GPS

For most people, the holidays mean travel. If it’s not across state lines it might be across town. Over the river, through the woods, you know how the song goes. Many people also have that relative or friend who always gets lost, can’t follow directions, or habitually leaves them at home. Sometimes that relative or friend is us.

Never get lost when to grandmother’s house you go with a GPS navigator. These handy devices will give you turn-by-turn directions, easily readable maps, and often suggest restaurants, gas stations, and rest stops along the way. The best navigators provide even more information and help, making your trip as easy as possible.

Ditch the paper atlas and misleading Google Maps directions and get or give a GPS navigator this season. Click here for our favorites.

We recently praised TomTom for its speedy, intuitive iPhone app, which takes the phone a step beyond its integrated Google Maps, turning it into a GPS device (mountable on your dashboard, even). Now, MapQuest is at it, too, with its Navigator app for iPhone. Its interface is also slick and full of functionality you won’t get on the iPhone out of the box, although its subscription model might turn some buyers away.

Interface and Features

MapQuest’s app can do a lot of things: give driving directions, perform local searches (MapQuest boasts more than 16 million points of interest), using the iPhone’s GPS to establish a base location, and even speak street names, something we complained that TomTom’s app can’t do. Users can also choose between 2D and 3D  maps.

One of the things that really sold me is the points of interest carousel lining the bottom of the screen. The scrolling, icon-based menu gives users access to common categories of destinations, such as airports. It’s that pretty interface, coupled, with the quicker access to things people often search for, that sold me in my brief hands-on.

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Navigon today announced that it is leaving the North American personal navigation device (PND) market, due to economic stress.

The good news is, if you are a current Navigon owner, CEO Egon Minar told GPSBusinessNews.com that Navigon “will continue to fulfill all obligations to our existing PND customers in terms of map update[s], etc.” Hopefully that means support and “Lifetime traffic,” are still included in those obligations.

The company is hoping to pump up its mobile business, though. It recently signed on with T-Mobile Germany for built-in navigation on its line of smart phones. T-Mobile in the United States uses a Telenav solution on its devices.

[via GPSBusinessNews]

Today, TrafficCast formally announced Dynaflow 2.0, a significantly updated version of its real-time traffic flow software. The application, which can run on mobile devices and GPS navigators, reports the traffic speed on specific roadways, and estimates how long it will take to reach a destination.

Version 2.0 adds predictive functionality, forecasting how fast roads will be moving in the future, in addition to reporting how clogged they are at a given moment. It does this by taking into account not just historical road speeds, but weather reports, construction projects, and other upcoming events.

Like version 1.0, Dynaflow 2.0 uses red, yellow, and green color coding to signal to users, at a glance, how crowded roadways are.

Today Google announced the latest version of Google Maps for mobile devices, version 3.0. The most compelling feature about the update is called Latitude, and it lets you pinpoint your friends on Google Maps, all from your cell phone. It works with most BlackBerry phones, the iPhone, Java-enabled phones, Symbian S60 devices, and Windows Mobile 5.0+ smartphones. You can also keep tabs on your buddies by logging in to iGoogle.

To get started, we simply had to install the new version of Google Maps. Then we clicked the Menu button and selected Latitude. From this menu, you’ll be able to view your friends and add new ones. It will automatically pull contacts down from your GMail account and you can check off any friends you’d like to see on a map. A privacy tab lets you share your location manually, share it constantly, or hide it altogether. Any friends you had have to approve and set their own privacy settings.

When your friends approve, you’ll see them in Google Maps, each represented by a small square with their preset buddy icon. If you hover over their square, you can also view their status update. We really wish this was tightly integrated with Google Talk, a simple “Message John” button, for example, would be very useful. Google could even add in a green, red, or grey icon representing if the user was online. We hope this is added in a future update.

We tested the service on a BlackBerry 8900 from T-Mobile, and the performance was excellent. Within a minute of adding a friend, we saw them on the map. This time will vary, of course, depending how quickly they approve your request. The location of a family member across town was dead-on, and we could see another friend at JFK before taking off. However, a co-worker in our office was placed a block away, so it’s not 100 percent perfect.

We love Latitude. It reminds us a lot of Loopt, but GMail already has millions of users, so it’s more likely your friends will use Latitude instead.

Check it out for yourself by visiting Google.com/gmm on your mobile browser or www.google.com/latitude.

TomTom announced the GO 740 Live this morning, a personal navigation device that offers TomTom’s latest IQ Routes, along with wireless real-time traffic feeds, local search, and more. We had the pleasure of going hands-on with the device last night, and we’re pleased with what we’ve seen so far.

The Go 740 Live measures 3.4 x 5 x 0.9 inches in size and weighs just 7.9 ounces. It has a 4.3-inch, 480 x 272-pixel resolution touchscreen, 2GB of internal memory, and Bluetooth for hands-free calling. Its built-in SIM card support and GPRS modem keep it connected for updates, but more importantly, for Google search and traffic information.

More details and a hands-on video after the break.

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Microsoft today announced a new update to its MSN Direct personal navigation device software.  MSN Direct provides information like traffic, gas prices, weather, movie times, and more to navigation devices like the Garmin nuvi 880 and Mio Moov S556M, but the new enhancements add more features that will make the driver seat feel more like a cockpit.

Doppler Weather Maps
The enhancements include full doppler weather maps which provide up to date weather conditions, which you can view as text or in full weather radar images and map overlays. You’ll be able to view whether the rain storm up ahead is light, medium, or heavy, which will let you make the decision as to whether you should pull over and wait out the storm miles before you ever have to risk driving through it. More impressive, it will notify tell you whether the ice conditions or snowstorm ahead are light, heavy mix, ice and light, or heavy snow. We’re particularly impressed by these updates, which are taking more consideration into driver safety than ever before.

Flight Status Updates
The system will also let you check flight status updates. This is great for when you have to pick up a friend at the airport and have to choose between running through McDonald’s, or attempting to show up on-time just to find out your buddies’ flight is delayed. You can check flights by their departure or arrival time, city, or flight number, and the system will tell you whether the plane is on time, delayed, or if the flight has been cancelled or redirected to another airport.

Microsoft also announced that its MSN Direct service is available in 134 markets across 26 personal navigation devices, and that its traffic service is now available in twice the metropolitan areas as before.

You may (or may not) remember Mio’s last big announcement: its Knight Rider GPS unit, which launched last year to minimal fanfare. Today the company announced the more feature-rich and relevant Moov S556 personal navigation device.

The S556 offers a rather large 4.7-inch display and a brand new, “uncluttered” user interface that Mio claims will help its customers reach any of the 12 million points of interest quicker. The simplified menu offers eight initial home screen choices: Explore, Find, Go, Music, My Places, Petrol, Settings, and Traffic.

The S556 also offers eight preloaded WCities, which offer information on local dining spots, accommodations, shopping locations, and city-specific entertainment spots. If you need to make a call on the road, you can do so using the device’s Bluetooth support for integration with your phone book.

Mio intends to provide users with a few bells and whistles on the S556 that will actually help drivers, instead of unnecessary ones like a video viewer, that won’t actually assist anyone trying to get from point A to point B. While $299 is a bit steep, if the device is as simple to use as Mio claims, users will appreciate its features as much as they’ll appreciate the sleek design and large display. We’ll bring you our impressions after we get a full hands-on.

With AT&T’s recent announcement that it would provide customers with assisted GPS capabilities on its handsets, we had to check out AAA Mobile Navigator, the solution AT&T had decided on. Powered by Networks In Motion, AAA Navigator providers AT&T subscribers with voice guided turn-by-turn directions, local traffic alerts, gas prices, and even entertainment information like local movie theater times and starred restaurant reviews.

But the most important aspect is its support for AAA service. Drivers can send their location using AAA Mobile Navigator directly to AAA for roadside assistance. For $9.99 per month or $2.99 per day, dark and desolate roads will never be frightening again.

Editor’s Note: One of the main features of the Dash Express GPS navigator, which we reviewed in March, is that it is the first plug-in navigator with an always-on cellular connection to the Internet. This lets you conduct live Yahoo searches for destinations, but, more importantly, it lets you receive live traffic data from other Dash-using drivers. Here is a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH9f2zUXct0) showing how it works.