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« July 2007 | Main | September 2007 »
This week TGIF's post comes from Reuters UK:
The first official road signs to warn drivers about the dangers of trusting their satellite navigation devices (satnavs) were introduced on Tuesday in a Welsh village.
The reason to warn drivers about placing too much faith in the directional gadgets is that more than dozen large trucks have become stuck in the road in the past six months.
So : Your GPS can be dangerous. Don't be afraid, just be carefull :-)
TomTom announced three new product this week. We have already talked about TomTom One 3rd edition here and now : TomTom Go 920 and TomTom GO 920 T (T for Traffic).
TomTom Go 920 comes with a 4.3 inches screen, movement and gravity sensors, Bluetooth connection for hands-free calling, FM transmitter and maps of US and Europe (4GB memory). This high end product will retail at $599 for the Christmas season. The 920T – which price has not been announced yet - will add to the premium a RDS TMC receiver for real time traffic information. This Traffic receiver is also available as an option in the rest of the range. See the press release for more info.
And now...Garmin :
The Garmin Nuvi 750/760/770 was announced during the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. The nuvi 700 series is compact and stylish with a hidden GPS antenna, traffic reports and safety camera alerts for mobile and fixed cameras.
All the Garmin nüvi 700s have a built-in FM transmitter, allowing users to wirelessly transmit directions, telephone calls (selected models) or MP3s through their vehicle’s stereo. Bluetooth wireless technology is available on the Garmin nüvi 710, 760 and 770 for hands-free calling when paired with compatible phones. Find more info on Gps Lodge.
Magellan also announced six new gps navigations systems, they will be available in
October.
The following are the new machines:
Nokia LD-4W has been officially released ! If you haven't met yet, you eventually will see that it's a Bluetooth GPS receiver whiwh allows GPS navigation on Bluetooth-enabled smart phones. It weighs 31 grams and lasts up to 10 hours on a single charge. LD-4W is available all around the world for about 125€. More info, here.
It's time to welcome the Nokia 500 Auto Navigation, Nokia's first handsfree navigation device for in-car navigation and communication !
The device is equipped with high-sensitivity GPS and Nokia Maps navigation software, and a wide (4.3 inch) color screen, which is OK to view not only maps but also your contacts. Nothing out of the ordinary, it features turn-by-turn voice directions, and the bonus: it features text-to-speech for speaking out street and city names.
The Nokia 500 Auto Navigation is expected to retail at € 300 (excluding taxes).
TomTom announced the launch of the new TomTom ONE 3rd edition: the device comes with TomTom’s new Map Share technology and the latest map guarantee.
The cool thing is that Map Share lets users share improvements, daily, automatically by connecting their unit to their PC and using TomTom HOME – TomTom’s free software application.
There are also other features have been added like "safety features" and the "Help Me!" menu includes information such as the way to the nearest hospital, car maintenance information and first aid instructions. Fixed safety camera alerts are now included.
With its 25 years of experience in the field of tourist guides both in France and abroad, Petit Futé is now collaborating with Navx , first-mover company of the GPS market, developing and geolocalizing content:
You can click here to choose a destination amoung 115 tourist routes for France, Belgium and Switzerland and download the Petit Futé guides on your GPS !
ps. Besides Petit Futé routes, Navx has also geolocalized the Gault-Millau guides. You can also see them here
technorati tags: Navx Petit Fute routes navigation
DMY let us know: InfoSpace launched a new application called Find It! for Apple iPhon. It's a premium local search application that offers millions of POI with eight search parameters to find businesses or services in a given locality (like Dine Out, Go Out, Shop, Travel, Health, Services, Number, and Person). You can read here the review of the Information Week : it says that Find It! is better than Google Search.
The Gaiagi Photo Explorer is a great gadget that shows photos from Flickr and Panoramio tagged with geo locations on Google Maps. You can zoom into locations of photos as well as links to the original photo pages at the photo services.
Tele Atlas and Travel Channel Media announced an exclusive agreement to
make rich text, audio and visual content from the Travel Channel available for
Tele Atlas digital map users worldwide. That's an important announcement concerning navigation systems : it means that we won't have just an adress and phone number of a POI but also videos and images.
“Navigation offerings are expanding to deliver ‘infotainment’ that includes rich location-based audio and video media, which is fueling an exciting, unique end-user experience,” said Basak Ozer, vice president, global product marketing, Tele Atlas. “Collaborating with the Travel Channel further enables us to help infuse our partners’ applications and devices with vibrant content from a dedicated and trusted authority and we’re excited to foster the Travel Channel’s interaction with their existing and new audiences in a new medium.”
You can see the press relase, here.
technorati tags: TeleAtlas navigation Travel Channel Media
Mobinaute published an article about Navx: click here to read the interview with Jean Cherbonnier, co-founder of Navx: you will find the latest news about the community platform we are about to launch, connecting your GPS to Internet and allowing the visualization of geographical information! And a clue, here's what it looks like :
Do you know a site called MapJack ? Mapperz talked about it first -last week, it's a cool site offering street-level views that Google Maps Street View feature does, but with a better focus and a more interesting interface. MapJack splits your browser window in two with a satellite street map in the bottom and a street-level photograph above . Images are crisp and clear, the quality is even better than Google’s ! You can place “Jack” on any of the blue dots on the map, and you can also click on the dots in the photo to move him around. To read the story of Jack, click here. You can even explore inside of buildings, see here inside of Alcatraz.
TELL'M is a new google mash-up to make announcements like births, weddings, anniversaries or other stuff like you need a coffee break because work sucks. It's cool because you don't need any registration to post messages and you can search flickr by (tag, location or username) for public images to accompany your message. Try it now !
Yesterday Garmin announced the Forerunner 50 sports watch, the only watch with automatic wireless sync that helps runners and walkers track their workouts.
The Garmin Forerunner 50 interfaces with fitness monitoring accessories, including a heart rate monitor and foot pod that monitors speed and distance, to wirelessly collect data related to your workout. This data can then automatically be connected to the computer.
The Garmin Forerunner 50 is expected this October in several price ranges, with
$200 being the highest as it includes several fitness monitoring accessories. See the press release and more detail here.
technorati tags: Garmin Forerunner 50 fitness
Mio announced yesterday its forthcoming Mio C620 and C620t (T for Traffic Info) featuring 3D maps
of MioMap 2008 navigation
application (developed by Hungarian navigation software company NavNGo) with the
3D maps from TeleAtlas. NavNGo was already displaying its 3D capabilities in March at the CeBIT trade
show in Hannover, you can see our article here.
Mio did not detail which cities will be offered in 3D but according to TeleAtlas, "the detailed, navigable Tele Atlas 3D city maps available in July will cover nearly 2,000 km², or approximately 40 km² per city".
C620 and C620t will come equipped with a 4.3″ touch screen and a new user interface in a completely renewed main menu. We have no info on availability or pricing just yet. We'll have more info at IFA 2008 electronics show in Berlin which start on August 31st.
Navx is invited to MEDEF's last organisation, jouer le jeux, for its 9th summer school. It's a live & cross blogging game with exciting conferences and a high level networking : Navx will be there from 29 to 31 august. Want to meet there ?
Twitter, the social networking and microblogging service lets you now see recent Tweets in a 3D view.The service is called TwitterVision and it's like the new Google Maps mashup called ModelVision that lets you see 3D models added to the 3D Warehouse. You have a choice of to see the most recent, the highest rated, or the most popular.
Do you add content to your Google Maps ? Click on the picture below :
This is a google site where you can create your maps and add mapplets. Mapplets are Google Maps mashups that you can view right from Google Maps. You can choose to use mapplets or add contents, it's easy and cool. Just log in with your Google account, click the My Maps tab, then the "Add Content" link. Browse for content that look interesting, add them to Google Maps !
A quick video for demonstration :
Have fun !
Here is Pioneer’s latest sat nav system, the AVIC-X3 :
It's actually a new in-dash navigation-entertainment system which utilizes multiple sensor to get you pinpoint directions; not only it relies on a sensitive GPS receiver, but it also uses a 3D gyroscope as well as your cars speed sensor. Other features of AVIC X3 are traffic message channel compatibility, 1.5 million points of interest (find a local hotel or parking space) and feature called dual-zone, which means that your passengers can watch a movie or play a video game on optional rear-seat screens at the same time that you are using the navigation system and listening to the radio up-front.
The AVIC-X3 is expected to be released in Europe in September but no info on pricing is available at this moment.
Other details on Pioneer Europe.
iBT-GPS is the new solar Bluetooth GPS Data
Logger, equipped with the function of recording your trip
information. This dual function device has been produced by Taiwanese Transystem
Inc and will be soon introduced into the market.
The speciality of this Bluetooth enabled GPS receiver is its tiny solar panel
that is capable of lasting more than 35 hours on a single charge and can record
as much as 50,000 waypoints in its internal memory, which is of 8MB. iBT-GPS is
capable of recording your travel data on 3 different modes, by speed, time or
distance. It is also equipped with smart auto sleep and wake up mode for better
power efficiency. No news yet on price and availability. Stay tuned for more info.
See Navigadget for more info.
