Archive for the ‘News’ Category
On Wednesday, Microsoft Corp. filed a lawsuit against TomTom NV and Tom Tom, Inc., claiming the Netherlands-based company had infringed on several patents. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and in the International Trade Commission (ITC).
“We have taken this action after attempting for more than a year to engage in licensing discussions with TomTom,” said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing for Microsoft. The company reportedly listed eight patent violations found in TomTom’s Linux OS-based PNDs, three involving TomTom devices’ use of the FAT software file system and five relating to in-car navigation technologies.
“We reject the claim and will vigorously defend ourselves,” TomTom spokesman Taco Titulaer said in response.
Seiko Epson Corporation of Tokyo, Japan, and Infineon Technologies AG of Neubiberg, Germany, have developed a GPS single-chip design, the XPOSYS, which is optimized for mobile devices for the consumer market — especially cellular phones with navigation features.
Compared to existing solutions in the market, the XPOSYS, which is manufactured in a 65-nanometer process technology, provides increased performance and new levels of user experience, the companies said.
Sensitivity has been increased from -160 dBm to -165 dBm, allowing for pinpoint positional accuracy when indoors or in urban canyons. Power consumption has been reduced by 50 percent, increasing the battery life of products in which it is included. The footprint has been reduced to 2.8 x 2.9 millimeters, which the companies claim is 25 percent less than the smallest GPS chip available elsewhere and provides, together with only nine additional external passive components, design flexibility and substantially lower system cost for device manufacturers.
TeleNav just announced that their popular GPS navigation software TeleNav GPS Navigator for T-Mobile G1. It will be available starting February 24th. The software will support both landscape and portrait modes and will provide 3D turn-by-turn navigation, speech recognition, traffic alerts with rerouting, weather updates, restaurant reviews, gas prices, and over 10 million business listings.
It also lets you preplan your trips online through My TeleNav and use their browser plug-in to save addresses directly from other web sites. First month free and then it costs $10/month.
via navigadget
Qualcomm, Inc., has launched the Mobile Station Modem MSM7227 chipset designed to enable high-performance, sub-$150 smartphones. The MSM7227 chipset features integrated Bluetooth 2.1 and GPS, a 600 MHz applications processor with a floating point unit, 320 MHz application DSP, 400 MHz modem processor, hardware-accelerated 3D graphics, 8 megapixel camera, and 30 fps WVGA video encode and decode and display support.
The MSM7227 chipset is designed to provide advanced processing and multimedia while using HSDPA/HSUPA for broadband data speeds over 3G networks. It also can support all leading mobile operating systems including Android, Symbian S60, Windows Mobile and BREW Mobile Platform, according to the company.
“We see a significant opportunity to bring the best features of today’s smartphones to the mass-market segment,” said Alex Katouzian, vice president of product management, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “Our new MSM7227 chipset offers manufacturers an attractive blend of performance and price, software re-use from the prior MSM7xxx-series products, and support for the industry’s leading mobile operating systems.”
SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc., yesterday announced it has partnered with M/A-COM Technology Solutions, Inc., to help create a networked GPS module that provides location information to vehicle-based communications and entertainment systems that debuted at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.
SiRF also introduced the GSC3e/LPa single-chip GPS receiver, the first SiRFstarIII architecture product specifically built to meet the quality and reliability requirements of Tier-1 automotive electronics original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
M/A-COM Technology Solutions’ choice of the SiRFDRive2 GPS and dead reckoning technology, already adopted by LG Electronics and Continental Automotive Systems (formerly Motorola ACES), key suppliers to GM’s OnStar system, reflects SiRF’s continuing commitment to and success in the automotive telematics market, the company said. SiRF believes this market, which includes OEM telematics, eCall, mileage-based road tolling systems, advanced driver assistance systems, and vehicle location and fleet management, among others, could see accelerating growth rates over next several years as location becomes an integral part of vehicle platforms.
Taiwan’s Mitac International Corp. has completed its purchase of the consumer product division of Magellan Navigation Inc., reiterating that it intends to maintain the brand in North America, along with its other brand, Mio – but it did suggest that Mio would undertake a new strategy.
Mitac offered few specifics, however. Magellan’s consumer division will be renamed Mitac Digital Corp. and function as a Mitac wholly-owned subsidiary, but will continue to use the Magellan name and logo, according to Mitac. The division will be led by recently appointed CEO Kevin Chuang and will remain headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
It will share technological expertise with Mio, even as the two brands remain separate, according to Mitac. It has followed a similar strategy outside the United States with its acquisition of the Navman consumer brand.
Sure, we could just sit back and wait for Verizon Wireless to make good on their promise to unlock the GPS hardware in their high-end smartphone lineup to work outside of the carrier’s VZ Navigator premium navigation service.
But Verizon HTC Touch Pro users will be happy to hear that they will no longer have to live under Verizon Wireless’s tyrannical rule. Someone with username “lllboredlll” at PPCGeeks has already post how to fix Verizon GPS with his own way. So if you can’t wait anymore, read his post about Verizon GPS Fix but do not asking me since i’m just share this good news.
via intomobile
MEMSIC is a U.S. based company that manufactures CMOS Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) IC products. Their latest is called MMC212xM which is a Dual-axis Magnetic Sensor. Such chips are used for applications that involve any kind of electronic compass, GPS navigation, position sensing, etc.
MMC212xM promises to enhance digital compass functionality that will enable a host of new location-based services (LBS) in GPS enabled mobile phones and personal navigation devices.
It’s no secret that Garmin makes some of the best GPS units around. But with 27 different nüvi models to choose from, figuring out which one is right for you can be difficult. Want text-to-speech but don’t care about Bluetooth? Want a wide screen but not text-to-speech? Traffic? Lane Guidance? Choice, choices, choices!
Don’t worry, GPS Magazine already made a decision tree (diagram) to helps you choose the right nüvi. Two thumbs from me to the author.
Verizon Wireless offers several Windows Mobile smartphones that have GPS receivers with limited functionality. Specifically, these models only support Verizon’s navigation software, and not third-party apps Like Google Maps.
Today, this carrier has relented and promised to unlock the GPS on some of its recent Windows Mobile devices: the Samsung Omnia and Saga and the HTC Touch Pro. Verizon says updates to bring this change will be released in the first half of 2009.
[brighthand]
