Waypoints — November 6th, 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.

Handheld GPS news

• Magellan eXplorist x10 screenshots and more
• The November 2010 DeLorme GPS Challenge
• GPS Lodge on a new place to post GPS tracks – Breadcrumbs; Google Earth Blog has a post on it too
• Creating Garmin Custom Maps with Terra Incognita (warning: currently requires Global Mapper)
• Snow Ranger North America gets 22 new ski resorts
• A Maryland/Delaware/DC topo map (for Garmin receivers)

Geocaching

• Happy ending: Geocacher loses backpack with $23,000 (via @GoGeocaching)
• A Garmin chirp FAQ
• How many chirp caches are out there?
• Upcoming Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) webinar >

Updates

• Garmin Colorado v 3.50
• Garmin Training Center for Mac v 3.1.3
• Magellan eXplorist 510 v 3.21
• Magellan eXplorist 610 v 3.22
• Magellan eXplorist 710 v 3.23

TomTom

• The origins of TomTom’s name
• A new Aussie voice for TomTom

GPS in the news

• Ogle Earth on Egypt’s GPS ban
• 400,000th Defense Advanced GPS Receiver (DAFR) delivered to military
• This week’s edition of “My GPS made me do it”

The business of GPS

• Magellan switching from NAVTEQ to TeleAtlas?
• Garmin adds 3760LMT and 3790LMT to stable of nits with lifetime maps
• Garmin is hot in Taiwan
• Connected Garmin nuvi 1690 featured in 2011 Suzukis
• INRIX launches XD Traffic
• Garmin has a dismal Q3, which segues into…

Notes from the Garmin Q3 earnings call

The unattributed comments below come from my Twitter feed:

• Garmin plans to expand to new categories & subcategories in outdoor / fitness segments
• Outdoor / fitness segments provided 41% of Garmin’s total operating income in Q3 2010
• Garmin sees low end (down market) opportunities in fitness
• New Garmin fitness products with MetriGear intergration coming in 2H 2011
• Garmin: "App market is a tough area" want to leverage our content, application assets in this area (via @gpsnewsreviews)
• DC Rainmaker’s notes

Mobile

• We may eventually see a Garmin Android app on something other than Asus phones after all – see my update for the deciphering of PR comments
• TeleNav introduces MyTies — a private social network
• They also roll out APIs
• A live wallpaper of the Earth (for Android)
• What’s on the opposite side of the Earth from you? Find out with the Android Antipodal app

Just geo

• Nicaragua raids Costa Rica; blames Google Maps
• Google responds
• Mercator map distortions; via The Map Room
• Episode two of the Geospatial Revolution
• Using maps to lie
• Bing Maps is dropping their 3D version
• Cartography 2.0 online textbook; via Free Geography Tools

Miscellany

• Just a note to say that I’m ramping up my other site more as we approach Black Friday; there are already some good GPS deals posted there
• Consumer Reports thinks the Motorola Motonav TN765t is one of the best high-end navigators on the market! Hat tip to @gatorguy2
• DC Rainmaker posts some early thoughts on the Edge 800 and Forerunner 210
• I’m not sure what kind of applications there are for these, but I find ANT SD cards interesting
• Truckstop POIs
• Red light cameras routed at the ballot box
• China launches fourth Compass satellite this year, but have they all been successful?
• How to improve Beijing maps? Use GPS tracks from cabbies

Updated GPS reviews

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

• Garmin Edge 705 – From Fitness ‘n’ Weight
• Garmin nuvi 1390T – From a Hayabusa forum
• Magellan eXplorist GC — The Fire Wire reviews this geocaching unit