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Source: Middle East Maps
In a new report, market research firm iSuppli expects the inclusion of GPS technology in cell phones to explode, reaching 79.9 percent of cell phones shipped in the fourth quarter of 2011 (amounting to 318.3 million units), against 187.8 million units or 56.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009.
GPS adoption driven by Smartphones
“The smart phone is the key product driving the technology industry today—and social networking services and applications spurred by GPS-related features are critical elements in the smart phone market today,” said Dr. Jagdish Rebello, director and principal analyst for iSuppli. “This is illustrated by Google Inc.’s decision to make turn-by-turn navigation, LBS and mobile ads the central features in its bid to take on Apple in the smart phone market, and make up the central pillars of its strategy to increasingly monetize mobile search.”
Market research firm iSuppli expects shipments of connected PNDs in Western Europe to rise to 4.6 million units in 2014, up from 388,000 in 2009.
iSuppli believes that PND makers are likely to answer the challenge brought by smartphones in offering differentiated, connected devices. iSuppli indeed noticed that “TomTom, in particular, has gone in a new direction with its latest connected PND—the GO 1000 Live.” iSuppli thinks that open up the platform to third party content and services provider is going in the right direction.
IWM co. digital mapping company announced a range of update and improvements for Iran GPS map. The new version of Iran GPS map releases with more cities and many improvements. (Read more)
IWM co. is the main digital mapping company in Iran which develop Iran Digital map for Garmin GPS and Navitel systems.
The new versions of Iran GPS map for Garmin and Navitel are available here.
To inform Iran GPS map users and customers, IWM co. sat up recently a daily map update blog (See here) with daily coverage of Iran GPS map updates, releases and improvements.
Iran GPS map news blog runs in both English and Persian.
The U.K. market strongly leads in growth of smartphone adoption over the past year, growing 70 percent to more than 11 million subscribers. France ranks second in growth with the number of smartphone subscribers up 48 percent to 7 million. Meanwhile, Italy boasts the largest number of smartphone subscribers overall (15 million) but showed the softest growth in this market at 11 percent.
Overall shipments of smartphones are forecast to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 25.9% between now and 2015.
According to IMS Research analyst Chris Schreck, “There are two key drivers for the booming Asian smartphone market. First, the cellular markets in China and India continue to develop, especially with 3G networks expanding in China and expected to rollout soon in India. The populations of these countries are significant enough to drive substantial smartphone growth, even if smartphones make up a relatively small portion of the country’s total handset shipments. Secondly, smartphones are becoming increasingly affordable. As the minimum hardware components required to support smartphone features continues to decline in price, smartphones have become mass market devices, rather than luxury purchases.”
Blaupunkt’s new display system, ‘Dual View’ lets user to view two different images from the same screen, at the same time, depending upon the angle they view. This means the driver and the front passenger can see two distinct pictures when looking into the same display. It makes possible to see both entertainment programmes and sat nav navigator when viewed from passenger seat and driver seat respectively.
The model is been expected to be produced by next year and will be first introduced in high end car models like BMW 7 series.
In about three years the sat nav technology has gone through a drastic advancement so as the survey team, currently using the latest techno survey cars. Initially they used only a laptop computer and a small display screen as the main equipment for survey but now the whole setup has changed, the entire car is packed with technology with hardly enough room to get in.
The Survey Car
The exterior appearance of the car look quiet regular to other cars, holding a luggage box on the top. However once the lid of the car is removed, you can see an industrial GPS antenna and a perspex dome hiding in which when driving around the town, gains attention of the people. The dome contains an array of about 6 cameras that are video cameras which constantly capture images while the car is in motion. 
Out of 6 cameras, three are placed to the front, one on each side and one covering the right shoulder view. Altogether as the car is traveling, the video camera’s are positioned to cover all road, side roads and footpath.
The data put down from the camera is then integrated with the GPS signal while each frame of the video is Geo referenced. In case there is a mismatch among map data, the image is reference in order to obtain precise information. GPS is the main instrument for the survey which need to have great industrial strength since it is a crucial system. The antenna works fine for ground but in case of tunnel mapping, Gyros and motion sensors are used as back up by the GPS.
The car has got all necessary equipments, a network and docking station for a laptop, a wireless connection between keyboard and mouse and a microphone which is suspended from the roof to allow the surveying person to report what he is seeing. A simple keyboard, touch screen display and trackball controls all these equipments.
The Survey Car On The Road
As the car moves around the road, the video cameras starts capturing the features of the route while the analyst starts dropping icon, describing the POIs for GPS track is recording all these information. At office, the datas are downloaded and processed.
Processing Data In The Office
The video image and voice file is reference geographically with the GPS position. These info when loaded into the system provides number of POI on the map which could be later used to determine the current database.
A database is determined as the end result of the information which helps to generate maps that are been currently used in daily life in sat nav device.
As everybody knows, Google cars collecting Street View picture are indeed what Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ usually call “mapping vans”, fitted with the latest technologies. Besides offering nice pictures of the sunny Kingdom, a full Street View coverage indicates that the Mountain View company is getting closer to launch their own UK maps instead of relying on Tele Atlas data and their partner Ordnance Survey.
We can also expect soon thereafter their free mobile navigation system to hit the market as they did in the United States.
Google has also built a nationwide coverage of Street View for Spain, France and Italy, they said in the same press release. In addition, they have an agreement with Dutch map maker Automotive Navigation Data (AND) to use their navigable maps of Western Europe, comprising of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
The future will tell if Google Maps navigation will first launch in the UK or if they will wait to go for a wider move, at least across Western Europe.
