Insta GPS

Garmin was recently reported to have said that they would very shortly get comfy with webiste and other software designers by making a release of an API library, which is said to enable designers to better “talk” to GPS units. Thus earlier when you had to download waypoints from Geocaching.com to your PC and then upload them to the GPS, now that is just one click away i.e. by clicking on the Garmin logoed button, the website will have a talk directly to the GPS and relay the coordinates of the next cache directly to the unit.

Through the write-up, which is available at http://www.gpslodge.com/ it is learnt that at present there are six API’s, one of which touts to give support to location-based services, thus there is no need to be surprised that these GPS enablers were made public with the Where 2.0 conference that is being held in San Jose.

The Garmin Developer website is said to be a developer zone which is totally devoted to software designers and content suppliers who would like to make their website, apps and data content consistent with Garmin navigation systems. The Garmin Developer website gives both free and licensed Garmin resources and a library of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), toolkits and web services introducing 6 core products: MotionBased Web Services, Garmin Communicator Plugin, Content Toolkit, Messaging System, Garmin PeerPoint, Garmin LBS Toolkit and Fleet Management Interface.

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AIGO recently curtains off its latest satnav at the CHITEC 2007 show. The new navigation system, which is known as GPS-P370, is touted to be standard GPS navigation system, with a 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD and a SiRF Star III GPS chip.

The latest sprints Windows CE.Net 4.2 on the background on a Freescale Dragonball (!) processor at 266MHz and is dependent on a 1300mAh battery. Measuring 120 x 87 x 21.5 in millimeters, the latest GPS-P370 also makes use of a 64MB internal memory and SD/MMC cards for maps and storage. Now the point is it ever going to be shipped in the
US or Europe. I don’t have any idea.

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A Romanian company has recently come up with the development of a system, called AutoMonitor, which is touted to be capable of keeping track of your vehicle with GPS and allow you to get live video (and audio) feed also.

This system is presently built to function in Romania however it is also able to work worldwide. The retail price is likely to be almost 700 EUR. Apart from all that if you want some more information about AutoMonitor, you will have to await its website to be brought into being.

Check some details about the AutoMonitor:
(1) Internet access in the vehicle is offered via WiFi (you can also use the built-in WiFi access point to grab video archives when the car is parked - it’s faster than downloading them over the air)

(2) Video is recorded and timestamped/geostamped, archived for 50 hours, so it can be played back at any time and the position shown on the moving map

(3) The system sends live video and audio + GPS location over high speed 3G links (HSDPA or 3G or CDMA)

(4) Camera is infrared capable, can see very nicely in the dark

(5) The framerate is 1-3fps at 640�480

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Well, I don’t have much detail about Harman Kardon’s next-up Guide + Play unit, but for brief pre-order page, which has been listed at Amazon. But the new device, keeping with H/K’s mantra, is claimed to be consisted with routing close to its heart, and doesn’t have the feeling of being mortified of its media-centric side.

Apart from all that the new device comes with a 4-inch WQVGA touch screen, turn-by-turn directions, English / Spanish / French language support, maps of the US and Canada plus a color-coded menu scheme.

Moreover, It also comes with a ‘compact flash card slot’, whereby you can load up your tunes, seeing that the MP3 / WMA audio player characterizes its own devoted screen to display album art and other info as to the present song.

Especially, the device is built-in with even a separate screen whereby you can manually adjust the ratio of music volume to navigator volume if you are not above-board with that automatic guide hindering the flow in an overly loud way. The latest GPS-300 is expected to be shipped within 4 to 6 weeks with the price tag of around $299.95 price tag, which doesn’t seem to be too shabby, also.

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Recently, New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission said yes to a plan to deploy touch-screens in all 13,000-city cabs. The monitors not just allow riders cough up via credit card, however encompass GPS technology and information about bars and restaurants.

Though, several drivers go up against the plan, because of the cost of the screens, credit card fees, and time lost if the monitor require repair. Many cabbies are still worried about the GPS tracking their routes.

The drivers also opposed the taxi commission keeping track of their movements albeit they have said that only pickup and drop-off locations will be recorded. The vehicles is to be upgraded starting October 1.

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Motorola’s latest iDEN phone i876 has finally got FCC’s approval and can be spotted on its listing pages now. The clamshell i876 device is claimed to be an “international phone” featuring the stereo Bluetooth (A2DP), out-and-out music control keys, integrated GPS, 1.3 MP cameras, and the microSD memory card slot.

Besides, the latest Motorola i876 also boasts of being consisted with the push-to-talk feature, facilitating walkie-talkie like usage. The Motorola i876 is likely to hit the streets in the Q4 of 2007.

The iDEN phone i876 has grabbed our attention by virtue of its glaring features, but; the amount of things which can be done with the GPS is limited. So, let’s learn how much the manual details about making use of the GPS:

Use GPS with map software: Connect your phone to your laptop (or other device) with a serial data cable and set your phone to transmit data. Open the connector cover. With the phone’s display facing up, insert the serial data cable’s connector into the accessory connector, until you hear a click.

Insert the data plug into the COM port of your laptop or other device. Make sure no other application is using the COM port selected.Set the COM port settings of your laptop or other device as follows:

(1) Flow control: Hardware
(2) Bits per second: 4800
(3) Parity: None
(4) Data bits: 8
(5) Stop bits: 1

To set your phone to send location information to your laptop or other device: Press M > Tools > GPS > Interface > set NMEA OUT to On.

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Acer recently came up with the deliverance of a new line-up of (PNDs) the V200 series, of which price point and placement let me imagine that it will replace the e300, e305 and e310 series. V200 is consisted with a standard 3.5″ however its price range comes under the psychological 150€ mark.

Now, as is claimed by the Navigadget that it is going to replace 300 series, all this can be learnt by the characteristics comes in with it. So, let’s take a look at its main features that differs it from that e300, e305 and e310 series.

Here are the features of V200 series:

(1) Destinator 6 navigation software of with maps of France coming from Navteq on 512MB SD card
(2) 3.5″ TFT LCD touch screen with 65K colors and 240�320 pixels (QVGA) resolution
(3) 64 MB ROM flash for OS and integrated applications
(4) Samsung S3C2442XL Processor at 300 MHz
(5) 1100mAh Li-Ion battery that lasts 3 hours
(6) Integrated SiRF III LP GPS receiver
(7) Dimensions : 9.5 X 7.9 X 2.5 cm
(8) 64 MB RAM for applications
(9) 3.5 mm audio out
(10) SD/MMC port
(11) Weight: 172 G
(12) 1W speaker

It is soon to be marketed for 149€ - most likely in France only.

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The latest device is consisted with the ideal mixed marriage of gadgets with a cool GPS and Media Player (PMP) with 20GB of hard drive space, certainly it’s the Dream`eo Solo 20GB Portable GPS and Media Player.

The 320×240 LCD screen is sharp, clear-cut and is measured with 3.5 inches, plus the Dream`eo GPS / PMP is also built-in with support for all the finest formats comprising JPG, WMA, AVI, DivX, WMV as well as MP3 files.

When you’re not watching video and movies you get a sense of direction with the built-in Sat-Nav, that gives you a simultaneous 2D and 3D map viewing function, controlled by Touch Screen, buttons or remote control.

GPS Features:

(1) Search Destinations by Address, Intersection, Points of Interest, Address Book, and Previous Destinations

(2) Voice and Texts in Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish

(3) Adjustable viewing angle bracket with suction mount and dashboard adhesive mount plate

(4) Advanced searching for Millions of Points of Interest (POI) in over 40 categories

(5) Turn-by-Turn Route Guidance by Arrow, Text, zoomed In Map View and Voice

(6) User command by Touch Screen Graphic Interface, buttons or remote control

(7) High-speed signal acquisition using 1920 time/frequency search channels

(8) 12 parallel satellite-tracking channels for fast acquisition and reacquisition

(9) Built on SiRF Star IIe/LP chipset with embedded ARM7TDMI CPU

(10) 3D, 2D, and Split Screen Map Views with 6 Map Zoom Levels

(11) Serial Port input for outboard mini-sized GPS receiver

(12) Detailed maps of the US and Canada

(13) Car lighter power adapter

Features for Media player:

(1) Immediately recognized by all computers and equipped with a Hi-Speed USB2 interface, the Solo transfers data ultra-fast by simple “drag & drop” without additional software.

(2) Windows operating system and its intuitive interface, the Solo makes it easy to organize your multimedia files and all of your data

(3) Connected to your HiFi system, your Solo lets you enjoy and share the pleasure of listening to amplified sound.

(4) Connect the Solo to a television or video projector to display all of the treasures stored on its hard disk

(5) You can create slideshows from your photo library and add music of your choosing

(6) MP4 video player - Compatible with most formats, up to 30 frames per second

(7) With the stereo recording function, your Solo becomes a digital recorder

(8) The Solo has all of the functions of the latest generation MP3 players

You can get Dream`eo solo 20GB portable GPS and Media Player for $229.

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Renesas recently announced the release of a high-end SoC (system-on-chip) for in-car satnav entailing accelerated 3D graphics. The SH7775 is founded on a 600MHz SH-4a core, and is built-in with a GPS baseband from SiRF with a 150MHz PowerVR MBX 3D graphics processor from Imagination Technologies. The SH7775 is described as a “third-generation” car navigation SoC, following the prior SH7774 and SH7770 parts. The SH7775, compared to the SH7770, is touted to give 50% enhanced floating point performance, and three times quicker graphics.

The latest SH7775, as with the prior SH777x parts, is founded on Renesas’s SH-4A core, a 32-bit superscalar RISC core with built-in media processing directions plus a four-way, set-associative memory cache with 32KB each of direction and data cache. The core, clocked at 600MHz in the SH7775, is also claimed to make available 1GIPS (giga directions each second) and 4.2 GFLOPS (giga floating-point operations each second), making it the quickest chip ever founded on the SuperH architecture.

The SH7775 makes use of the similar 2D graphics engine as Renesas’s prior in-car nav chips, helping software further compatibility. Latest in the SH7775 part, though, are 3D utilities such as triangle 3D drawing and texture mapping, of use for delivering buildings on maps. The SH7775’s 3D potentials are founded on a PowerVR MBX 3D graphics engine from Imagination Technologies.

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Though the little of which I am going to talk about has been named as “Freedom”, but the latest GPS module is claimed to be capable of reining in exactly that. With the integration of a standard GPS tracking module with a tri-band GSM radio, the Freedom is touted to be efficient enough of relaying text messages to a specific phone number just with the touch of a single button.

This Lilliputian miracle enables users to pre-arrange emergency numbers into the unit and afterward when there is an emergency, it will text message those Nos to your location
Easy enough and user-friendly. I am in awe if this thing gets get going while it’s stuffed into a backpack crammed with pens, books and a cell phone but for a key lock engaged

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