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Here are posterous posts filed under tomtom...

mobilemissionary says...
Nov 28, 2009

Say goodbye to stand alone GPS units.

Mobilers want one device.  That's how it goes.  Our phones have decent media players now, they have decent cameras now too and the same kind of integration is edging out the stand alone GPS devices.We're not feeling you anymore Garmin, we aren't Gel'n with you anymore Megellan, and Tom Tom, say, "Bye, Bye."  You guys are nice for our vehicles but the same little devices that keep you affixed so nicely on our dashes, work great with or GPS enabled cell phones.  Don't believe me?  The the grey matter out over at www.physorg.com .  What did I tell ya?

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vicchi says...
Nov 16, 2009

The (Geo) Data Dichotomy Dilemma

Before Web 2.0, before mashups, before FreeOurData.org.uk and other pleas, before the Internet itself, things used to be so much simpler for geo data. You were either an end user and accessed the data as a map or you were a GIS Professional and accessed the data via a (frequently very expensive and very specialised) Geographical Information System. But now we have geo data, lots of geo data, some of it free, some of it far from free, both in terms of usage and cost and a fundamental problem has replaced the paucity of data.

Everyone wants free, open, high quality geo data and no one wants to pay for it. But it's not quite that simple.

The recent acquisitions of Tele Atlas and Navteq, the two big global geo data providers, by TomTom and Nokia respectively show the inherent value in owning data. But owning the data isn't enough any more as the market for licensing the data is a shrinking one, despite the phenomenal growth of the satnav market, both in car and on mobile handsets. Why is the market shrinking? Because no one wants to pay for it, at least directly.

TomTom, primarily a hardware vendor, are differentiating into the software and data market,  seems to be concentrating on the PND usage of the data, although we've yet to see how the outlay necessary to acquire Tele Atlas coupled with the overall economic downturn will effect their overall 2009 earnings. Their Q1 2009 report somewhat dryly notes that "market conditions were challenging" and that "we are making clear progress with the transformation of Tele Atlas into a focused business to business digital content and services production company". There may be other aspirations at play here but for now at least, the company is keeping quiet.

Nokia, also primarily a hardware vendor in the form of mobile and cellular handsets, are also moving away from their roots and into a wider market, hopefully in an attempt to stop the encroachment of upstarts such as HTC, Apple and RIM into Nokia's traditionally strong smartphone heartland. Again, Nokia has yet to make a public play into this arena but all the composite elements are in place to enable this to happen.

Taking the opposite route, Google, which started off as a software player are now moving to being a player in the data market by gathering high quality geo and mapping data under the smokescreen of gathering Street View. This has allowed them to gather sufficient data to supplant Tele Atlas as a data provider, at least in the Continental United States.

All three companies are either making or have the prospect of making determined plays in the location space but all three of them have ways of leveraging the value inherent in their data. Google has their unique users, their search index and a vast amount of advertising inventory; TomTom their satnav customers; Nokia their handset customers, albeit one level removed with the Mobile Network Operators as an uneasy partner and intermediary.

So what of the open data providers? It's important to remember here that open doesn't always mean free, it means the ability to create derived works and to use the data in ways that the originator may not have immediately foreseen. True, a lot of open data is free, but even then it's the Free Software Foundation's definition of the word.

"Free (software) is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer."

The poster child of open geo data is OpenStreetMap, the "free editable map of the world". Founded in 2004 by Steve Coast, OSM has enjoyed phenomenal growth in users and in contributions of data that can be used anywhere and by anyone and which espouses the values of free as in speech and as in beer. As with all community or crowd sourced collaborative projects, OSM's challenge is to sustain that growth and once complete coverage of a region is reached, in keeping that coverage fresh, current and valid. We'll leave aside that fact that complete coverage is an extremely subjective concept and means many things to many people.

Traditionally strongest in urban regions, one of OSM's other key challenges is to match the expectations of their user community who consume that data rather than those who create it. Both internationalisation of the data and expansion out of the urban conurbations will potentially prove challenging in the years to come. That's not to say OSM isn't a significant player in this space and the quality of the data, though varying and in some places duplicated, is for the majority of use cases, good enough. This was backed up by research undertaken by Muki Haklay of UCL which answered the perennial question of "how good is OSM data" with a pithy "good enough".

Attempts to capitalise on and monetize the success and data corpus of OSM through the Venture Capital funded Cloudmade have yet to deliver on the promise and with the exception of a set of APIs, Cloudmade has announced the loss of their OpenStreetMap Community Ambassadors and the closure of their London office. All of which lends credence to the fact that simply owning the data isn't enough.

So how to solve the dichotomy of geo data? Everyone wants it but no one's willing to pay for it with the exception of the big players, the Googles, the Yahoos and the Microsofts of the world and control of the proprietary data sources has centralised into TomTom and Nokia, both of whom are well placed to capitalise on their data assets but who haven't yet delivered on that promise.

Maybe the answer is twofold. Firstly develop an open attribution model whereby the provenance of an atom of data can be tagged and preserved; this would remove a lot of the prohibitions on creating derived works at the original data provenance could still be maintained. Secondly allow limited usage of proprietary data at varying levels of granularity, accuracy and currency, thus creating a freemium model for the data and stimulate developer involvement in donating data to the community as a whole.

It's too early to see whether this will come to pass or whether an already tight hold on the data will become tighter still.

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Dead Simple says...
Oct 30, 2009

Google Stepping on Turn-by-Turn Feet

While the Google Android has become the darling of mobile manufactures
and operators not selling an iPhone around the world there is one
group of companies that are decidedly unhappy about Google's latest
version of the mobile operating system Android 2.0.

With the unveiling of Android 2.0 Google has released a turn-by-turn
based navigation system for free. From looking at the video on
Engadget (http://bit.ly/2Mu5O1) the most notable flaw seems to be that the maps are
solely stored in the cloud as opposed to a Garmin or TomTom system.
Google says that as long as you don't stray too far from the
pre-determined route there should not be a problem with dropped
reception because the route has already been cached. Revenue for
Google could be gained through sponsored links when searching for
non-specific destinations e.g. a restaurant.

The question then naturally arises who will pay for a Garmin or TomTom
when Google's version is free and available on your phone? Also how
long before this makes its way onto the iPhone?

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joe says...
Oct 29, 2009

Google Maps Navigation.

via mashable.com

The dude in the blue shirt is really annoying. But what he says is simply amazing!

Google just released a beta version of Google Maps Navigation (for Android 2.0 phones like the new Motorola droid.) Watch what it can do!

  • Search in plain English 
  • Search by voice
  • Turn-by-turn navigation
  • View of live traffic data
  • Search along route
  • Car Dock Mode
  • Satellite view & Street View (!)

And the best part: It's absolutely free.

(Btw. Look what this did to TomTom & Garmin.)

Update: It may also be available for the iPhone soon... =)

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mid0 says...
Oct 28, 2009

Google and the Deadly Power of Data (GPS)

Today, as soon as Google showed off its beta GPS navigator, the stocks of Garmin, TomTom and other companies in that industry fell into the toilet. It's hard to compete with free Google apps, but that's not why they're screwed...

via gizmodo.com

These companies were stuck on basic business models and failed to see the benefit of innovation and revisiting experience with their products. How have navigation and GPS systems changed in the last 10 years? Accuracy? little improvement, downloading your favorite narrator/highway dictator voice, points of interest? Road-side assistance? and then what? that's it...

This should be a beginning for more innovations to come into this marketplace.

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robwagner says...
Oct 19, 2009

Surprise - TomTom Car Kit brings GPS to Iphone 2G / Ipod Touch (First Generation)

Now that is a surprise. Just now i saw this Video about the TomTom Car Kit and it works just fine with the Iphone 2G.

It, in fact, delivers GPS to the Non-GPS Iphone 2G and works just great with 3rd party apps like Navigon & Google Maps.

Even though the Apple store is marketing the Car Kit as being compatible exclusively to the 3G and 3GS, it is surprisingly able of handling the 1st gen iphones as well. See for yourself in the video below (German version, but see what happens)


I am not sure if it works for the ipod touch as well but leave a comment if you have tried it.

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Investometer says...
Oct 15, 2009

Breaking News: investometer, calibration of 360 European Stocks based on Equity Analyst Recommendations 15 October 2009

(download)

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TV@ says...
Oct 12, 2009

TomTom NEWS: Sicheres Navigieren und Telefonieren mit dem TomTom Car Kit für das iPhone

München, 12. Oktober 2009 – TomTom gibt bekannt, dass das TomTom Car Kit für das iPhone ab heute im TomTom Web Store und im Apple Online Store bestellt werden kann*.
„Mit dem TomTom Car Kit für das iPhone bieten wir innovative Funktionen, die ein optimales Fahrerlebnis und eine ideale Navigation auf dem iPhone ermöglichen”, sagt Benoit Simeray, Vice President Mobile On-Board bei TomTom. „Bei der Entwicklung des Car Kit wurde besonderes Augenmerk auf Sicherheit und Qualität gelegt, um iPhone-Nutzern die best mögliche Handhabung im Auto zu bieten.”

Die wichtigsten Funktionen des TomTom Car Kit für das iPhone
Das TomTom Car Kit für das iPhone trägt zur sicheren Fahrt bei und verbessert die Autonavigation.

Enthaltene Funktionen:

Sichere Halterung
- Die sichere Halterung im einzigartigen Design befestigt dank einer so genannten twist-und-lock-Drehung das iPhone an der gewünschten Stelle an der Windschutzscheibe oder auf dem Armaturenbrett.
- Die verstellbare Halterung lässt das iPhone einfach vom Hoch- ins Querformat wechseln, um das iPhone optimal anbringen und die Route im Breitbildformat anzeigen zu können.
- Am Zielort angekommen lässt sich die Halterung einfach mit einer Drehung wieder abnehmen.

Verbesserte GPS-Empfangsleistung
- Der integrierte GPS-Empfänger senkt in Gegenden mit schwierigen Empfangsbedingungen – z.B. in innerstädtischen Häuserschluchten oder in bewaldeten Gegenden – die Gefahr, das Signal zu verlieren.
- Egal wo, die Genauigkeit der Standortbestimmung ist signifikant genauer als ohne das TomTom Car Kit.

Integrierter Lautsprecher und integriertes Mikrophon
- Über den integrierten Lautsprecher sind Sprachanweisungen stets laut und deutlich zu hören.
- Das integrierte Mikrophon und der Lautsprecher ermöglichen die Nutzung des iPhones als Freisprechanlage während der Fahrt.

Weitere Funktionen
- Laden des iPhones während der Fahrt.
- Musik aus dem iPhone kann über den AUX OUT Port über die Stereoanlage des Autos gehört werden**.

Preis und Verfügbarkeit
Ab heute ist das TomTom Car Kit für das iPhone im TomTom Web Store (www.tomtom.com) und im Apple Online Store zu einer unverbindlichen Preisempfehlung von 99,99 Euro inkl. Mehrwertsteuer erhältlich. In den kommenden Wochen wird das TomTom Car Kit darüber hinaus in allen Apple Stores sowie in den Filialen von Gravis und bei Apple Premium Resellern in Deutschland erhältlich sein.

In den USA wird das TomTom Car Kit für das iPhone demnächst verfügbar sein – sowohl im TomTom Web Store, im US Apple Online Store als auch im Handel.

Weitere Informationen
Kompatibel mit iPhone 3 G und iPhone 3 GS.
Bitte beachten Sie, dass die TomTom App für das iPhone nicht im Lieferumfang des TomTom Car Kit enthalten ist.
Sowohl die TomTom App für das iPhone als auch das TomTom Car Kit funktionieren gut als separate Lösungen – durch die Kombination der beiden TomTom Lösungen erzielen Nutzer eine Navigation, die mit der eines PNDs vergleichbar ist.
Das TomTom Car Kit erfordert ein iPhone mit Apple OS Version 3.0 oder neuer.

* Das TomTom Car Kit für das iPhone ist in folgenden Ländern erhältlich: Belgien, Dänemark, Deutschland, Finnland, Frankreich, Großbritannien, Irland, Italien, Luxemburg, Niederlande, Norwegen, Österreich, Portugal, Schweden, Schweiz und Spanien
** Erfordert ein kompatibles Autoradio mit AUX IN Port und ein zusätzliches Audiokabel

QUELLE: TomTom

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Investometer says...
Sep 15, 2009

Breaking NEWS: investometer® Free Calibration of Analyst Recommendations for 316 European Stocks 15.09.09

(download)

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fedmor says...
Sep 14, 2009

TomTom risponde a Microsoft e rilascia OpenLR

Conosciamo tutti i cavilli legali sui brevetti che ha sottoposto a per obbligarla ad adottare soluzioni più compatibili ai sistemi operativi : la notizia è che, ciò nonostante, l'azienda ha dato il via a , una sorta di standard "aperto" che consentirà una maggiore libertà nella creazione di servizi correlati alla mappatura stradale — come le informazioni sul traffico e quant'altro.

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