According to the article 57b of the Swiss federal law last month, the PND with a speed camera warning function may not be bought, installed or put into vehicles, or even used in any manner.

They may not be put on the market, i.e. fabricated, imported, sold or subjet of commercials.

According to the OFROU (Federal Road Office in Switzerland), police and customs may take those devices and establish a lawsuit. The tribunal will fix the fine and may judge the device's destruction. The OFROU has arguments and Tomtom politely answered. Yet, it advises the TomTom GO, RIDER, NAVIGATOR 6 and TomTom ONE users that have installed the Swiss Safety Camera Database to remove it when traveling in or through Switzerland.
Others involved devices are Garmin, Mio, Navman, Medion, Route66, Packard Bell, Sony and ViaMichelin ... at least.

Source: Engadget, beginning of the month.
For those who do not know: Some Portable Navigation Systems (PND) can warn you when you approach a fixed speed camera, if you installed a database provided by the manufacturer (Tomtom for example, the Safety Camera Database). This database can be updated day in day by using the police information or by the users via Internet or a mobile connection… Then you can download it regularly. If the process is fast enough, it's even possible to be aware of the position of the mobile cameras.

The navigational satellite GIOVE-A, launched recently, is the prototype of 30 satellites that will compose Galileo in 2010. Reminder: Galileo is a positioning system by satellite, the direct competitor of American GPS that everyone uses for the moment.

Because GPS satellites are payed by US taxpayers, the signal is free. Consumers need only purchase a GPS receiver. On another hand, Galileo must make money to reimburse its investors. That's why someone has to pay to get the PRN codes necessary to decode the signal.

And since Galileo and GPS will share frequency bandwidths, Europe and the US signed an agreement whereby some of Galileo's PRN codes must be open source. Nevertheless, after broadcasting its first signals on January 12, 2006, none of GIOVE-A's codes had been made public.

In mid-January, Mark Psiaki, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell and co-leader of Cornell's GPS Laboratory, requested the codes from Martin Unwin at Surrey Satellite Technology. Ltd, one of three privileged groups in the world with the PRN codes. Martin politely declined.
Then Mark contacts his friend Olivier Montenbruck, a German colleague. He realizes that even him wants to know the codes. Even Europeans were being frustrated!

Upset, Mark and his team develop in one week a algorithm to extract the codes. Two weeks later, he got a first result that he has to throw away 'cause the signal's repeat period was twice that expected. But in the middle of March, they end up with their first estimations, with a little tip from Olivier. Finally, on the first of April, they publish it on this website.
Two days later, Canadian-based GPS receiver manufacturer, NovAtel, downloaded the codes from the website and began tracking GIOVE-A for the first time.

Then, Galileo also publishes the PRN codes, mid-April. But they're not the ones used bu GIOVE-A. Furthermore, the same publication labelled the open source codes as Intellectual Property, claiming a licence is required for any commercial receiver.
"Apparently they were trying to make money on the open source code", says Mark.

But, afraid that cracking the code might have been copyright infringement, Psiaki's team consulted with Cornell's university counsel, and were told that while cracking the encryption of creative content like music or a movie, is illegal, cracking a navigation signal is an open game. Vamos!

The conclusion of this story: Europeans cannot copyright the data coming from a satellite that they built! It's quite odd if all the business-plan is based on seling the codes. I don't think so. And moreover, Galileo affirms that the final codes will be different. But now, we know how to do...

Anyway, a new market appears thanks to the mp3.
And VDO Dayton is a pioneer on this market. Because a CD or DVD drive is finally quite expensive, expensive for the manufacturer and thus for the final user. Then they decided to propose a new product, the MS5200 that can play music and read navigation map data from an SD card. Only.

It seems not important but it's quite rare.
Imagine a life without CD drive in the car. You can find that totally crazy, or you can find that totally useful, because you don't want to pay for something old-fashion. If you think like that, you're right in the commercial target of the new Siemens VDO.

Caracteristics:
• Compact hide away system (132 x 120 x 37 mm)
• Independent choice between 12 languages and 21 voices
• TMC integrated
• 2D and 3D maps view with Split Screen and Auto-Scale
• Adressbook (200 records)
• Automatic Station List (ASL)
• Map DataBase storage: 2 slots SD card (max 2 GB)
• GPS receiver 12 channels, Gyro, Speed Pulse
• Video: RGB, CVBS (NTSC)
• Audio: 1 x 5 Wpp @ 4 Ohm (external loudspeakers)
• connectors for a TV tuner, a DVD drive (ah!) or a rear-view camera.

A screen of 3,6 to 4 inches (10 centimeters), and a price from 1000 to 1200 dollars, depends on the map provider (TeleAtlas or Navteq).

USB and other mass storage in the cars, it's just the beginning. Even Visteon does it for VolksWagen.
And you? Are you ready to throw your CD drive away from your car?


Source : all-electronics.de, last month.

For those who do not know : VDO means Vereinigte DEUTA OTA.
It was a manufacturer of information and cockpit systems, navigation, telematics, communication and audio systems and control and fuel systems.
The company was founded by Adolf Schindling at the end of the 1920s in Frankfurt, Germany by joining DEUTA (Deutsche Tachometerwerke GmbH) and OTA Apparate GmbH. The company made speedometers and instrument clusters for passenger cars and commercial vehicles.
In 1991 the company was bought by Atecs Mannesmann. In 1999 Mannesmann was itself bought by Vodafone Airtouch and VDO was put up for sale. In 2000 the company was bought by Siemens Automotive and the companies merged under the name Siemens VDO.

on lesnumeriques.com, we find a comparative test of 26 Personal Navigation Devices, but it is in french.

for those who do not know : At the other side of the range, Navman also proposes the iCN330 at the price of 170 pounds. Very basic, very cheap.

navigation

In January, Tomtom bought the company Applied Generics.
From here, nothing turbo-interesting, you say.
Right.

Applied Generics is a Scottish company which developed a technology able to generate, in real time, accurate traffic informations.

How? here it becomes smart :
Analyzing the usage of cell phones and their move from one cell site to another one!
When there's a traffic problem on the motorway for example, the nearest cell should receive an amazing number of requests of connections. When the traffic is normal, connections comes, connections leave...
Add some datamining, and it becomes possible.

This technology can provide traffic data of high quality and at very low cost, since they use already existing infrastructures.


source : PR Newswire, January

for those which do not know :
- TomTom is a company that sells Portable Navigation Devices (PND) : TomTom Go, TomTom Rider, TomTom Navigator for PDAs, etc.)
- A cellular network is a radio network made up of a number of radio cells (or just cells) each served by a fixed transmitter, known as a cell site or base station. These cells are used to cover different areas in order to provide radio coverage over a wider area than the area of one cell. Cellular networks are inherently asymmetric with a set of fixed main transceivers each serving a cell and a set of distributed (generally, but not always, mobile) transceivers which provide services to the network's users.