ABI Research - Telematics Industry Blog Feed

Telematics will be an Increasingly Important Piece of the Bigger Picture

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:50:33 EDT

General Motors and Carnegie Mellon University today announced a renewal of their joint efforts to push forward the development of autonomous driving (click here for the press release). With considerable proven success already in the last two DARPA Challenges, this has been a good relationship for GM over the last 8 years, delivering both experience with the latest technology and some very good public relations coverage. CMU has welcomed the te ...

Telematics Detroit 2008

Tue, 27 May 2008 07:41:52 EDT

Telematics Detroit took place from 20 till 23 May in Novi, Michigan. It has now become the default North American telematics event from which no self-respecting North American telematics company can afford to stay away. A great achievement for UK-based Telematics Update.

Several observations could me made. First of all the OEMs and TSPs were attending in big numbers, highlighting the revival of in-car telematics solutions with Ford and BMW sending many of their key employees to the event. At the same time there was an acute sense of realism across the event, in sharp contrast with many overhyped navigation and LBS ev ...

Navigation and LBS at CTIA

Mon, 7 Apr 2008 16:51:36 EDT

From a navigation perspective, the most important event at CTIA was probably Mio showcasing their connected PND prototype which will be available in the second half of 2008. During CTIA Mio Technology also announced a partnership with ATX to deliver real-time content based on ATX’s content delivery infrastructure. AT&T launched AT&T Navigator based on Telenav software and for the first time offering speech recognition for destination entry on a handset-based navigation solution exclusively available on AT&T for a monthly subscription fee of $9.99. AT&T Navigator offers real-time traffic info, gas prices and local search ...

Navigation Highlights at CeBIT 2008

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:36:08 EDT

Navigation was one of the main themes of CeBIT 2008 with all major navigation players concentrated in two halls. While most companies now prefer to reserve their major product announcements for the Mobile World Congress, CES or CTIA there were still some new product releases to be seen. TomTom showcased its new IQ Routes technology based on average road speeds based on real measurements collected by TomTom users resulting in faster routes and more accurate travel time prediction. Garmin was showing its Mobile PC solution which consists of navigation software and the Garmin GPS 20x sensor with USB connection. It also launched the low-end nüvi 2x5 product range offering phot ...

The Mobile World Congress 2008: Pedestrian Navigation at Last!

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:32:37 EST

Pedestrian navigation has been talked about for a long time. Despite the fact that many navigation solutions did include a pedestrian mode setting, none of these were worthy of that name. This has now changed following a slew of announcements on the first day of the Mobile World Congress which is taking place in Barcelona this week. For the first time phones can be used for a variety of pedestrian type navigation applications such as tracing car parks or metro stations, finding the location of a business meeting or city sightseeing for tourists.

The Garmin nÃ¼vifone: Another Attempt at Designing the Perfect Converged Device

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 05:03:56 EST

While many PND vendors such as TomTom, Magellan, Mio, Dash and Mobile Devices are focusing on connected Personal Navigation Devices, Garmin has chosen the different route of developing a handset with integrated navigation. It may not be the easiest route. Undoubtedly, the iPhone has served as a successful and tempting example of how to adapt the handset form factor to accommodate data applications in a user friendly way. While the iPhone has clearly made the case for mobile web browsing - for the first time – it is less clear how successful a navigation-centric handset will be. With the launch of the nüvifone, Garmin is reopening ...

Cruising Towards Automated Driving

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:47:01 EST

Nissan recently announced that its new Fuga model for the Japanese market will feature an adaptive cruise control option that links to its navigation system. This is another step towards automated driving. Adaptive cruise control is becoming available on an increasing number of models from a growing number of manufacturers, and offers automatic speed adjustment to the traffic ahead. The new feature from Nissan adds extra information from the navigation system to reduce speed going into a sharp curve and resume the selected speed afterwards.

Incremental improvements such as this are significant steps towar ...

Report from Navigation & Location 2007

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:49:18 EST

December 4^th and 5^th were the two days of Navigation & Location 2007, sponsored by Telematics Update. Our colleagues at Telematics Update must be quite pleased, as there was standing-room-only attendance and the sessions were all very well presented and very interesting. Across all the panels, presentations, and conversations I had with other attendees, a few key themes definitely emerged.

< ...

It's all about the Navigation User Experience

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:32:39 EST

Two navigation system suppliers have been kind enough to provide me with demonstrator units, and I won’t denigrate their desire to improve by naming them here. But I will use them as an example of what must happen in the navigation space, before navi systems can be seen as mass-appeal devices delivering a user experience worth spending money on. Only those companies who get the experience right will be able to hold any kind of margin as things develop and more alternative solutions become available.

Europe’s Galileo Satellite Project Remains Bogged Down by Political and Funding Disagreements

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:53:42 EST

The Growing Galileo conference took place in Brussels on 14 and 15 November, organized by the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) bringing together the whole ecosystem of Europe’s satellite technology industry. The main aim of the conference was to promote Galileo and strengthen overall support. Mrs. Barsi-Pataky, member of the European Parliament and Rapporteur for Galileo, made an emotional call for support. The conference also showed Galileo will provide excellent opportunities for European technology companies. The attention given to Galileo will result in increased up-take of location applications some of which ...