Insta GPS

Here comes the Magellan Maestro at last. Last time when I talked about the devices, the info was very less, but now I have lots more to reveal. Though the product info are not live yet on Magellan’s site, but I got it from the press release (dated on March 7) wherein it was announced that the product (4000 and 4040) will be shipped in April 1st with the e-xpected price tag of $399.99, $499.99 respectively, while the Maestro 4050 is to be rolled out in North America during May with the price tag of $699.99. On account of a joint venture with American Automobile Association (AAA), the latest Magellan Maestro 4000, Maestro 4040 and Maestro 4050 are claimed to be the standalone car navigation solutions that boast of providing the North American public access to built-in AAA TourBook travel info and member roadside assistance information.

Besides, the Maestro 4050 is also touted to be the first handheld vehicle navigation device that brags to provide drivers the convenience of voice command potentials. The latest Maestro series provides users with better functions and sports, from a newly devel-oped user interface and a 4.3′ WQVGA touch screen for better user-friendliness and visibility, to Bluetooth hands-free calling potentials to reduce driver distractions and real-time traffic services to assist drivers so that they can reach their destination faster — so every driver will come across a solution that best caters to their navigation requirements.

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Here is part two of ‘BMW Assist service’ of which I told you some hours ago. This part tells you that Google Maps Germany is consisted with a new sport that allows you to send the address of a local business to your car’s navigation system, if you own a BMW car built-in with a navigation system and if you happen to reside Germany. As I told you the service can only be availed in Germany, without any charge.

The “send” link from every Google Maps page will open a dialog that allows you to fill your BMW account name and send an address plus some notes to your car. This service is free and it works only for businesses in Germany.

It is also being guessed that these smart BMW’s in Germany would be consisted with a SIM card of some sort.

Explaining their partnership with BMW, Google says that they are a leading light as far as automotive space is concerned, and they share their dream for a network-connected globe. In the web space, BMW’s German site was carried off from Google last year for the reason that it made use of doorway pages, however it was quickly rebuilt-in.

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Using the latest SIRFSTAR III chipset, this GPS data logger boasts of recording your position on an SD memory card (64 Mb to 2 GB). Besides being built-in with a 128MB SD card, run times of ~48 hours are obtained without any trouble by making use of the big li-ion battery and state-of-the-art power management sports.

There could be up to 255 files on each memory card at one time. The latest GPS data logger is also capable of recording the time and date of each file when the file is generated and updated. And if you want this memory card to be operated properly, it must be formatted in FAT16 format.

Manufacturer claims:

Well I have finally implemented all of the power management modes that I could think of to make this a truly unique product. Initial testing has shown that run times just over 49 hours can be achieved at 0 second recording intervals; that is a 39 hour increase over previous designs! Longer run times are easily realized by setting the sampling intervals to values between 0 65535 seconds. From 1-59 seconds the uProcessor will be put into a low power sleep mode to conserve power. Sampling intervals greater than 60 seconds will shut down both the GPS and SD card.

You can purchase the SD GPS Data Logger V2.0 from ohararp.com with the price of just $150.

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Check out a PC software for GPS navigation on land, sea or air. The software known as Fugawi Global Navigator allows users to navigate in real time via a range of digital maps, like NOAA RNC, topo maps, street maps or your own scanned paper maps.

Mind it here that this software claims to work everywhere on land, sea or air, doesn’t matter if are you in the proximity of a road or not. Besides built-in with the price tag of $120, the users are also provided with Fugawi PDA Edition for Palm & Pocket PC that is claimed to be capable of doing 3D viewing.

Please mind the pros and cons too:

Pros:

(1) PC application, capable of accepting a large range of map formats - even scanned in paper maps!
(2) Capable of tracking position off-road and navigate users back to their starting point;
(3) Consisted with topographic maps of Canada available (one of very few);

Cons:

(1) Has to sprint run the PC application to load PPC application and to make & download maps;
(2) PDA maps are raster not more than that; therefore too much zooming in will generate pixelization;
(3) Missing trip computer functions in the PDA version.
(4) Maps available (topo and streets) are rather old;

So, if you want to buy a GPS navigator for your portable device, go through review.

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Is this a visualization of an idea, a prototype, just plain fake or a real product? Even I could not believe the provided details on Google Maps working with BMW to put up a system where one is capable of relaying Google Maps directions from a PC to a BMW navigation system.

NaviGadget.come maintains that the video was discovered on personal blog of Google Italy Communication Manager, Stefano Hesse. Wherein Stefano quips that this is a project, for now concerned to Germany merely, which he has himself synchronized of which he really prides of.

The video shows somebody making use of a sport on Google Maps that relays driving directions to his BMW navigation system. The video brags this service is known as BMW Assist.

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GPS, Google maps, PC, BMW navigation system

Roadnav is an in-car navigation system, which can be operated on a variety of operating systems, such as Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. Roadnav is capable of obtaining a car’s current location from a GPS unit, plot street maps of the area, and give verbal turn- by-turn directions to any location in the USA.

What makes RoadNav in fact open source is that it doesn’t depend on commercial mapping companies like Navteq or TeleAtlas, but it makes use of the free TIGER/Line files from the US Census Bureau to build the maps, in conjunction with the GNIS state and topical gazetteer data from the USGS to make out locations.

Check out the complete list of Roadnav’s features:

(1) Interfaces with GPS units to display your position in real time directions if you miss a turn.
(2) Supports multiple operating systems including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X
(3) Verbal turn-by-turn directions to any place in the US. Automatically recomputes
(4) Uses freely available data from the US Census Bureau and the USGS
(5) Can output status information to LCD devices through LCDproc
(6) Can operate offline (without an Internet connection)
(7) Plots nearby landmarks and points of interest
(8) Appearance can be customized with skins
(9) Generates street level maps for the US
(10) Daytime and nighttime color schemes
(11) Automatic day/night mode switching
(12) 3D (driver’s perspective) view mode
(13) On screen keyboard
(14) Antialiased output

Above-mentioned were the pros of Roadnav, now let’s talk about the cons of this free solution. First of all this is not perfect, and secondly the free TIGER/Line thinks all one-way roads as two-way roads, which could result into serious accidents if its RoadNav’s directions are followed blindly by a user. Not only this, it does not also have support for Smarhphones or PDAs. But it’s totally free of cost!

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A review on gpsmagazine.com has claimed that the built-in GPS navigation system in the luxurious and costly 510-horsepower Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG Roadster does not meet the requirement of a user. It is claimed that the GPS navigation system in Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG Roadster turns out to be worst than an after market sat nav system that comes with the prize tag of $300 - $500.

The review also claims that the built-in navigation system in this Benz SL55 is DVD-based, and you will have to keep your maps data on this DVD-ROM that is buried in the trunk of this pricey vehicle. More over if you willing to get new maps, you need to make a purchase of it from Mercedes, almost every year, and likely to pay out almost $250.

This GPS navigation system is hooked up to a 7″ screen that is also touted to be the sport for several other electronics in the car. And the same large 7″ screen is not being used by the COMAND navigation software effectively. Rather than it keeps on showing latitude and longitude, which is not cared about by anybody whilst in search of the next turn.

The review claims,

Mercedes has a large 7-inch canvas to work with, and I feel that they could provide much more information on the display. What little information is currently displayed is mostly of little value. Given the large size of the screen, there’s no reason why Mercedes couldn’t display.

(1) Detailed street name of the next turn, and possibly the turn after that as well
(2) Time and distance to destination address
(3) Satellite signal reception bar
(4) Estimated arrival time
(5) + and - Zoom buttons

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I think Korean manufactures have taken responsibility to bring about all-in-one GPS devices, as just one day back I told you about Trabbit TM-7000, which is also claimed to be versatile or multi-talented with its glaring specs and sports, even boasts of doing everything except making tea, this one also from Korea boasts of doing everything by being all-in-one and attention-grabbing with its built-in sports and specs.

Though I don’t know when will XROAD V7 or GPS/DMB/PMP/HTF/KLP/MNG, hit the GPS market, but this ‘do it all system’ is also packed with a number of features, such as: a 500MHz processor by AMD (Alchemy Au1200), a 7″ TFT-LCD touchscreen (800*480 WVGA), SiRF III GPS chipset and 128MB RAM (DDR2) 2GB SD card. Similar to Trabbit TM-7000, XROAD V7 is also consisted with a Picture-in-Picture sport, which is called Navi-in-Picture by the Korean geeks, yes that also let the users have a watch on TV whilst navigating.

Mind it here the same feature was integrated in Trabbit TM-7000 of which I have already discussed. So, this unit too undoubtedly has countless multimedia goodies, like it gives support to the playback of DivX, XviD, MPEG-4, and WMV video, plus music files, too.

And last but not the least, the XROAD V7, with the cost around 630$, is consisted with an FM transmitter, powered by a 4200mAh battery and most likely is included with lots more glaring sports that I was not able to get via gpsgazette.com, as the site could also not autotranslate the rest of the features from the main source. Nevertheless, there are lots more to satisfy the urge of my readers.

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Chelton Flight Systems is going to play a lead role with the development of the next-generation Avio flight information system for the Eclipse 500 VLJ. As reported by Aero-News Chelton introduced a new Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver sporting Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) compatibility, for beyond compare accurateness and integrity monitoring. The company claims that its latest GPS-WAAS caters to the requirements of a major (sole-source) navigation receiver for IFR enroute and precision approach guidance.

With the deliverance of its two latest products, Chelton is aimed at making life a little better for pilots in a large range of aircraft. With the weight not more than one pound, the latest 15-channel GPS-WAAS receiver is also touted to be a fraction the size of rival’s products enabling for ease and flexibility in the deployment. Production is likely to be set in motion during mid-summer 2007.

Power-driven by the NexNav GPS engine (collaboratly designed by Spectralux Corporation and Accord Systems), the compact and lightweight GPS-WAAS receiver can be applied to both fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, besides providing 5 Hz position updates and 15-centimeter accurateness at complete signal strength. Developed as one-and-only or display-built-in sensor, the receiver’s certification is founded on TSO-C145b Beta 3, matching specs for LPV approaches, and the latest RTCA/DO-160E needs for environmental conditions.

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Here comes one more complete solution for Korean geeks. This really differs itself from the rest of GPS or GPS-based devices, as this one almost boasts of doing everything apart from making coffee.

Yes, you name it and you find it here, the latest Trabbit TM-7000 has everything for you. It is a PMP sprinting WinCE 5.0 with a 7′ screen (480×234), a DMB TV tuner, GPS, support for DivX, XviD, Mpeg4-SP, AVI, WMV files.

All of these are the basic features found generally on a device but this PMP also boasts of supporting Picture In Picture thus enabling you to watch TV or a video whilst making use of the GPS.

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