I confess when I heard about the deal on new devices that include "free for life" traffic information, I didn't get too excited. Apparently, it was for good reason: the traffic comes with ads. A PC Mag review explains:

One gripe: The nüvi 755T comes with advertisements. My evaluation unit arrived with three preloaded vendors (BP, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo). When you access the traffic menu, one of these advertiser's names always appears at the bottom of the screen. Also, from time to time, one of these ads will pop up on the map view screen (they won't appear when you are in motion). A single tap of the advertisers' name will perform a POI search for nearby retail locations. Unfortunately, you can't disable these ads, but it's likely that they help Garmin offset the cost of the live traffic information that it offers free.

It'll be interesting to see if a backlash causes any changes in the plan.

The head of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) announced that the number of satellites in the Glonass constellation will jump from the current 16 to 30 by 2011. That includes six to be launched by the end of this year. Glonass will have strong coverage at the poles, something key for mining natural resources in those areas.

- Novosti

GPS Business News put the pieces together including:

- CEO Nelson Chan left.
- Christian Bubenheim, who was vice president Product Marketing, left.
- Clay Babcock, who was Senior Director, Product Planning left.
- The Magellan booth at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin was cancelled.

Marketshare is down and there's no growth in Europe. The last big Magellan professional campaign I recall was for its MobileMapper mobile data collector.

I'll add another measure of health: the last corporate press release was from April of this year.

I'm reading between the lines here, but it's my hunch Ms. Hastings, GIS Manager in Plainfield is behind something important: the village submitted address information to both Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ after calls from residents concerned their addresses were not found in online maps and sat nav devices. Not only that, but the article in the local paper lists all the places those who are still unhappy can go to provide corrections.

I've read too many articles that "complain" about errors and don't follow through with any sort of action or suggestions for residents to take action. So, kudos to Ms. Hastings.

- Suburban Chicago News

Say good bye to your phone/PDA and hello to rather bulbous wrist worn device. It's apparently got GPS and an MP3 player. A cellophane-looking touch screen is hidden inside and slides out for use. My immediate response: I'd need three hands to use it or would need to take it off for use. Pics at link below.

- Tuvie via C|net Asia.

C|net asks. Thus far: "yes." Mostly, I think they are looking for conspiracy stories about why we don't yet have that feature. The license forbids it, though no one knows quite why.