Wednesday, July 29. 2009

Trimble Cites Positive News in Second Quarter Report

Trimble's CEO Steven Berglund reported guarded optimism about his company's "return to year-over-year revenue growth by late 2009 or early 2010." Such remarks have become rare these days and it sent Trimble's stock up over 14% by mid-day today. Berglund also stated that the Field Solutions business (generally the GIS sector for Trimble) experienced an 11% decline year-over-year but that decline should be tempered by the fact that in 2008 this segment demonstrated a whopping 63% growth in sales.

So, even though Berglund still believes there is significant risk in the market, the numbers represent "more stability in the second quarter than the prior two quarters."

We'll take any good news we can get at this point.

Posted by Joe Francica in GPS, Surveying, Geospatial Business at 10:54 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Friday, July 24. 2009

House Appropriations Committee Cuts $97 million from GPS Budget

The House Appropriations Committee cut $97.4 million from the Department of Defense 2010 budget for the GPS III program citing contract delays in the modernization program (OCX) for the Operational Control Segment (OCS). Exactly how much money will end up in the program is unclear since there's a new structure for appropriation categories.

- inside GNSS

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in GPS at 07:58 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, July 22. 2009

South Dakota Makes GPS Maps of Public Land Maps Available Free

The South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department is offering up the digital maps of federal, state and government leased lands to provide another option beyond the paper maps and South Dakota Public Walk-In Atlas. The program provides downloadable files for newer Garmin, Lowrance and Magellan GPS units.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in GPS, Satellite Navigation at 06:42 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, July 20. 2009

Verizon Opens Omnia - Now Users Can Choose GPS Apps!

Last week Verizon released CF03, a software update for the Sansung Omnia phone that unlocks the GPS for use with other apps other than its VZ Navigator. Verizon was one of a very few carriers locking down the garden...

- C|net

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in LBS, GPS, Satellite Navigation at 07:46 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Thursday, July 9. 2009

Skyhook's Morgan: Screen Size Challenges GPS Signals, Turn by Turn too Expensive

Rafe Needleman interviewed Skyhook's CEO Ted Morgan on the current state of things location, including FireFox going with Google's toolkit and not Skyhook's (not unexpected), the price of turn by turn directions in phones (too high), the need for location brokers like Fire Eagle (too early to know) and how the larger the screen in a device, the poorer the reception.

Furthermore, the bigger the screen of a device, the worse the GPS reception gets. Morgan says, "The bigger screens drown out the GPS signals." Although when I pressed him as to why, and he claimed to not be technical enough to fully understand it.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, GPS, Wi-Fi, Satellite Navigation, Geospatial Business at 08:28 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, July 8. 2009

Tech Tidbits

Sony has added two more GPS-enabled video cameras at the $1300 and $1100 price points. They include GPS and can geotag videos and place them on a map. They, like earlier models, use "GPS services from Navteq [sic]" Expect them in September.

- Washington Post

As I suggested some time ago, Google plans to build an open source operating system around Chrome. Coming this year.

- Google Blog

A low tech tidbit. Crooks used the "ask directions and put the map over the ladies' handbags" to steal their bank cards trick in Scotland.

- BBC

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, GPS at 06:51 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |