Slashgeo

mdflynn writes "After a vacation or even a short trip, it's gratifying to be able to look back on a map and follow where you've been and the places you've visited. It would be even better if your travels could be tracked automatically, and even let your family and friends see where you are as you travel from place to place. Here's an open source solution that can turn your Palm Treo 650 Smartphone into a GPS tracking device and have the data sent back to your computer over the phone's wireless data service, where you'll even be able to view the data on a map."

The Map Room covers the Garmin announcement of their API and new website for developers, also at Where 2.0 2007, MapQuest announced a new API for Adobe ActionsScript (press release). From the Garmin press release: "“Until recently, third party websites have been unable to communicate easily with Garmin devices,” said Charles Morse, Garmin’s director of mobile and PND marketing. “This announcement is a win-win for developers and Garmin and it paves the way for more innovative applications. By expanding our developer applications and allowing programmers to integrate Garmin’s leading-edge technology into their sites, we are making it easier for third party content providers to leverage the huge community of Garmin devices by providing tools that will allow them to communicate directly with Garmin systems. This will create new markets for the programmer’s content and services, while generating a grassroots movement that will spread Garmin’s name and technology to consumers through third party websites and content distribution channels.”"

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.

Update : The news is now on SlashDot as well.

Yahoo News is currently running an article about Google's new endeavor. From their summary, "Internet search leader Google Inc said on Wednesday it is introducing a novel mapping system that uses cell phone towers to let mobile phone users locate nearby services without typing in addresses.

Google's new My Location service is being offered in test mode to U.S. users and is designed to expand the percentage of cellphone users of location-aware services, whether or not their phones come equipped with satellite-locating chips.". Head on over there for the full scoop.

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.

Tidbits offers a review of Garmin's nuvi 255W. The introduction: "As I've reviewed more car navigation GPS units (see our "Find Yourself with GPS" series), it has become clear that the manufacturers have succumbed to feature creep - just because you have a device with a color LCD screen and a speaker doesn't mean you should shoehorn photo slideshow and MP3 player capabilities into the unit. And similarly, even though every GPS is essentially a tiny computer, giving the user the ability to customize nearly every option isn't always desirable - geeks might like it, but many other people will be confused and simply stick with the defaults. My latest test unit, Garmin's $349.95 nuvi 255W, sits near the low end of the company's product line but does a bang-up job of providing just the features necessary for a successful car navigation device, eschewing many inessential items on the feature checklists in favor of a lower price and simpler usage. As a result, this unit ranks highly among the units I've used so far." See also some related stories below.

According to the Kansas City Business Journal, Garmin International Inc. has received federal certification for a new aviation technology. In obscured conditions, they can project a simulated cockpit window view to assist the pilots. They claim this technology will help increase safety and reduce pilot workload. I can certainly see the appeal to this. Who hasn't wished for the exact same thing when driving in the blinding rain or thick fog?

All I can say is, I sure hope the data is correct!

CNNMoney.com expresses a dismal view of Garmin's future. As I read through the article, I heard a voice yelling "Hey, I'm still here!", but no one was listening. As portable electronics get smaller and more, well, portable, single-purpose devices are losing relevance fast. A device that isn't always connected to the great information stream is a second-rate digital citizen these days. "Garmin's going to need more than Google Maps to keep from getting lost in this crowd.", the article says.

I say, Garmin should join Dash and put cell communication in their GPS's. That ought to keep 'em alive a little longer!

I admit this is partly a rehash of this January story, but The Map Room offers nice simple graphs on the online mapping services and GPS devices marketshares. In short, MapQuest and Garmin (in the U.S.) are way ahead their competition. From TMR: "MapQuest continued to lead with more than 50 percent of the market, with Google Maps second at 22 percent, and Yahoo and Microsoft trailing. [...] survey conducted in February of the U.S. market gave Garmin a 56 percent share of the consumer GPS market [...]" MapQuest also recently added current traffic conditions to their mapping services, something Google Maps has since over a year. See also related stories below.

From the GeoThought blog : "Well, the widely reported rumors were true, and today Apple released the 1.1.3 firmware update for the iPhone which provides location awareness, using cell phone triangulation. My first quick test had a much better result than I expected: I am at home in my loft in downtown Denver and the center of the cross hair is pretty much exactly where I would have placed it on the map"

For more information, and screenshots, head on over to the GeoThought blog.