Technology Vessel

For most people, the holidays mean travel. If out of state, could be through the city. On the river, through forests, to understand how the song goes. Many people also have this relative or friend who always gets lost, you can not follow directions, or leaves the country generally. Sometimes a parent or friend us.

Do you lose more when the grandmother’s house you go with a GPS navigator. These devices will give practical turn by turn directions, maps, easy to read, and often suggest restaurants, service stations and stops along the road. The best browsers to provide more information and assistance, so that your trip is as easy as possible.

Ditch the paper Atlas and misleading Google Maps and get directions or a GPS navigator for this season. Click here for our library.

Recently we praised the fast TomTom, iPhone intuitive, which makes the phone a step beyond the integration of Google Maps, making it a GPS device (for mounting on the dashboard, even). Now, MapQuest is also its implementation Navigator for the iPhone. Its interface is so smooth and full of features, you will not get the iPhone out of the box, although the subscription model may turn some buyers away.

Interface and functionality

MapQuest application can do many things: to give driving directions, local search (MapQuest has more than 16 million points of interest), using the iPhone GPS to establish a baseline, and even street names, which complained TomTom that the application can not do. Users also can choose between 2D and 3D.

One of the things that sold me is the carousel of interest that covers the bottom of the display. The icon-based menu navigation allows access to common categories of destinations, such as airports. This is the nice interface, with faster access to things people are interested in who sold me my memory in my hands.

Price and Availability

As I said, the application is a subscription service. Whereas the implementation costs TomTom nonrecurring charge of $ 99.99 (the car mount sold separately), MapQuest application costs $ 3.99 a month, $ 9.99 for three months and $ 29.99 per year. Is this a good deal? Depends on how you look. It is true that the subscription model means you are paying, but in a head to head with the implementation of TomTom at least, you should use more than two years to coincide with the investment of one hundred dollars.

What application wins? What should we wait until the hands of MapQuest application in a long-term situation of the real world. Until then, color us curious. Explore more screens after the jump.

Navigon has announced today that leaves the personal navigation device in North America (PND) market, due to economic hardship.

The good news is that if you are a current owner Navigon, CEO Egon Minar GPSBusinessNews.com Navigon said “continue to meet all its obligations to our customers in terms of upgrading the existing PND] [map s, etc.” I expect that the media support and “Lifetime Traffic,” are always included in the obligations.

The company expects to increase its mobile business, however. He recently signed with T-Mobile in Germany for integrated navigation in its line of smartphones. T-Mobile in the U.S. use Telenav solution on their aircraft.

Since version 1.0, 2.0 Dynaflow uses red, yellow and green color code to alert users, a glance, the roads are congested.

Today, Google announced the latest version of Google Maps for mobile version 3.0. The most attractive feature of the update is called Latitude and allows you to locate your friends on Google Maps, from your cell phone. Works with most phones BlackBerry, iPhone, Java enabled phones, Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile 5.0 + smartphones. You can also keep an eye on your friends to join iGoogle.

To start, just had to install the new version of Google Maps. Then click the menu button and select the latitude. In this menu, Äôll be able to see your friends and add new ones. Automatically pull contacts from your Gmail account and you can select the friends you want to see Ehud on a map. A tab allows you to share the privacy of their location manually, moved constantly, or hide it completely. Of the friends who had to approve and set their privacy settings.

When your friends will approve, Äôll see in Google Maps, each represented by a small square with a friend preset icon. If you pass the square, you can also see the updated status. We really want to be closely integrated with Google Talk, a simple, John ÄúMessage button, the African Union, for example, would be useful. Google could even add an icon green, red or gray that represents whether the user was online. We hope this will be added in a future update.

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Microsoft has announced a new update of its browser for the unit staff MSN Direct. MSN Direct provides information such as traffic, gas prices, weather, movie times and more navigation devices like the Garmin Nuvi 880 and Mio Moov S556M, but the improvements that will add more features to the driver’s seat sits more like a cabin.

Doppler Weather Maps

Improvements include full Doppler weather maps that provide weather updates, allowing you to view as text or images in all weather radar and map overlays. You will be able to see if the storm of rain in the front of the light, medium or heavy, you will make a decision on whether to stop and wait out the storm of miles before they need to run the risk of driving through him. More impressively, you will be notified if the conditions of ice or snow storm ahead are the light, the mixture of heavy and light ice or heavy snow. We are particularly impressed by these changes, which are most relevant to driver safety than ever.

Flight Status Updates

The system also allows you to check the latest status of flight. This is ideal when you need to pick up a friend at the airport and have to choose between going through McDonald’s, or try to get to time to see your friends of flight is delayed. You can check flight departure or arrival in the city or the flight number and the system will tell if the plane is on time, late, or if the flight is canceled or redirected to another airport.

Microsoft also announced that MSN Direct is available in 134 markets in 26 personal navigation devices, and air traffic service is available in two metropolitan areas, as usual.

You may (or not) said last million ad size: its Knight Rider GPS unit, which launched last year with minimal fanfare. Today, the company announced the most feature-rich and relevant Moov S556 Personal Navigation Device.

The S556 offers a relatively large screen of 4.7 inches and a brand new, “simplified user interface” that claims millions help clients achieve one of the 12 million points of interest faster. The menu offers eight simple screen first option: explore, find, Go, Music, My Places, Petrol, Settings, and Traffic.

The S556 also offers eight WCities preloaded, which provides information on local dining, lodging, commercial sites and entertainment venues in each city. If you need to call on the road, you can do so through the Bluetooth device support for integration with the agenda.

Mio is planning to provide users with a few bells and whistles on the S556 that will really help to drivers, rather than useless as a video player that does not really help people trying to get from point A to point B. If $ 299 is a bit steep, if the device is easy to use that claims millions of users will appreciate its features, and who will appreciate its sleek design and big screen. We will bring our impressions after getting a full practice.

With AT & T recently announced it would provide customers with assisted GPS capabilities on their phones, we have verified AAA Mobile Navigator, the solution AT & T had decided. Powered by Networks In Motion, the browser vendors AAA AT & T’s voice subscribers in turn guided by turn directions, local traffic alerts, gas prices, information and entertainment, even as local and Times film critics’ favorite restaurants.

But the most important aspect is its support for AAA service. Drivers can send their location using AAA Mobile Navigator directly to AAA for roadside assistance. For $ 9.99 per month or $ 2.99 per day, dark and desolate roads scare again.