Mar 18

Texas Car Salesman Disables 100+ Cars, Gets Arrested

Posted in: gps, security, Today's Chili

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Police in Austin, Texas have arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez on the belief he remotely disabled over 100 vehicles sold through his former car dealership, according to Tom’s Guide.
Texas Auto Center apparently uses a Web-based vehicle immobilization system to remind customers late on their car payments that they’re delinquent. The dealership installs a small black box under the dashboard that communicates with a central Web site, the report said.
Ramos-Lopez is believed to have broken into the system via another employee’s account and disabled over 100 cars after being laid off. He also set many of the cars to honk their horns repeatedly. Many owners became stranded, or woken up late at night by the car horn and being forced to disconnect the battery.
Police tracked Ramos-Lopez to his home via his AT&T internet service IP address, according to the report. And here we thought car dealers were a shady bunch to begin with. (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)
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Mar 05

Motorola GPS Gets Data The Old-School Way – Via Voice Call

Posted in: gps, motorola, Today's Chili

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Whoooo-eee! Whoooo-eee! Brgrgrgrgrgrggrgrgrgrgrgrrrr … Geeks of a certain age know the sounds of an acoustic, land-line modem. My first modem was the Atari 830 – a 300-baud device with big rubber cups that you slammed your rotary phone receiver down into once you’d manually dialed the right phone number. You then had to be quiet while accessing The Wizard’s Palace BBS, or your own ambient room noise would create line noise in the modem.
Data transmission via voice calls had its day with cell phones too, thanks to a protocol called CSD, or circuit-switched data. Back in the ’90s, I would connect CSD calls at 9600 baud to grab my e-mail with Eudora. Because CSD uses voice calls, it takes from your bucket of minutes, not from any Internet data plan. It’s just slow. CSD use pretty much died out with the introduction of much faster systems like EDGE and 3G.
I was amused and a little bit thrilled to find that Motorola’s new personal navigation devices, the TN700 series, use a form of data-over-voice to make Google searches and get Internet information. This isn’t old-school CSD, though, and you can’t make whee-ooo noises into your cell phone to confuse it. It’s a proprietary protocol developed by a company called Airbiquity with a very low transfer speed, only 800 baud. That’s lower than good ol’ CSD. But Airbiquity’s aqLink works on a range of different networks with different voice codecs, and it doesn’t require any involvement from the wireless carrier.
Airbiquity’s solution leverages one of the strange imbalances in cell-phone plans today – most people have a lot more voice minutes than they ever use, but carriers are ratcheting up data prices. Much like SMS-based info services (such as texting GOOGL to search), this is a neat way to get info over your cell while saving money.
Photo from the excellent Atari 800 article on oldcomputers.net
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Mar 03

Nokia, Alpine Bring Ovi Maps to In-Car Navigation

Posted in: gps, navigation, nokia, Smartphones, Today's Chili

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Automotive electronics manufacturer Alpine has teamed up with Nokia and NAVTEQ to integrate Nokia Ovi services with in-car infotainment systems.
Silly buzzwords aside, ‘Terminal Mode’ (whoops, there’s goes another one) will integrate smartphones running Nokia Ovi Maps with in-car electronics. The goal is to bring widget-based services like navigation, music playback, weather reports, and application stores to the car, in addition to the usual hands-free calls.
Once connected, the phone’s various services will appear on a larger, high-resolution Alpine LCD in the car, and play back through the car’s stereo system. It will also monitor fuel levels, engine status, GPS location, and more for location-based services, and could potentially hook into safety features as well. No word yet on a release date for any of this.
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Mar 01

Mio Unveils the Moov V780

Posted in: cebit, gps, navigation, Today's Chili, video, Wireless

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The market for stand-alone GPS devices may be eroding, but that only means navigation companies need to work harder to create the next generation of mapping products. Feast your eyes on the Mio Moov V780, which will make its debut at CeBIT 2010 this week. It’s slim and offers a big 7-inch screen, but it’s what’s inside that really has our attention.

Going beyond navigation, the Moov V780 includes a digital TV receiver and wireless connectivity. It can play HD movies and videos up to 720p and includes HD output for connecting to your set. the Moov V780 also comes with a carry case with keyboard, so it can easily become a Web browser or e-mail station. And it will show photos and YouTube videos, and includes a slick new 3D interface.

Mio will give more details at a press conference on Thursday. Nice move, Mio; this could be a hit of the show.

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Feb 26

IBM Scientists Analyze, Break Traffic Gridlock

Posted in: gps, science, Today's Chili

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IBM announced yesterday a new research initiative that could slash travel times, by building personalized routes for commuters to avoid traffic gridlock.
At a smart transportation event in Washington D.C, IBM announced that its researchers are using advanced analytics to develop adaptive traffic systems. These systems, in theory, could “learn” traveler patterns and behavior–sort of like an advanced version of TomTom’s IQ Routes for its GPS devices, which is based on historical data.
The researchers are developing models that go one step further, and actually predict the outcomes of different transportation routes, from which it will devise personalized recommendations for specific commutes. This is much more useful than plain traffic reporting, which talks about jams after they happen in the hopes that commuters can learn the reports and avoid the jams in time (often without success).
There’s no word yet when we could see consumer-level applications of this technology. For more information on the research, visit IBM’s dedicated Smart Traffic site. (Image credit: IBM)
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Feb 25

Ford Adds HOV Routing to Sync

Posted in: Ford, navigation, sync, Today's Chili
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Ford is unveiling a new voice-activated version of Sync that will let customers take advantage of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes when applicable. The system will come with select 2011 Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles, and will feature HOV lane guidance for over 2,500 miles of carpool routes in various congested metropolitan areas throughout North America.
The new 2011 Sync navigation system, powered by TeleNav (the same good folks behind AT&T Navigator and Sprint Navigator), also features HD Radio support, plus a SIRIUS Travel Link portfolio with traffic reports, incident alerts, and route suggestions to get around trouble areas. In addition, 2011 Sync includes improved street data displays with branded POI information, and shows more street names at each zoom level than before.
Later this year, Ford Sync will also integrate with a new Sync Traffic, Directions, and Information app for downloading destinations from a home or work computer via Mapquest. The 2011 Mustang will be the first car to receive the new Sync setup.
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Feb 05

Multitouch Pinch-to-Zoom Hits Motorola Droid

Posted in: Android, motorola, Today's Chili

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Motorola Droid owners: it’s time for you to freak out.  Google just dropped a new version of Google Maps and it offers pinch-to-zoom multitouch. Simply go into the Android Market, search for Google Maps and you’ll be given the option to download the update for your Motorola Droid.
The Motorola Droid’s web browser and picture gallery still do not support the pinching gesture, though that’s likely to change very soon.  As reported earlier this morning, Google has updated the Android 2.1 OS to support he gesture in the web browser and picture gallery applications, but that will most likely require Motorola to push out an OS update to the Droid (which they said is the works.)  Sprint subscribers will see Android 2.1 on the HTC Hero and Samsung Moment sometime later this year. 
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Feb 03

Navteq: In-Car Real-Time Traffic Use Doubles

Posted in: gps, navigation, Today's Chili, tomtom

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More than 145 car models available in North America–about 43 percent–now integrate real-time traffic on full-screen navigation systems, according to new data from Navteq, the digital map and traffic company. (Navteq claims it powers the data from 90 percent of those systems).

This also mirrors the growth of real-time traffic in portable navigation devices (PNDs) like the TomTom 340-S LIVE and the Garmin nuvi 1690, as well as cell phone apps like AT&T Navigator for the iPhone and Google Maps Navigation for Android.

The next step: making these traffic reports much more accurate. As it stands, across dozens of GPS and cell phone app reviews, I’ve seen about a 30 to 50 percent accuracy rate for individual traffic jams. More often than not, a device with real-time traffic will report congestion ahead when there is none, report nothing when there is a jam, or otherwise interfere with a programmed route to avoid a jam that may or may not exist.

Basically, there aren’t enough sources of data. This is a problem across all GPS vendors. Having the real-time data helps, obviously, but for now, take it with a grain of salt.

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Jan 21

TomTom: U.S. Drivers Keep Speed Limit (Mostly)

Posted in: gps, navigation, Today's Chili, tomtom

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Drivers in the U.S. tend to stay within the speed limit range on most major highways, according to new GPS data from TomTom. The company crunched numbers from its Speed Profiles database, sourced from TomTom’s Tele Atlas map business unit and a part of TomTom’s trademark IQ Routes feature that tracks the average actual speeds of drivers on typical routes.

It found that even drivers in the fastest stages–Mississippi, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, and Alabama–stayed either within or just over posted speed limits of 65 to 75 mph. This next bit is news to no one, but congested routes like I-95 on the eastern seaboard exhibit dramatically different average speeds in different sections, with the slowest being in Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Interestingly, Montana was nowhere to be found in the top group; that state famously lifted all numerical speed limits in December 1995 and replaced them with “reasonable and prudent,” and did things like issue $5 “energy use” tickets for anyone driving under 100 mph. That whole thing didn’t stand up in court very well, so it was repealed four years later.

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Jan 05

Garmin Unveils Golf-Focused GPS Device

Posted in: gps, navigation, Today's Chili

Garmin_Approach_GPS.jpgGarmin has launched the Approach G3, a golf-specific GPS device with over 12,000 preloaded course maps. It runs for up to 15 hours on two AA batteries and requires no subscriptions or annual fees.

The 5.3-ounce device includes a 2.6-inch touch screen with Play and Preview buttons.  It delivers distance information, current location info, and nearby fairways, hazards, and greens. Tap on the map, and the Approach G3 tells you what club you need to overcome a hazard.

The Approach G3 features vector mapping. A complete course list can be found at www.garmin.com/golfcourses. No price or release date has been announced yet, though it should ring in at a lower price than last year’s Approach G5.

Update 1/5/10 10:52 AM ET: The retail price will be $349.99, according to a Garmin spokesperson.

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