Hasta La Gadget!

Ford’s been keeping itself busy on the navigation front, and while you may have noticed that 2010 just began a few weeks ago (on the Gregorian calendar, anyway), 2011 model year vehicles are already on the minds of those in Dearborn. 2011 models with voice-activated navigation systems will be getting an update that brings along HOV logic, helping users who travel with a buddy to get from point A to point B more hastily if carpool lanes are nearby. Of course, only 2,500 miles of those blanket America, so a few other updates might be intriguing to those of you who are sane enough to live outside of the rat race. Branded POI icons, higher density street labeling and HD Radio will come standard on voice-controlled NAV systems, and potentially most interesting is the notion that “integration with SYNC Traffic, Directions and Information (TDI) app — enabling new features like the ability to download destinations sent from a home or work computer from Mapquest” — will hit later on in the year. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading Ford adding HOV logic, ability to download outside Mapquest destinations to 2011 NAV systems

Ford adding HOV logic, ability to download outside Mapquest destinations to 2011 NAV systems originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

BARCELONA — Garmin-Asus has announced a pair of new Nuvi cellphones at the Mobile World Congress. One is a sleek, fast and easy-to-use Android handset, the other is a clunky device that runs Windows Mobile 6.5.3.

The WinMo-powered M10 is a Windows Mobile cellphone with a 3.5-inch touch screen and navigation features. I hated it from the moment I fired up YouTube and was greeted with a desktop-style scrolling list of countries do I could agree to terms and conditions. With a stylus I might have had a chance at hitting “Spain”. With a finger, it was impossible. I moved on to the Android-powered A50.

The A50 is a rather nice device. It definitely feels like an old-school smartphone, not a new-style mobile computer like the Nexus One or iPhone, but it is single minded in its purpose: Travel. Garmin’s map application is as good as you would expect, and managed to get my position right even inside the conference center. It keeps running if the phone rings, too, so you won’t get lost as you dangerously try to talk and drive at the same time.

And because the phone knows where you are, it uses this information to help in other ways, too. For instance, it’ll give you local gas prices, weather, traffic conditions and even public transit information. But this would be pointless if the interface was as bad as that on, say, the M10. Thankfully, Android was designed for touch-screens, and the big icons make it easy to find your way around the 3.5-inch HVGA capacitive display.

With Google Maps on the latest Android phones incorporating turn-by-turn navigation, and the internet itself offering much of the info found on the A50, the appeal diminishes here. But if you’re a frequent traveler, the newest Nuvi might be worth a look. More pictures below.

Garmin-Asus M10 [Garmin]
Garmin-Asus A50 [Garmin]

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.

It was only a week ago when Nokia shook us with its free turn-by-turn navigation update, but the poor old N97 got left out in the cold. Not any more though, folks! In fact, the new Ovi Maps for N97 was delivered one day earlier than promised, and can be found “through the software update client in the device.” Thanks, Nokia, but don’t forget your N900 fans, too.

[Thanks, @old_no_7uk]

Nokia updates N97 with free Ovi Maps, just as promised originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Nokia Conversations  | Email this | Comments

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.