Waypoints — September 5th, 2010

Waypoints is a weekly link roundup of (mostly) GPS related odds and ends. To get many of these stories as they break, follow me on Twitter.

GPS in the news

• GPS for motorcoach using 40" HDTV as monitor
• Supreme Court, Congress need new rules for GPS searches
• Having home address entered helps with return of stolen GPS
• Miss Manners: Don’t be rude to the GPS lady
• Russians launch three GLONASS satellites

Garmin

• Monday (Labor Day) is the last day to take advantage of this great deal on the Garmin Oregon 450
• Win a Garmin Forerunner 310XT
• Montana Trails v3
• I don’t think there’s any big news here, but Garmin’s TrailTech blog has a new post on map selection improvements
• The nuvi 855 joins Garmin’s discontinued list

TomTom

• TomTom looking at social network location features
• TomTom to power navigation  in Sony Xplod units
• New version of TomTom app for iPhone coming

Updates

• Garmin BaseCamp v 3.0.6
• Garmin Dakota v 3.30
• Garmin GPSMAP 62 / 78 v 2.50
• Garmin nuvi 12xx v 4.60
• Garmin nuvi 13xx / 14xx v 4.60
• Garmin Oregon x00 v 3.90
• Garmin Oregon x50 v 3.80

The business of GPS

• NAVTEQ Natural Guidance will tell you to “turn right after the yellow shop”
• Western Europe PND Sales Revenue Down 21% in 1H 2010
• 90 million smartphones forecast to ship with free navigation in 2014 vs 39 million PNDs & OEM systems; via @gayotrguy2
• And yet there are still companies getting into the PND arena
• RF MEMS to improve performance of handset antennas; I wonder how this might impact GPS
• TeleNav-powered MyFord Touch Debuts in Ford Edge & Lincoln MKX
• And I thought I was verbose – Mike Dobson on TomTom, TeleAtlas and MapShare

Android

• Motorola Defy – a ruggedized Android phone
• How Quickly Does GPS Use Kill The Battery On An Android Phone?
• Dealing with Android battery limitations
• Bing Maps Goes Native On Android
• Garmin-Asus A10 Coming Soon (to a Country Not Near You)
• The problem with Android screenshots; via @phonedog_john

Just geo

• Nice satellite image of three tropical storms
• Burning Man 2010 in Google Earth
• Australian family discovers squatters on their Croatian property via Google Earth; via Ogle Earth
• Map Scripting on Geocoding

Miscellany

• Share your geocache finds on Twitter (you must be logged in for link to work)
• Remember the folks biking Alaska’s Lost Coast with the DeLorme PN-60w + SPOT? They’ve posted a couple of batches of pics 
• National Geographic Adventure reviews EveryTrail
• CoPilot upgrades traffic on its nav app
• Wikitude Drive brings AR navigation closer  
• Clickable POIs and brand icons come to Google Maps
• Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden wants to modernize cell phone laws

Updated GPS reviews

I’ve updated these review and resource pages with the following links:

• Garmin Forerunner 110 – Ryan Hall on this entry level sportswatch
• Garmin Forerunner 305 – reviewed by a Sardonic Catholic Dad
• Garmin Forerunner 310XT – TTahko.net compares it to the Forerunner 405CX
• Garmin GPSMAP 62s – GPS Information reviews this new unit and the 78sc too
• Garmin nuvi 3790T — Websneak reviews this high-end nuvi; CNET reviews it too
• Geomate.jr – A YouTube video demo of this dedicated geocaching unit