Tuesday, September 8. 2009

Podcast: What Your Relationship with your GPS Says About You

In this special "vacation" edition of the podcast, our editors turn their attention to a piece of geospatial technology they both use: the Garmin Forerunner "GPS watch." There's quite a bit of disagreement about what's expected of the device and what's wanted in future versions.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in GPS, Weather, Directions on the News Podcast at 01:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Thursday, August 6. 2009

Impact of Real Time Routing: More Traffic

Reader Kevin points out the latest from the Freakonics blog:

Two physicists and a computer scientist used Google maps to study traffic in Boston, London, and New York, and found that when people use real-time driving maps to try to pick the fastest routes, traffic slows down. Their solution: close a few roads so drivers have fewer options.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Traffic, Satellite Navigation at 06:47 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, July 1. 2009

Waze: Dash Reincarnate for Android?

Update: Now it's in open beta for Android across the U.S.

- SV/SJ Business Journal

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, Traffic, Satellite Navigation at 05:42 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, June 30. 2009

NAVTEQ's Mobile Traffic App Update

You may have missed yesterday's press release from NAVTEQ noting an update to its traffic information app for mobile phones (any with a browser) for free. There are, per C|net some unobtrusive ads, and the navigation is "interesting." The "east" and "west" links to slide the map one way or the other, are not in their typical orientation.

It's hard to imagine that users really want one app for finding directions or local services and another for traffic information. I'm hopeful this is simply a way to get the word out that this sort of functionality (and detail) should be embedded in other apps, a la "Intel Inside," though NAVTEQ uses "NAVTEQ onboard."

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in LBS, Traffic, NAVTEQ at 06:47 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, June 23. 2009

Podcast: Why not code the real world?

While much money is spent noting attributes of physical objects on paper maps or in electronic files, only for them to be of limited use in the field, why do we not simply code more real world object with key information? In Akron fire hydrants are coded with their water pressure by their colored domes. Even as we put all this information into databases, should we also think more about simply it putting it right where it's needed?


Subscribe to Podcast RSS

Listen Now (to download, right click on the link at left and choose "save target as")

Read the show notes

Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in LBS, Real-Time/Dynamic Data, Directions on the News Podcast, Infrastructure at 01:00 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) |

Friday, June 5. 2009

Research In Motion acquires Dash Navigation

I first saw the report of the acquisition on GPS Business News (subscription required, but I want to give them credit!); now it's well confirmed. No terms of the deal were shared.

TechCrunch reports "RIM refused to comment on how Dash will be incorporated into its business but it’s safe to assume that the company will use Dash’s technology to upgrade the GPS in their devices in some capacity." The article goes on to report that RIM might be able to do good things with the platform, considering how many people currently carry Blackberries.

Twice notes some other entries into the "traffic probe" space: Waze and Aha Mobile.

Many, including this InformationWeek blog are suggesting the acquisition is like that of NAVTEQ by Nokia. While I agree it'll help in the nav space, it's really not the same sort of acquisition at all in my book.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Traffic, Satellite Navigation, Geospatial Business at 05:33 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |