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All Points Blog links to an AP article which analyse Garmin GPS devices and their competition worlwide. From the article: "Research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that the number of GPS devices sold worldwide — including personal navigation units and applications built into cell phones and hand-held computers — will grow from 18 million last year to 88 million in 2010. [...] Looking ahead, Garmin officials see the next big challenge isn’t new competitors but breaking more into the European market, where it has a little more than 10 percent share."

ixcer writes "A joint press release announces that TomTom, the world’s largest navigation solution provider, will acquire Tele Atlas, the biggest data provider for navigation systems, including Google, Yahoo!, AOL and Nokia. The announcement starts this way... "TomTom N.V. (“TomTom”) and Tele Atlas N.V. (“Tele Atlas” or the “Company”), jointly announce that the expectation is justified that an agreement can be reached in connection with a public offer by TomTom for all outstanding shares of Tele Atlas at an offer price of € 21.25 in cash, (the “Offer Price”) per ordinary share (the “Offer”).

The Supervisory Board and the Management Board of Tele Atlas (the “Boards”), after having duly considered the strategic, financial and social aspects of the proposed transaction, support the intended Offer and conclude that the Offer is in the best interests of the shareholders and all other stakeholders of Tele Atlas. The Boards of Tele Atlas will, when the Offer is made by TomTom, recommend acceptance of the Offer by the shareholders of Tele Atlas."" Update: 07/23 17:41 GMT by S : All Points Blogs provides more links such as the Reuters article.

The AnyGeo blog links to the ConsumerReport.org review of portable GPS navigation systems. Some interesting parts of the report are free, such as the "how to choose" and "features" sections. From the report: "Although not always as easy to use as the in-dash systems available on many new vehicles, portable systems are catching up. Features like internal, rechargeable batteries and pre-loaded North America map databases are now commonly included on budget systems. More premium features such as real-time traffic reporting are becoming available on more affordable units, although those often require additional hardware. [...] Many manufacturers offer units that will get you where you need to go, and more are entering the market as sales continue to skyrocket. Systems from Garmin, Magellan, and TomTom have historically scored highest in our ratings. Those navigation-focused companies now face competition from Delphi, Harmon-Kardon, and Rand McNally--none of which were available for our previous test. Our latest report also includes units from Alpine, Audiovox, Cobra, Lowrance, and Navman." See also related stories below.

A few geoblogs discussed the European GALILEO project and the news are more or less good. Amongst the entries, you have GeoCarta underlines the 2.4 billion euros of fresh money sent to GALILEO required to continue development, from The Register: "States voted to back a €2.4bn funding deal, drawing cash from unused farming subsidies, and restructuring research and industrial spending for the year. This means the European rival to the US military's GPS system can go ahead, but no extra public funds will be written into the EU's budget to pay for it." V1 also discuss this impressive amount of leftovers and provides other links, V1 also make a relation to the U.S. updated GPS III satellites: "The US military is working on super-powerful updates to its GPS satellite navigation technology to try to trump the rival European Galileo project which just received key funding, experts say." Not as much tightly related, APB links to survey indicating Garmin is the #1 maker of portable navigation systems, consumers say. Update: 11/30 20:12 GMT by S : Let's not forget GLONASS, here's a recent article where we learn: "Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, wants to spend at least $60 billion over the next 10 years to make Russia a global high-tech titan [...]"