Slashgeo

Tele Atlas introduces an online map feedback tool. From the press release: "[...] Map Insight, an online tool that allows users of Internet, personal navigation and wireless devices and applications powered by Tele Atlas data to quickly report changes to the company. [...] Changes to roads and points of interest occur every day, and the ability to quickly analyze and incorporate multiple sources of input is vital to generating maps that are fresh and highly accurate. [...] Map Insight adds an interactive, community-based perspective that Tele Atlas President and COO George Fink says is vital to the future of map development."

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.

It's my pleasure to announce that NAVTEQ Network for Developers(TM) (NN4D), introduced a year ago, is an active supporter of Slashgeo.org. This is great news for our thousands of geospatial professional readers. It opens the door to the sharing of additional pertinent content from NAVTEQ and will increase Slashgeo's visibility. We are also planning a few new related features which may interest several of our readers. No money is involved in the deal and rest reassured that Slashgeo will stay neutral and continue aggregating and discussing geonews from the geospatial community as a whole.

All 72 countries of NAVTEQ's map database will now be available to Yahoo! according to an announcement made by NAVTEQ on GisUser.com this morning. Among the back and forth of "we love you" and "no, we love you more" quotes in the announcement is this from Jeremy Kreitler, director of product management, Yahoo! Maps,

"As we continue to expand the range of sites that integrate Yahoo! Maps, particularly in the mobile and international areas, NAVTEQ's single global specification makes integration simple and allows us to put more of our focus on building great products."

BBC News writes about Nokia's Maps 2.0 beta release. Some exerpts from the article:
* "Nokia is taking navigation services out of the car so it can always be with you," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and CEO of the firm.
* "Nokia's announcement underlines its belief that GPS chips will become as ubiquitous in mobile phones as cameras. It has already made a $6bn (£3bn) investment in mapping company NavTeq to show that it is putting its money where its mouth is." * Mr Kallasvuo said: "Navigation is one of the foundations of the context-aware mobile phone. We believe it will be as important as voice capability was 20 years ago."