Category — Business Of GPS

Audiovox Pulls Out Of PND Market

by Justin

Audiovox GPS

Happen to be a fan of Audiovox PND’s? Definitely not a big player in the portable GPS market up until now, and now not a player at all. In announcing its Q1 fiscal results in New York on Friday, the company said it will pull out of the portable navigation market due to pricing pressures. Despite the tough GPS times, electronics %sales were still up from last year’s first quarter numbers and account for 78.7% of the company’s net sales for this quarter.

via twice

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July 13, 2008 No Comments

Streetline: Finding A Parking Spot In San Francisco Will Become Easier

by Justin

$Streetline \"Bump\"$ Finding a free parking spot in San Francisco may become a helluva alot easier this fall when the city initiates a massive wireless project with 6000 of its 24000 metered parking spots. The project will use special wireless sensors produced by tech company Streetline, adapted from something called “smart dust” devised by Berkeley researchers. The device, called a “bump” is nothing more than a 4 x 4 inch piece of plastic glued to the concrete that is battery-operated and built to last for 5-10 years. Placed next to each parking space, the sensors form a giant wireless internet network that send traffic data to parking meters and then to a central management office.

City officials will then have up-to-date info regarding which parking spots are open. The sensors will also be used to learn more about San Francisco traffic congestion by monitoring traffic speeds on city streets. For those driving around actually looking for open parking spots, Streetline will display open parking spaces on a dedicated website that people can access on their smartphones. There is also a possibility that dedicated street displays will be used to direct people to nearby vacant spots.

San Francisco officials hope that by 2010 all parking spaces and garages will use the technology.

via new york times (Photo Credit: Peter DaSilva)

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July 12, 2008 1 Comment

Nokia Completes Navteq Purchase For $8.1 Billion

by Justin

After receiving approval for the $8.1 billion purchase of Navteq from the European Commission, Nokia has completed the purchase well ahead of the August 8 deadline. The European Commission was initially concerned the purchase could lead to a monopoly of the digital mapping market by Nokia, but after TomTom’s purchase of TeleAtlas felt that their was enough competition to justify the Navteq purchase.

Nokia mobile phone users will already be familiar with Navteq, a big player in the Nokia Maps service which covers over 200 countries, 70 of those completely navigable. We expect big things in the future from this duo. Check out the full release after the jump.

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