Routeplanners: SatNav & GPS News

Looking for cheaper car insurance? You could log on to internet sites that save money by having very few real-life staff to pay, or you could listen to that soothing sat-nav voice and make the saving yourself.

The RAC has begun offering premium discounts for motorists who use satellite navigation equipment because it believes they are safer drivers.

According to the breakdown recovery service, using sat-navs makes drivers less likely to crash.

“It means you don’t have to constantly look at road names, warning signs and so on and it makes you a lower risk,” an RAC spokesperson said.

Mark Peacey, spokesperson for sat-nav company Garmin, said it was great to hear that sat-nav technology is also making the road a safer place.

“Using sat-navs is considered a great way to make driving less stressful and more enjoyable,” he said.

“With innovations like pre-loaded speed camera information, drivers are alerted to known black-spots, and provided an ongoing reminder to be aware of conditions and their speed.”

Finnish cell phone maker, Nokia, announced this week that it is launching a free mobile mapping service for users in over 150 countries worldwide.

The Smart2go service will be launched around the globe on February 10, allowing mobile phone users to access local search and route-finding features at no charge. It also comes with the optional add-on of car navigation software, at a significantly lower price than dedicated GPS devices.

Standalone GPS device makers like TomTom, however, do not see mobile phones as a direct threat to their core business model, believing instead that they widen the overall market for route-finding software.

The Taiwan handheld maker has just announced that its upcoming ROM update for its HSDPA-enabled D810 PDA-phone will add GPS (Global Positioning System) as well as BlackBerry Connect functionalities to the device.

According to Dopod’s product manager, the D810 was already shipping with an onboard GPS receiver during its launch in November last year. However, due to software complications, the GPS application was not ready for commercial use then. Thus the company decided to go ahead with the product launch without announcing the GPS functionality.

The D810 joins the 838 Pro and C720W as the third cellular handheld to offer the popular push-email client, in addition to the Microsoft Direct Push solution. Current owners of the D810 can download the new firmware from February 10, while new users can expect March shipments of the handheld to come with the updated GPS ROM. The ROM update will, however, only activate the GPS receiver. Users will have to purchase the GPS software and map content separately in order to utilize the GPS features.

You can now take Google Maps with you wherever you and your Windows Mobile phone go. Mobile Google Maps have been released on Windows Mobile 5.0. You’ll be able to take advantage of GPS capabilities (assuming that you also have a GPS). If you have a previous version, you’ll still get varied functionality, just not the full suite.

Your current location is always at the center of the viewscreen, and you can easily plot your trip to your destination from there. You can also use those GPS satellites to look at snapshots that they took and at interactive maps. In case you’re wondering, the Mobile Google Maps software is device-independent. As long your device runs the Windows Mobile 5.0 OS, you can run this latest incarnation of Google Maps. It works with BlackBerry, Palm, and most JSME handhelds.

Check the read link below for a download.

See more at http://www.google.com/gmm/index.html