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Archive for the 'GPS' Category


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Another explanation for the N810’s GPS
By  RogerS   November 27th, 2007 5 comment(s)
Categories: GPS, Internet tablet, Nokia N810 and walkaround web

I missed seeing an item in the New York Times technology blog, Bits, that Saul Hansell wrote. On October 10, he noted a report had come out from Telephia that said that “location-based services” accounted for half of all the money spent on cellphone applications.*

Half!

Hansell’s irritation centered around the fact that all this money is being spent on services like Verizon’s VZ Navigator, which “display maps and driving directions using GPS hardware built into phones. Verizon charges $9.99 a month or $2.99 a day for the service.”

“I already own” the phone and the GPS in it, Hansell points out, yet he and any Verizon customer still has to pay extra to use it.

Of course that rubs him the wrong way. And of course it’s great that a device like the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet takes the opposite approach.

But the subtext of Telephia’s report seems to me to be that people really like and use location-based services. That’s why half the money being spent on apps went for them. That seems to me to be a pretty big arrow pointing in the direction Nokia (or any company in the walkaround web arena) would want to be headed.

It’s nice to have some facts to flesh out the intuitions now and then.

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* in the U.S. in the second quarter of this year

Google’s vision of the walkaround web/phone convergence
By  RogerS   November 5th, 2007 0 comment(s)
Categories: GPS, Internet tablet, Nokia N810, phone and walkaround web

The New York Times (among many, I’m sure) is reporting Google’s “plunge” into the wireless world.Google, the Times says, is

leading a broad industry alliance to transform mobile phones into powerful mobile computers that could accelerate the convergence of computing and communications.

The Times points out:

Users would have the ability to load up their phones with new features and third-party programs.

“Today the Internet experience on hand-held devices is not optimized,” said Peter Chou, chief executive of HTC, one of the largest makers of smartphones. “The whole idea is to optimize the Internet experience.”

Of course, that’s the same thing we’ve been saying for a couple years about phones and tablets, from the perspective of the tablet/internet end.

And, interestingly to us tableteering types, Google’s Andy Rubin gives as an example of the incredible new things that will be available, “[T]he company’s StreetView feature of Google Maps could easily be coupled — mashed up, in technology speak — with another service listing the current geographical location of friends.”

Let me point out that Thoughtfix was there first. And since we have the pieces in place with the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet’s GPS capability, this application awaits only a developer to realize it and not new hardware utilizing Google’s new software.

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Added later: Here’s the AP take on this news, as reported in the Washington Post.

Where are you?
By  RogerS   October 23rd, 2007 34 comment(s)
Categories: GPS, Internet tablet, Nokia N800, Nokia N810, software and walkaround web

Over at TabletBlog, thoughtfix ended his item comparing the Nokia N810 and N800 Internet Tablets with this note:

“I realized that there’s more to a GPS than simple navigation. The Nokia N810 is a ‘location aware’ device and is open to location-based applications…. People can meet from across a rock festival without getting lost.”

I think that would be a really great application for someone to write — “I’m here, where are you?” And icons representing you and me both show up on a Google map.

Sure, when we’re talking about two people cellphones might be easier to use. But what about when it’s 20 people? (A scout troop at the World’s Fair. A family reunion at DisneyWorld.) Or when, as Daniel suggests, the people don’t know each other yet?

Definitely looking for this.

A ‘general-purpose system’ enables GPS
By  RogerS   February 10th, 2007 6 comment(s)
Categories: GPS, Internet tablet, Nokia N800, hardware and walkaround web

Nokia N800 navigation kit

One thing the Nokia 770 and N800 Internet Tablets have going for them is that they are the lowest-priced smallest-full-screened general-purpose portable devices around.

Oh, you know what I mean — they run a full OS with an 800-pixel-wide screen, they’re large-pocket-sized and they cost half the price of a comparably capable UMPC.

So what does that mean for us internet tablet users?

Last year, I pointed out that portable, electronic chess-playing devices cost a hundred dollars or more. Putting Gnu Chess into the Nokia 770 and N800 Internet Tablets obviated the need to buy a specialized chess device.

And no chess device has the incredible 225-pixel-per-inch resolution of the 770 or N800.

Half a dozen specialized e-reading devices — the Iliad, the Sony Librie, and others* — offer e-reading off a carryaround screen, a need that FBReader and Plucker Viewer** meet wonderfully well on the Nokia tablets, at a lower price.

Nokia is preparing to sell a Navicore GPS kit for the N800*** — a Bluetooth GPS receiver, 2 GB worth of European maps, a 1 GB memory card, car charger — so that your internet tablet’s large screen can be utilized very effectively in a situation where the visual really counts.

I know, do-it-yourself GPS-and-maps are already here. But already-packaged and Nokia-supported sounds attractive for the non-do-it-yourselfer. And I like the spoken directions — is that part of the GPS receiver? You want it, obviously, for driving use.

The GPS/Internet Tablet combo plays to the strengths of the N800 — there’s nothing it can do here that you can’t do also with a Bluetoothed notebook computer, but who considers that practical? Oh, I should add that the kit includes a car mount to hold the N800 in a position the driver can easily view. Probably not an option you can find for your notebook.

For us internet tablet users, the adaptability of the 770 and the N800 means our devices keep becoming more useful and more versatile and not less.
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* Not to mention the original e-readers from the 20th century like the RocketeBook (still sold today, rebranded eBookwise) and the Softbook devices.

** And soon (hopefully) dotReader

*** I believe a kit for the 770 is already available from Navicore, sans card and possibly requiring GPS receiver and maps to be purchased separately


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