Hasta La Gadget!

TomTom has unveiled the 4.3-inch XL 340S LIVE, a portable navigation device (PND) that includes an AT&T-powered data modem along with the company’s new LIVE services, building on the capabilities of the existing XL 340S. The new unit delivers Local Search from Google, real-time traffic information, a fuel price service, weather reports, and what the company calls QuickGPSfix, which locks onto your current position faster than prior units.

Like other TomTom PNDs, the XL 340S LIVE uses the company’s IQ Routes technology, which optimizes trips based on historical speed measurements for different times of day and different road segments. The unit receives traffic speed and incident reports every two to five minutes.

The new LIVE services require a subscription; TomTom includes three free months in the box. In addition to the usual millions of POIs loaded into the device, LIVE features Local Search powered by Google–which seems a little redundant at first glance. It will be interesting to see how the unit distinguishes between the two databases in testing.

It seems pretty clear that the nation’s wireless carriers are less than thrilled about Google’s entry into the telecom world. In case you still had any lingering doubts about the animosity, however, AT&T has taken the relationship to the next level by filing a complaint against the service with the Federal Communications Commission.

According to the carrier’s complaint, Google has been restricting calls in places where service providers charge higher fees. “By blocking these calls, Google is able to reduce its access expenses,” the company wrote in its letter. AT&T is basing its complaints on new reports about Google Voice.

Love the iPhone, but hate the network it’s tied to? Good news–if you live in the United Kingdom. British fans of the Apple handset will
soon get another choice for the phone, which is set to arrive for Orange
U.K. later this year, making it the second carrier to offer the device,
after O2.

The carrier has yet to offer a concrete arrival date or pricing plan for the iPhone 3GS. O2 has had exclusive domain over the phone in the UK for roughly two years, and the carrier doesn’t seem particularly excited at the prospect of competition, a recent statement reflects the its firm belief in its own awesomeness:

We’re proud that we’ve been able to offer an exclusive iPhone deal to our 20 million customers for the last two years. We always knew that iPhone exclusivity was for a limited period of time, but our relationship with Apple continues and will be an ongoing success. We have over 1million iPhone customers and they remain very important to us.

Times may be tight for most of us, but plenty of corporations still have a few billion to toss around. Take Dell, which announced last week plans to pick up Texas-based Perot Systems. Xerox is getting ready to follow suit with the planned acquisition of IT/outsourcing company, Affiliated Computing.

Xerox plans to buy the company for $6.4 billion–33.6 percent over the company’s current market value. “Customers are saying, ‘We need help with the entire document infrastructure,'” Xerox CEO Ursula Burns told Reuters. “We’ve got the technology piece of the back office and the technology piece of automation. We need help with the information piece.”

Xerox expects to close the deal in the first quarter of next year.

Aside from pushing out around one phone per year (at best), Iridium Satellite really hasn’t had a major impact on the market over the past ten years. ‘Course, that’s probably because it’s hard to have much impact after seeking bankruptcy protection in 1999, but we digress. Starting tomorrow, new life will be breathed into Iridium thanks to a merger with publicly traded GHL Acquisition. If all goes to plan, the merger will add over $200 million to the company’s bank account, enabling it to pay down debt and develop a next-generation network of satellites to be launched in 2014. Furthermore, $160 million will be raised by issuing another 16 million shares at $10 a pop, and a new label (Iridium Communications) will be thrown on for good measure. Only time will tell if the world really is ready to adopt satellite phones en masse, but if TerraStar’s latest deal is any indication, we’d say chances are good halfway decent.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Iridium to merge with GHL, get back into sat phone game originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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