Nokia Map Loader v2.0 has been graduated from the Nokia Beta Labs beta website to the main Nokia website. In the formal released version, a number of bug fixes / new features have been added compared to the beta, namely;

• Vista 64 issue is fixed
• S40 support added
• Included pc suite drivers in the installer that should make maploader independent from PC Suite

Nokia have confirmed that as well as planning a better UI for the software, they are also working on a Mac version, which will be welcomed by many.

If you head to the Nokia Maps webpage, you’ll find the latest versions of the Nokia Maps client for your phone, as well as v2.0.2 (at the time of writing) for your PC.

Whilst we’re still waiting for UK stocks, here’s an in depth review from the US of the Garmin Oregon from GPS Tracklog, which covers a lot of the user interface, which is the same across the world. Probably the biggest area of concern is the readability of the touchscreen whilst outside in the sunshine…

Head here to read the review.

In Germany, it appears, according to Pocket GPS World, that using your mobile phone whilst driving is illegal. However, a court has now taken that a step further, and decreed that using the mobile phone for SatNav is classed as “using” your mobile phone (even if no call is taking place), and hence ruled that using one as a SatNav is also illegal. We’ve clarified the article with Pocket GPS World, and they have confirmed that this applies even if the phone is mounted in a holder.  So, if you are heading off to Germany in the next few months, and use a phone based SatNav, think twice…

SatMap have released another update for their SatMap Active 10 unit. This is available for download, unlike previous versions, which were sent out on CD. You do need to have v1.16 or above to be able to install this new version, v1.2, but hopefully SatMap will continue to provide downloads from now on.

The enhancements with the new software include:

• Charger Control
• SDHC Support
• Improved map zoom handling
• UTM and MRGS Coordinate schemes
• Improved memory handling

Information courtesy of Pocket GPS World.

Whilst everyone is covering the iPhone story in greater detail than we could do it justice, we’re going to cover the formal announcement of the Garmin Oregon.  We covered much of the spec earlier in the week here, but here’s some more formal information from Garmin, including some comparisons with the Garmin Colorado range.

The 200 (above left) will just have the basemap, whereas the 300 (above right) has the shaded relief worldwide basemap.  The 400 series adds particular US maps (just like the Colorado), so will not hit the UK.  Neither the 200 or 300 have detailed maps preloaded, but both have a microSD card, as well as their internal memory for storing those additional maps.

The 300 also includes the wireless support, for the exchange of tracks, waypoints and geocaches between other Oregon units and Colorado models. It’s also equipped with a barometric altimeter and electronic compass and is compatible with Garmin’s heart-rate monitors and speed/cadence sensors (all of these features are missing on the 200, so we suspect the 300 will be the biggest seller).

Geocaching is even easier with the Oregon, which quickly downloads online information for every cache, such as location, terrain, difficulty, hints and description, so that you don’t have to take printouts with you. Oregon users can experience Wherigo™, the newest GPS-based activity from Groundspeak, the people who made geocaching a worldwide phenomenon. Wherigo (pronounced “where I go”) is a toolset for creating and completing adventure games, historical tours or other innovative activities in the real world.

With the 3″ touchscreen, we think this is going to be a big seller in the coming months.  All models should be available in the US by the end of the month, although we’re still waiting to hear when they’ll be on sale in the UK.

The current rumours flying around the internet are that Garmin is going to release a new range of GPS devices in the next few weeks. The Oregon range will be a similar device to the Garmin Colorado although it will be slightly smaller, and feature a touchscreen. One colleague we recently spoke with said he was always trying to use the Colorado screen as a touchscreen, so welcomed a true touchscreen unit.

Although Garmin are usually tight lipped about new devices, it appears that somehow these devices made it onto both Amazon and Buy.com before being removed. As such, a fairly reliable spec has been obtained, and this includes:

• High sensitivity GPS receiver for improved performance and reception
• Easy to use, touchscreen interface
• microSD card slot for optional mapping and data storage
• Electronic compass, barometric altimeter, temperature sensor
• Built in 3D Basemap /Digital Elevation Model
• 3D elevation view
• Wireless exchange of user routes, tracks, waypoints, geocaches and images
• Unit dimensions: 4.5 in x 2.3 in x 1.4 in
• Display size: 3 in color, touch screen
• Pixels / H x W: 240 x 400
• Waterproof standard: IEC 60529 IPX7
• Battery type: two high capacity or lithium ion AA batteries
• Weight: 6.8 oz with batteries

The specs above are for the 200 unit, with a 300, and a range of 400 units (similar to the Colorado 400 range) will also be available in the US. Given the main difference between the Colorado 300 and 400 models is the amount of memory to fit in the included US maps on the 400 range, we suspect that again the 400 range may not make it to the UK, leaving us with the 200 and 300 though. The main missing feature from the Colorado will be the Naviwheel, which isn’t needed due to the touchscreen.

Story via the Groundspeak Geocaching.com forums (no registration required to view).

If you have a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, and have been fed up with the slow GPS lock times, then there is a solution.  Firstly, you need to install the new OS firmware (Diablo) onto your machine using the Nokia Internet Tablet Firmware Updater (Windows only).  Then, you need to install the A-GPS additional program. The A-GPS program, will help locate you whilst the GPS continues to try to lock.  You give the application a very rough location in the world (by clicking on a map), and it will then use an internet connection to improve that link.  However, as well as supporting a link via Bluetooth to a mobile phone (which will use the phone’s cell tower IDs to locate you), it’s also possible to locate you via WiFi.  It achieves this by feeding the initial GPS data back to a central computer at Nokia which helps process those fragments of GPS information to produce a location faster than the lock.

This update makes the Diablo update well worth applying.  Although things are perfect yet (most apps need the author to confirm compatibility and provide their applications to the new application repositories), you can still access the old “Chinook” software respositories (unlike the last major OS jump, everything is binary compatible this time).

Now the only thing remaining is for Nokia to have a word with Wayfinder and get them to update the actual maps.  The maps included with the tablet are from 2006/7, and since then Nokia have updated the Nokia Maps (for Symbian) a couple of times, so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t sort this out.  In the meantime, you may want to look at Maemo-Mapper, which uses OpenStreetMap map data, which is constantly being added to and updated, and because Maemo-Mapper uses the built in GPS support, it also benefits from the new A-GPS faster lock times.

If you are a semi-regular visitor to London, and you’ve ever been fined for forgetting to pay the London Congestion Charge, then the KenBuster may be for you!  It’s a GPS based device, and whenever you go inside the congestion charging zone, it notifies back to the KenBuster HQ, who arrange to make the payment for you automatically; no more forgetting to pay!

This looks a very interesting device, and it knows the charging times throughout the day, so won’t automatically charge you unless the rules require payment.  Obviously, you have to provide the company with your car and credit card details to allow them to pay on your behalf.  Whenever a payment is made for you, you receive an SMS and an email confirming the payment has been made, and they provide a “secure website” for you to see the payments they have made for you.  It also sends a daily SMS, which will help alert you if for some reason the device has failed to register you entering the zone (or of course, you simply left it at home).

The device costs £200 with no monthly ongoing costs (alternatively, you can buy it for £50, and pay £8 per month with a minimum 12 month contract).  Finally, for those who forget, but don’t want the automatic payment system, you can simply pay them £8 per month, and they will send you a daily SMS reminder, and if you have been in the zone, you can reply to the SMS, and they will then make a payment for you.

A nice device, integrating technology (GPS, and “communication provided by Orange”) with a real problem, it only takes a few fines for this device to pay for itself, and the additional lack of having to deal with the payment daily may make it worthwhile to others too.  With the fine currently at £120, and 5,000 people being fined daily, there appears to be a big market for this device!  The only question remains: will they remain the device to be the BorisBuster…? [The answer is no; "The Congestion Charge was Ken's idea and will be his legacy."]

Thanks to Pocket GPS World who alerted us to the device in the first place.

Many people have speed camera databases loaded into their SatNav, and we support and recommend Pocket GPS World as one of the most accurate and regularly updated camera databases for the UK. However, up to now, if you used Nokia Maps on your Symbian phone as your primary navigation device, you were left without speed cameras. This is now resolved. If you head to this HOWTO at Pocket GPS World, they’ll explain what you have to do to get their database working on your phone.

Basically, you have to install a freeware application, and the subscribe to the Pocket GPS World site (if you aren’t already a subscriber), and download the “Nokia Speedcam” specific database from their site, and you’ll have working, and up to date speed cameras on your phone. The software has only been tested on a UK N95 with Nokia Maps v2, although there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work with every S60 3rd edition phone, and, like Nokia Maps, it supports Bluetooth GPS units if you don’t have a built in GPS.

NavNGo have announced that users who bought iGO MyWay 2006 can now upgrade to iGO MyWay 8 Europe. If you bought the European version of iGO MyWay 2006 in 2008, the upgrade is free, else it’s just £70. If you only bought a single country version, then you’ll have to wait a little longer, as the memory card supplied is too small to take the new 3D maps.  More details are available from NavNGo.

Story courtesy of Pocket GPS World.

We’ve mentioned NavNGo’s iGO MyWay 8 software before, and now you can read a lot of information about it. PocketGPSWorld have published their review of the software, covering nearly every possible aspect of the software.

Head over to Pocket GPS World to read the review.

As predicted a week ago, Nokia have announced the E66 and E71 phones.

The Nokia E71 has a built in GPS, QWERTY keyboard, a 3.2megapixel camera, is 114mm x 57mm x10mm and weighs 126g.  It should be with us in Q2 or Q3, and features a new Calendar application, which we’re certainly interested to learn more about.

The Nokia E66 is the successor to the E65, and is a slider.  It features a 2.4″ screen, but packs HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, and also has a 3.2megapixel camera. Both phones support the latest Ovi sharing tools Nokia is promoting, ie Nokia Maps (both features A-GPS), as well as music and media sharing, features that might more traditionally have been only seen on the Nseries range of handsets.  As part of their Eseries Enterprise capabilities, both can encrypt both their internal memory and memory cards, both can access Microsoft Exchange Servers, and both feature the MobileVPN client.  Some security settings can be managed centrally as well, which will make them even more popular with large corporate customers.

Maplin are selling a GPS Tracker, which offers the ability to record your location as you travel around.  It can record at a variety of differing levels, providing either greater accuracy, or a greater time period the logs are recorded for.  Unlike other units, it doesn’t support external media cards, so you are limited by the internal memory, but for most people it will still easily cover a day or two of photography.  It uses the Sirf Star III chipset for greater accuracy, measures 47 x 29 x 12mm and weighs only 21g.  It’s claimed to be compatible with Google Maps and Google Earth, and is water resistant.  For £39.99, it might well be worth a look for many budding photographers…

Thanks to Mark at Automated Home for the heads up.

Not wanting Apple to get all the attention yesterday, some leaked pictures of a new Nokia phone were leaked out. The phone, believed to be the N85 (the prototype is labelled N00, as many Nokia prototypes have been in the past), features dual LED flash and a lens cover (a feature missing from some other high spec Nokia phones). As with many other high spec Nokia smartphones, it features GPS, a 5 megapixel camera, and geotagging.

More information over the coming weeks and months as and when the details are released.

Tonight Apple launched the iPhone 3G as expected. The device has a number of improvements over the previous iPhone…

• 3G Data support
• Available in 8Gb (Black) and 16Gb (White) versions
• The back of the device is now black plastic
• Improved audio
• Headphone socket now flush with the device
• Built in GPS with Location Based Services (eg news specific to your location)

Alongside this, Apple have released more details on the type of applications that will be available via the App Store, and even some key new features coming in the new iPhone 2.0 software (which will be available to existing iPhone users and iPod Touch users for a small fee). One of the key new features is the Mobile Me service (which replaces .Mac); this offers a nice integration between the iPhone, your PC and your Mac. For example; read an email on your iPhone, and it will get marked as read on your other devices; that’s the sort of integration we’d like to see more people promoting (of course, it can be done today with other services, but how many of them promote such a tight integration facility?).

Much more detail can be at Apple, and it will be available in the UK on July 11th.

Here’s the newest device from HTC, the Touch Pro, adding a sliding keyboard to the overall Touch design look and feel (it’s mainly based on the Touch Diamond). The Touch Pro has a good all round spec:

• HSDPA, Bluetooth and WiFi
• 2.8″ VGA screen
• Windows Mobile 6.1 featuring HTC’s TouchFLO 3D interface,
• QWERTY keyboard, including the fifth number row
• 3.2 megapixel camera
• microSD slot
• GPS built in
• 512MB ROM and 288MB RAM

A good spec, and with HTC’s keen followers, it’s likely to sell very well. The first versions should use the European 3G frequencies and be available in the “late Summer”.

At Computex 2008, Asus have launched another interesting device; a SatNav GPS unit with a HUD! This looks very interesting, and something that we like the idea of; providing next turn information including the distance to the junction on the HUD.

The display looks nice and clear, and certainly a good indication of what we could be driving around with in the next few years. The picture below shows the actual HUD unit providing the picture being projected.

There’s no information on whether or not Asus will be providing European mapping, or whether they plan to release the device in Europe, or the UK, but we certainly hope it becomes available.

As with all our Computex stories, pictures and information are courtesy of linitx.com.

Well, it’s been discussed and rumoured for some while, but Broadcom have confirmed the new 3G iPhone will have a GPS chipset within it. This is, apparently, to comply with the 911 emergency rules in the US; that is, the ability to be able to locate the device and provide that information to the emergency services whenever an emergency call is made. Given all the other hints, it’s looking likely that this will be accessible to the end user.

More information here.

According to this article on the BBC website, sales of smartphones will outstrip laptops in the next 12 to 18 months. With Symbian recently reporting that more than 200 million Symbian smartphones have been manufactured and shipped (the actual figure is at least 206 million), and Nokia predicting it will sell over 35 million GPS enabled handsets in the coming year, it’s all go for smartphones.  It will also be interesting to see how the other manufacturers react; there’s already strong indications the new 3G iPhone will ship with a built in GPS, or at least GPS support.

BBC Link via SMS Text News.

Here’s something we strongly approve of… It’s a SatNav unit designed for HGV drivers, but priced at a similar level to other SatNav units. As a driver, you enter the height, weight, length, and any other potential factors, and the SatNav will choose HGV-friendly routes which will avoid roads / bridges / corners / weight limits that the vehicle cannot navigate. It can even avoid roads with cross winds or steep hills. The device uses NAVTEQ Transport data which includes all this additional data to help the unit. It’s also got hazardous goods information, information on loading bays and HGV fuel stations.

With a few button presses, the unit can have the HGV restrictions removed, so can be used in normal vehicles too, but anything that helps to avoid HGV drivers blindly follow their SatNavs and ending up on the front page of the BBC website or a national newspaper has to be a good thing.

There’s no support for receiving traffic data, although the unit does support a safety camera subscription, which is free for the first 6 months.

Maplin seem to have picked up, and the ProNav should be available from their stores in the near future. We expect other Navteq SatNav manufacturers to look at this unit and work out whether there’s a market, so we may well find other units offering this amount of customisation in the next year or so.

More information at Pocket GPS World.