901am

New Media News Every Morning

Nokia Pulls Out a Big Surprise, Free Ovi Maps Worldwide, Forever

By

Today’s news headlines is definitely going to Nokia’s big surprise to date. How about this?  – turn-by-turn navigation on all its smartphones via the new Ovi Maps available worldwide and free forever. Well not really forever I supposed. Maybe for as long as your Nokia smartphones are working and functional and for as long as Nokia keeps on creating new smartphones that you’d eventually end up buying.

So according to the news, starting March 2010, all new GPS-enabled Nokia smartphones will come installed with the new version of Ovi Maps. This means that those smartphones will be able to provide you with free global sat-nav feature, or turn-by-turn walk and drive navigational maps.

As for the current crop of Nokia smartphones, the new Nokia Ovi Maps can be immediately installed. So, if you own any of these Nokia smartphones right now, you might as well get the new Nokia Ovi Maps up and running on them. These smartphones include Nokia N97 mini, 5800 XpressMusic, 5800 Navigation Edition, E52, E55, E72, 5230, 6710 Navigator, 6730 classic and X6. And Nokia promises to add more handsets into the list. [Read more…]

Originally posted on January 21, 2010 @ 8:29 am

Nokia Gives Less Fortunate Users from the Emerging Market a Cheap GPS Phone

By

If you’re a Nokia fan or user, you’d immediately think that the Nokia 2710 is another one of Nokia’s useless and possibly underpowered mobile phone. Well, actually it is, except for the fact that it has something which phone users from the so called emerging markets (read: developing countries) may actually use: GPS.

But knowing how these mobile phone users in the emerging market would not mind spending their hard-earned bucks for an expensive, high-featured mobile phone, I would be more inclined to think that the Nokia 2710 might actually become an instant hit in the “developed” market.

Anyway, who ever wants to have a phone pre-loaded with Nokia maps to get their way out of various locations, regardless of which countries they come from – the 2710 is possibly the cheapest GPS phone you can buy.

The Nokia 2710 features straight line navigation, with integrated digital compass and turn-by-turn driving route with full voice guidance – all for the sake of helping users find their way home.

In case you’re still interested to know, the Nokia 2710 also boasts of  a 2.2-inch display, 3.5mm headphone jack, quadband GS/EDGE and Bluetooth, and it can give you up to 18 days of stand by time and 4 hours and 2 minutes of talk time.

It will be out sometime in Q2 of 2010 for a cheap price of around $165.

via Intomobile

Originally posted on December 7, 2009 @ 10:00 am

Indoor GPS Function May Appear on Smartphones Soon

By

Broadcom recently announced that it has manufactured a new chip that has been specially designed for smartphones. The chip is notable because it will help accelerate the development and adoption of indoor positioning technology. The new chip will be able to record the accelerometer, gyroscope, compass and/or altimeter and use the collected data to feed into indoor positioning apps.

What are the ramifications of this chip’s new capability to collect this kind of data from the smartphone? Here’s an example. If the smartphone has identified the starting point, the smartphone owner’s steps and location can be identified, right down to whether the person is walking up or down stairs (through the altimeter), the general direction of the user (through the gyroscope), and his distance he travels (thanks to the accelerometer).

[Read more…]

Originally posted on April 26, 2012 @ 8:49 pm

Government Report claims LightSquared’s Service Affects Flight Systems

By

New wireless service provider LightSquared is being wracked by very negative reports regarding its technology. According to test made by the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing, LightSquared’s proposed LTE service interferes with the flight safety system. Specifically, it affects the alerts given to pilots about approaching terrain.

The FAA conducted the test of the flight control systems. The test revealed that LightSquared’s system actually creates a lot of interference in the safety system that was devised to alert pilots if it is going to encounter terrain or any kind of obstructions within its flightpath. [Read more…]

Originally posted on December 19, 2011 @ 11:40 am

Class Action Suit filed against Windows Mobile Phone 7 for Location Tracking Feature

By

A class action suit is likely being readied against Microsoft by consumers alleging that the software giant’s Windows Phone 7 operating system tracks the locations of phone owners without asking for consent.

A woman from Michigan has filed the likely class action lawsuit in a Seattle District Court. She claims that Windows Mobile Phone 7 gathers user data from owners of the phone, and continue to do this even if the owners have already opted out of the location-reporting feature. An equally damaging allegation is that Microsoft did not tell the truth to Congress about how much data from location information the device collects.

According to the suit, the location logging feature incorporated into Windows Mobile Phone 7 gets location and network information data directly from the device in order to build a map of WiFi hotspots, cell towers and other related data that can be employed for assisted GPS. The suit further alleges that the information gathered is not just to give phone owners a thorough location-based service but also to create a targeted marketing system that can personalized the ads that are sent to a user’s particular location.

Microsoft, which is expected to fight the class action suit, has assured the public and the US Congress before that data gathering feature will only work if the user has permitted an application to get location services. The company further clarified that the application only gathers location data and nothing else.

Both Android and iOS devices were also accused of getting location data without permission from users but these were eventually fixed in subsequent updates.

Image credit: technologyrekor.eu

Originally posted on September 2, 2011 @ 3:40 pm