Slashgeo

The Map Room and All Points Blog links to a Wired article on TeleAtlas and NAVTEQ data collection strategies. From the article: "Next, GDT acquired detailed aerial photography of major cities. "We could look at a street and see which way cars were parked, even tire rubber going into intersections, and deduce 85 percent of the turn restrictions and one-way attributes," Cooke says. Some state transportation departments offered video footage of their streets to GDT, and Cooke's employees would fast-forward through hours of tape, noting every road sign. Impressed by how much faster and cheaper maps could be updated with this approach, Tele Atlas, a Belgium-based company, bought GDT for $100 million in 2004." On this previous story, we learned Tele Atlas wants to benefit from customer feedback to improve maps.

Slashdot discuss a story where TomTom admits its GPS satellite navigation device shipped infected with a virus. Their summary: "TomTom has admitted to a UK security journalist that a number of GO 910 satellite navigation units shipped with two Trojans installed on the hard drive. But still no sign of an official warning on the TomTom website."

redgeographics writes "According to this article, TomTom and 2 other manufacturers of car navigation systems are sued by Encyclopaedia Britannica. It appears that E.B. has filed patents for a computerized map viewing system and feels that the navigation companies are infringing on those patents. So... why did it take them so long to feel threathened? How will this affect our industry?"

As expected, the Nokia acquisition of NAVTEQ made ink flow. I'm to blame for not having linked to the official press release in my previous coverage. Amongst the reactions, here's Vector One short analysis, GeoCarta discuss how this acquisition could mean trouble for Garmin, and then there's All Points Blog extensive coverage: links to many media reactions, link to why Nokia should now buy Skype, link to why Google never considered buying NAVTEQ themselves and the impact on the price paid by TomTom for TeleAtlas.

In case the news hasn't reached you guys yet, Nokia is in talks to purchase NAVTEQ. I heard it from a 3rd party source, but it seems like it's shaking things up a bit (for them at least). A quick google search reveals some news activity today about it: read more on Bloomberg and Trading Markets. Update: 10/01 20:03 GMT by S : APB discuss the impact of the deal on Garmin. Slashdot discuss the acquisition. Expect more analysis from various medias in the coming days.

All Points Blog links to an article on the future of NAVTEQ. From the article: "[...] creating street-level map data is a slow, expensive, and labor-intensive but low profit margin process with high entry barrier. That is why there are only two major players. Thanks to the growing importance of Location-Based Services/Solutions [LBS], it becomes clear that if you own the data, you could control the market. [...]" The article comments on four scenarios: "1. NVT stays independent, 2. GRMN Acquiring NVT – GRMN and TomTom control GPS, digital maps and all Location-Based Services/Solutions [LBS], 3. Google or Microsoft acquiring NVT and 4. Private Equity Acquiring NVT", and in each scenario, NAVTEQ wins.

The Map Room links to a GPS Review article about a comparison of NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas, the two main rivals in road databases. The article's conclusion: "So would I now recommend Tele Atlas maps over NAVTEQ in the USA? Not necessarily. I’m keeping my prior position that the map vendor isn’t currently something that should be a big consideration when looking to purchase a GPS device in the USA. If these results are representative of the entire database the difference between them would only amount to finding less than a dozen more addresses in a year, navigating to a new address every day."

Here's a few geonews items mainly related to cellphones and location-based services. Spatial Sustain informs us of the new "send to GPS" feature linking Google Maps and TomTom devices. Second, MacRumors discuss an Engaget story about TomTom (possibly, it's a rumor!) developing a GPS module for Apple's iPhone. Meanwhile, APB links to a NYT article wondering if Nokia can make serious inroads in the American market of cellphones and location-based services, and finally, APB runs a short entry on TeleNav and Navizon offering free small location-based services applications. Several related previous stories copied below.

The Map Room links to a Wall Street Journal article on the digital roads duopoly between NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas. From the article: "Neither bid could be justified by the financial performance of the companies -- Navteq is modestly profitable while Tele Atlas is losing money -- but analysts say the buyers were willing to pay a "strategic premium" because of the value of mapping data to all players in the GPS industry. Now investors and regulators are raising questions about the implications of the two deals." See also related stories below.

A few geoblogs highlighted Garmin's withdrawal from the Tele Atlas acquisition bid and the long term agreement between Garmin and NAVTEQ (owned by Nokia). The Map Room links to a short Engaget story and APB to an article on the withdrawal. All Points Blog provides a few additional links on the settlement of Garmin with TomTom regarding intellectual property cases. The agreement's introduction: "NAVTEQ (NYSE: NVT), a leading global provider of digital maps for vehicle navigation and location-based solutions and Garmin Ltd. (Nasdaq: GRMN), today announced the completion of a long-term agreement that provides Garmin access to NAVTEQ map data through 2015 with an option to continue through 2019." See also related stories below.

GIS Lounge links to a BusinessWeek article named "The Paperless Map Is the Killer App". From the article: "First, cell phones made the streetcorner pay phone obsolete. Now they're doing away with the need to ask for directions. A surge in phones with built-in satellite navigation capability has sparked a wave of creative mapping and locating services. And it has set off a multibillion-dollar scramble by companies to buy up digital navigation technologies. [...] As more players jump into navigation, it has triggered a wave of deal-making that reflects the nervousness of established players. Makers of car-based or other dedicated (nonphone) devices worry that competitors will gain control of essential mapping data, which show names and locations of streets, homes, restaurants, and hotels and must be regularly updated." Related are the 162 million navigation-ready cell phones hitting the streets this year.

It looks like the TomTom buyout of Tele Atlas isn't a done deal. Bloomberg is reporting Garmin will make an offer for Tele Atlas just before TomTom's offer expires. From the article,

"A bidding war has started," said Jesper Kruger, who helps manage about $64 billion at ATP in Copenhagen. "TomTom needs this asset, so they will have to increase their offer by at least 20 percent."

Watching competitors TomTom and Garmin fight this out will be interesting. It could get even more interesting if others jump into to this bidding war as well. Navteq and Tele Atlas were really the only viable world players for that kind of data and with Navteq getting bought by Nokia, TeleAtlas is a unique opportunity. Update: 10/31 17:17 GMT by S : Here's the associated press release from Garmin.

This morning I received an invitation to the TeleAtlas Maps in Apps 2007 contest, so I thought that I would share it with all of you. The contest is described as "targeted at consumer and business applications that are not LBS focused, but include mapping or location as a functionality enhancement." Winners of this contest will be showcased on public websites and at the Tele Atlas booth at CTIA 2007. They will also receive cash as prizes and free Tele Atlas map data. Registration is open till September 23rd so register now and get hacking! TeleAtlas is using this contest to announce their new Tele Atlas® DeveloperLink(SM) program. The program is described as:

A "free online resource for developers of Internet, mobile, and other next-generation digital map applications. The service provides sample data, sample applications, technical tools, and business resources to help developers reduce time to market and increase their potential for success. Members gain access to Tele Atlas' peerless database of geographic content, and to the world's largest community of geographic application developers."

It will be interesting to watch this and see what exciting new applications come from here.

In the never ending task of providing the best aggregated news to our users, here's several GPS-related stories, catching up from the last two weeks. First, APB links to a story telling us Garmin now sells more GPS worldwide than TomTom, the same blog also discuss the number of personal navigation devices, up to 45 models, and links to a few generic articles on GPS. The Free Geography Tools talks about Prune, an open source Java-based GPS track visualization and photo geotagging tool. And finally, The Map Room links to an article on the sad state of GPS loggers for Macs.

The DataLibre blog informs us that Toronto will soon have street view data acquired by Tele Atlas. From the blog: "This CBC.ca video gives a brief on how 2d and 3d street view data are collected. In this case it is the city of Toronto and the data collector is Tele Atlas. [...] At 500 km a day and terrabytes of data, these folks are collecting and selling tons of geo-information that we like to play with on google earth, help find places in mapquest, and allow city planners or police forces to prepare evacuation plans, understand the characteristics of the route planned for a protest or know the point address in a 911 call."

Tele Atlas has announced the availability of Tele Atlas Connect, a "Global Solution for Digital Map and Location-based Applications", that expands their digital map coverage to over 200 countries and territories. This extended coverage allows for seamless mapping and routing across national boundaries and a standard database format ensures its utility with current and future geographic applications. GISuser.com has the full news release here.

All Points Blog discuss the new service by TomTom called MapShare, which allow users to share corrections to the TomTom maps. Some screenshots here. From the press release: " Via TomTom HOME, TomTom Map Share™ users also receive all map improvements made by others, making their maps as dynamic as the world they live in. TomTom Map Share™ is a proprietary map improvement technology unique to TomTom, which enables users to easily and instantly improve maps. TomTom users can respond in real time to changes in the road network and correct the maps on their TomTom devices accordingly. Thanks to the smart user interface, it is easy to make improvements, such as to mark blocked or unblocked streets, reverse one way traffic or insert new street names, which will instantly take effect." TeleAtlas launched a similar initiative called MapInsight last summer. Recently, Tele Atlas enriched its content by using historical traffic speed information.

The news is spreading fast. The TomTom/TeleAtlas deal is moving ahead. Reuters is reporting that "TomTom, the world's biggest maker of car navigation devices, won unconditional permission from the European Commission on Wednesday to buy its main map supplier, Tele Atlas, for 2.9 billion euros ($4.5 billion)." EUBusiness reports the EU scrutiny determined that "the deal would not significantly reduce competition in the SatNav sector".
The next obvious question is how this impacts the NAVTEQ/Nokia deal...