based Services GPS
Here's a few geonews items mainly related to cellphones and location-based services. Spatial Sustain informs us of the new "send to GPS" feature linking Google Maps and TomTom devices. Second, MacRumors discuss an Engaget story about TomTom (possibly, it's a rumor!) developing a GPS module for Apple's iPhone. Meanwhile, APB links to a NYT article wondering if Nokia can make serious inroads in the American market of cellphones and location-based services, and finally, APB runs a short entry on TeleNav and Navizon offering free small location-based services applications. Several related previous stories copied below.

«  The MapSpamming Phenomena | Four Books from ESRI Press  »

Related Stories

Technology: Navizon Peer to Peer Wireless Positioning [+]
Emily writes "Navizon is announcing today the release of a version of its product for PC and Mac. Navizon is a positioning system that works by triangulating signals from WiFi and/or Cellular towers and can simulate a Virtual-GPS even on devices that don't have an actual GPS chip. Let's hope this application, along with the other existing versions for Windows Mobile, Symbian and Blackberry devices, will open the doors of Location-Based services to a much larger audience." The "today" in this post is in fact two weeks ago since this was submitted during Slashgeo's hiatus. See also the numerous related stories.
Industry: TomTom Buys TeleAtlas 2 comments [+]
ixcer writes "A joint press release announces that TomTom, the world’s largest navigation solution provider, will acquire Tele Atlas, the biggest data provider for navigation systems, including Google, Yahoo!, AOL and Nokia. The announcement starts this way... "TomTom N.V. (“TomTom”) and Tele Atlas N.V. (“Tele Atlas” or the “Company”), jointly announce that the expectation is justified that an agreement can be reached in connection with a public offer by TomTom for all outstanding shares of Tele Atlas at an offer price of € 21.25 in cash, (the “Offer Price”) per ordinary share (the “Offer”).

The Supervisory Board and the Management Board of Tele Atlas (the “Boards”), after having duly considered the strategic, financial and social aspects of the proposed transaction, support the intended Offer and conclude that the Offer is in the best interests of the shareholders and all other stakeholders of Tele Atlas. The Boards of Tele Atlas will, when the Offer is made by TomTom, recommend acceptance of the Offer by the shareholders of Tele Atlas."" Update: 07/23 17:41 GMT by S : All Points Blogs provides more links such as the Reuters article.
Technology: iPhone Mapping Capabilities and Experiences 1 comment [+]
Slashgeo was on hiatus when the iPhone came out. Several geoblogs discuss the mapping capabilities of this overly hyped gadget. Here's some of them. Let's start with a press release on the Nokia N95 and the iPhone raising the bar for mobile multimedia. Ogle Earth offers a link to use a GPS with your iPhone. And a reminder that it supports GeoRSS. A wrap-up from The Map Room. And really worthed are the posts by Peter Batty on Geothough about his experiences with the iPhone and its mapping capabilities. See also previous stories.
GPS Really Needed for Apple's iPhone? iWeb Mashups and GPS on the Mac [+]
The GeoThought blog starts with an entry on the new iWeb, part of Apple's iLife, supporting Google Maps mashups directly. Meanwhile, The Map Room links to a MacWorld article on GPS software for the Mac. Finally, the High Earth Orbit blog wonders if the iPhone really needs GPS capabilities. From this entry: "Geolocation does not mean GPS. GPS is a specific technology implementation of getting a location fix. It is also frought with complications that are most apparent in areas that people may use a mobile phone to find out what’s going on around them - that being urban areas, indoors, or anywhere that doesn’t have good sky coverage. [...] In fact, one of the most complained about features in the N95 has been it’s slow to fix GPS. Nokia finally got it better, from 74 seconds to 57 seconds, with their firmware upgrade. [...] Another problem with GPS - it’s a battery hog. [...] My point is, geolocation does not mean having a GPS. There are numerous methods of automatically locating yourself that doesn’t require listening to satellites 24,000 miles away. [...] So I hope to hear less of people bemoaning the iPhone’s lack of a GPS chip - and instead ask the more reasonable question “Why doesn’t the iPhone do geolocation by cell or WiFi?”" See also related stories below.
Technology: iPhone GPS Hack from Navizon [+]
AnyGeo reports about Navizon trying to use the iPhone as a gps device. From their summary, "An iPhone GPS hack? Well, if you check out gizmondo it appears that way! This blog thread discusses how the free Navizon GPS app was installed on the iPhone and enables geopositioning and navigation on the iPhone - check it out and let me know if it works for you! See http://www.navizon.com/FullFeatures.htm"
Industry: More on Nokia's Acquisition of NAVTEQ 3 comments [+]
As expected, the Nokia acquisition of NAVTEQ made ink flow. I'm to blame for not having linked to the official press release in my previous coverage. Amongst the reactions, here's Vector One short analysis, GeoCarta discuss how this acquisition could mean trouble for Garmin, and then there's All Points Blog extensive coverage: links to many media reactions, link to why Nokia should now buy Skype, link to why Google never considered buying NAVTEQ themselves and the impact on the price paid by TomTom for TeleAtlas.
Ask.com Mobile Speak Directions [+]
AnyGeo has news about an interesting solution for getting directions from a mobile phone. From their summary : "I love speech to text enabled apps and Ask.com has kicked off 2008 with a very cool new mobile offering in their voice-enabled driving directions. The app receives input from your voice commands, simply enter a start and end location and then the directions are pushed to your mobile via SMS... nice! Some features as listed by Ask.com"

For a more detailed summary and video of the system in action, head on over to AnyGeo.
Magellan And Google Team Up [+]
Very Spatial brings you this development from CES. From their summary : "The first bit of GPS news out of CES this year has Magellan releasing the Maestro 5340 which will include GPRS for cell network connectivity. This network connectivity will be used to connect to…you guessed it…Google search and data services. At almost $1300 for the unit it will not be for small of purse, and don’t forget the charge for the GPRS connection."

To get the link to the full scoop, head on over to Very Spatial.
Technology: iPhone Position Triangulation - Firmware Upgrade [+]
A couple days ago, news about an iPhone GPS was announced. Today, AnyGeo reports about the upcoming iPhone firmware upgrade which gives the iPhone's Google Map's application position triangulation capability using cell towers, essentially turning it into a free, bad accuracy GPS. For links to movies and more articles of the system in action, head on over to AnyGeo. If you're interested in the video, the Google Maps portion is shown at ~5 minutes in this link.
Technology: iPhone GPS Now a Reality [+]
The location capabilities for the iPhone has been discussed quite a few times here, see related stories below, but also this discussion on whether the iPhone needs GPS capabilities or not. Now Mapperz informs us a third-party GPS add-on for the iPhone and iPod Touch will start shipping in February at the price of 89$US. Great news: the software used is open source, bad news: it requires your iPhone/iPod Touch to be 'jailbroken' (maybe this will change with the upcoming SDK?). The description: "The iphone locoGPS module allows jail broken iphones to finally have GPS functionality. This module is in development and will be shipping in February. All software is open source and more applications are being written every day. The locoGPS module gives you the ability to explore all the benefits of GPS from a device that is small enough to put on a keychain." There's also Google's My Location new feature which works on the iPhone now.
Industry: NAVTEQ and Garmin Agreement & Garmin Withdraws from the Tele Atlas Bid 1 comment [+]
A few geoblogs highlighted Garmin's withdrawal from the Tele Atlas acquisition bid and the long term agreement between Garmin and NAVTEQ (owned by Nokia). The Map Room links to a short Engaget story and APB to an article on the withdrawal. All Points Blog provides a few additional links on the settlement of Garmin with TomTom regarding intellectual property cases. The agreement's introduction: "NAVTEQ (NYSE: NVT), a leading global provider of digital maps for vehicle navigation and location-based solutions and Garmin Ltd. (Nasdaq: GRMN), today announced the completion of a long-term agreement that provides Garmin access to NAVTEQ map data through 2015 with an option to continue through 2019." See also related stories below.
Nokia's Maps 2.0 now in Beta [+]
BBC News writes about Nokia's Maps 2.0 beta release. Some exerpts from the article:
* "Nokia is taking navigation services out of the car so it can always be with you," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and CEO of the firm.
* "Nokia's announcement underlines its belief that GPS chips will become as ubiquitous in mobile phones as cameras. It has already made a $6bn (£3bn) investment in mapping company NavTeq to show that it is putting its money where its mouth is." * Mr Kallasvuo said: "Navigation is one of the foundations of the context-aware mobile phone. We believe it will be as important as voice capability was 20 years ago."
Location-Based Services, TomTom, Nokia and more | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 3 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.