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GALILEO and Other GPS-Related News
posted by Satri
on Wednesday November 28, @02:26PM
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from the don't-we-all-have-a-few-billions-to-spend? dept.
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from the don't-we-all-have-a-few-billions-to-spend? dept.
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 [...]"
Related Stories
Putin Hopes GLONASS will Outperform GPS 2 comments
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GeoCarta discuss and links to articles related to Vladimir Putin hoping GLONASS will have a bright future. From this article: " “In order users chose GLONASS, the system should operate flawlessly, better than GPS (the global positioning system). Cheaper and with a better quality,” he said at a meeting with government members on Monday.
“I hope that the government will pay much attention to the creation of the GLONASS system,” the president said. He added that he watched the progress of the project.
“We have the right to count on known, healthy economic patriotism of our users, first of all of the state, but I proceed from the assumption that we shall work on market terms in this sector of the economy, and users will be able to chose a quality service,” Putin stressed." See numerous related stories below, including the collaboration between India and Russia.
GPS Everywhere - Recent GPS Related Stories
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In the never ending task of providing the best aggregated news to our users, here's several GPS-related stories, catching up from the last two weeks. First, APB links to a story telling us Garmin now sells more GPS worldwide than TomTom, the same blog also discuss the number of personal navigation devices, up to 45 models, and links to a few generic articles on GPS. The Free Geography Tools talks about Prune, an open source Java-based GPS track visualization and photo geotagging tool. And finally, The Map Room links to an article on the sad state of GPS loggers for Macs.
GPS Navigation Systems Reviews by the Consumer Reports
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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.
Galileo's Objectives and Funding 1 comment
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Here's a few news regarding the Galileo European satellite navigation system. The SatNav blog questions the objectives of the Galileo program and provide comments following a European Commission communication on Galileo. Related, APB links to an article on the European Commission outlining its plan to get the Galileo satellite navigation system back on track [BBC] and new delays for the second satellite launch. From the BBC article: "This would mean member states having to find about a billion more than they expected because of the collapse of private sector involvement.
The EC is determined to have Galileo operational by the end of 2012.
However, this target is dependent on financing arrangements being put in place this year.
So far, only four spacecraft in the eventual 30-satellite constellation have been ordered. Unless contracts are issued for more platforms in the coming months, the timetable will slip again and Europe's biggest single space project may then face calls to be scrapped altogether." See also the related stories below.
GALILEO Bad News and GLONASS Good News
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Here's a few recent news regarding GALILEO and GLONASS GPS systems. I copied in related stories below many items of interest regarding the two programs. Recent geoblogs entries include Vector One discussing GALILEO: "Today Christopher Booker of the Telegraph newspaper in the UK sums up the project in his column, “The costs of Galileo have already taken off so wildly (and it is already six years behind schedule), that we may well hand over much more than £1.7 billion to pay for our 17 per cent share in this white elephant (somehow two thirds of the EU’s members have managed to get out of paying anything at all).”" Google's Ed Parsons chimes in. Meanwhile, GLONASS seems in much better shape, as indicated by this other V1 entry and the news of the successful new GLONASS satellite launch.
Industry: NAVTEQ and Garmin Agreement & Garmin Withdraws from the Tele Atlas Bid 1 comment
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A few geoblogs highlighted Garmin's withdrawal from the Tele Atlas acquisition bid and the long term agreement between Garmin and NAVTEQ (owned by Nokia).
The Map Room links to a short Engaget story and APB to an article on the withdrawal.
All Points Blog provides a few additional links on the settlement of Garmin with TomTom regarding intellectual property cases.
The agreement's introduction: "NAVTEQ (NYSE: NVT), a leading global provider of digital maps for vehicle navigation and location-based solutions and Garmin Ltd. (Nasdaq: GRMN), today announced the completion of a long-term agreement that provides Garmin access to NAVTEQ map data through 2015 with an option to continue through 2019." See also related stories below.
Three GLONASS Russian GPS Satellites Launched
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Several geoblogs discussed the successful launch of three GLONASS satellites by Russia. Best coverage is provided by the S,M,GIS blog and the Geospatial Semantic blog. From the latter: "According to Engadget, we should expect to see the first compatible consumer device in mid-2008. By 2010, Russia will open the system up to the outside nations as well. Given the growing importance of location-based systems in the future, governments around the world are trying to create systems to either compete or complement with the widely used GPS system [...]"
Slashdot also discuss GLONASS.
Vector One discuss how well Russia is mapped, GLONASS or not. The new American GPS IIR-18(M) was also successfully launched on December 20th.
Some previous stories copied below.
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