GPS reviews, news, tips, tricks and deals
MSN Direct has announced that they will cease operations on January 1, 2012. This will effect owners of Garmin nuvi x8x units, although with plenty of lead time, I doubt that it will be a huge issue for them. Garmin however, may have trouble marketing any backlog of these units they have on hand. You can read all the gory details here.
Via gpsreview.net.
The Garmin Dakota 20
The Lowrance Endura Sierra
The Magellan RoadMate 1440
I didn’t think this would take long. Some of the more technically adept GPS enthusiasts among us have put together some great tools for creating custom maps for the latest generation of Garmin handhelds. Here are two new ones released in the last day or so. Both allow you to create maps without manually calibrating them in Google Earth.
Created by Lester Pawlowicz of Free Geography Tools, G-Raster allows you to create maps from imagery freely available online. The following formats are supported:
The Magellan RoadMate 1220
UPDATE: The Oregon 200 has been discontinued. For current recommendations, check out our handheld GPS buyers guide or our Garmin handheld GPS comparison chart.
The Garmin Oregon 200
A lengthy and detailed interview with Mike Dobosn of TeleMapics has been posted at Search Engine Land, where the map data insider hypothesizes about Google Map’s data sources. What’s really fascinating though, is the peek inside the business of collecting and verifying map data. I may have to print this one out and read it several times. If you have any serious interest in the subject, this one is well worth your time. Here are a few tidbits:
On the collection of “anonymized” cell phone data:
“Yes, I know that it is collected anonymously, but if that track starts out at the same house each day and returns to the same house each night, doesn’t it suggest where you live? For that reason, at least one of the major PND companies, whose users have agreed to tracking, shaves the first two minutes and the last two minutes off of every path. Does everyone follow this standard? I don’t know, but everyone should be interested in how the DNA of their GPS traces are “neutered” by the companies using them. Further, the four minutes of data thrown away probably contains really useful information about local streets, but so it goes.”
There are a lot of new map makers out there now that Garmin has opened the door to custom maps on their latest generation handhelds.
And the results are cool. Just don’t expect those people standing around the Jefferson Memorial to be in the same place when you visit!
The process for adding aerial photos and topo maps is simple enough, once you find the imagery. To get you up and running faster, I’ve posted a list of sources for aerial imagery and various types of maps below. But first, let’s look at some of the acronyms and terms you’re bound to come across as you delve into this…
The Magellan Maestro 4370
