TomTom Plans Bid for Tele Atlas
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The Dutch navigation systems company said it plans to make a cash offer of 21.25 euros per share for digital map supplier Tele Atlas, valuing the company at 2 billion euros ($2.76 billion).
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TRW Automotive Holdings  is  thinking about making a bid for the automotive engineering unit  of Germany's Siemens, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday,  citing three people involved in the bidding process.
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Need a basic portable GPS? We found a great discount on the TomTom One.
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BT Group Plc, the UK&#39;s largest phone company, plans to buy Infonet Services Corp. to add a data network spanning more than 180 countries, people familiar with the matter said.
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(InfoWorld) - Satellite navigation boxes using the GPS (global positioning system) are no longer the preserve of luxury car owners in Europe. Now you see them in the humblest vehicles on the Continent's highways. That's part of the reason why the European Commission Wednesday proposed taking on the entire â¬3.4 billion ($4.7 billion) cost of creatingÂ Galileo, Europe's answer to GPS, which is based in the U.S. "Do consumers really want this product? To answer that you must ask why consumers like GPS so much," said transport commissioner Jacques Barrot at a press conference Wednesday. "Consumers are answering the question by buying more and more GPSes," he said. "Galileo will make money, and with the E.U. as its owner, it will generate income for the E.U. budget." Barrot's confidence wasn't shared earlier this year byÂ the companies picked to share the cost and benefitsÂ of building the 30-strong constellation of satellites. Unsure of the costs and unconvinced of Galileo's eventual commercial potential, theÂ companies dragged their feetÂ to a point in June where the Commission abandoned the partnership with the private sector. Under the original plan, public money was supposed to pay for the first four satellites and then the private consortium of companies building the satellites were to pay for two-thirds of the 26 remaining satellites. This amounted to a private sector cost of â¬2.4 billion. The companies -- AENA, Alcatel-Lucent, EADS, Finmeccanica, Hispasat, Inmarsat, TeleOp, and Thales -- were to recoup their investment costs by then operating the satellites and collecting fees once they were in operation. Barrot said Wednesday that the Commission wants the â¬2.4 billion to be paid for out of European Union funds. The E.U. has already committed â¬1 billion to the project. He said that he initially wanted the 27 member states of the E.U. to fill the funding gap through payments directly to the European Space Agency (ESA). But as 10 countries in the E.U. aren't members of the ESA this was dismissed, leaving the E.U. budget as the only possibility for ensuring that the project is financed. With the E.U. as the sole owner of Galileo, it will still need companies from a variety of industries to build the system's infrastructure, Barrot said. Astrium (EADS group) and Thales Alenia Space (Thales and Finmeccanica groups) approached the ESA for some of this work recently, the commissioner said. "Galileo is extremely important for the strategic autonomy of Europe. We can't let this opportunity to manage the know-how in this advanced technology pass," Barrot said. Transportation ministers of the E.U. member states will meet in Luxembourg on Oct. 2 to debate the Commission's proposal. Countries with most to gain from the project include France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. They are believed to support the Commission. However, others including the U.K. and the Netherlands, remain to be convinced that there is a real need for a European GPS. Separately, U.S. president George W. Bush said in a statement issued by the U.S. mission to the E.U. Wednesday, that he will stop the GPS signal from being interrupted or degraded by military purposes. One of the main justifications for launching Galileo was that GPS is ultimately at the mercy of the U.S. Department of Defense, and could be jammed for strategic reasons, potentially endangering private users' lives. Galileo is intended to be purely for civilian use. However, the U.S. recently has taken steps to assure GPS users that they can count on the system. "President George W. Bush has accepted a recommendation to end procurement of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites that have the capability to intentionally degrade the accuracy of civil signals," the White House press secretary said in a statement Tuesday. Although the U.S. stopped the intentional degradation of GPS satellite signals in May 2000, this new action will result in the removal of "Selective Availability" capabilities, thereby eliminating a source of uncertainty in GPS performance that has been of concern to civil GPS users worldwide. This decision reflects the nation's commitment to GPS users that this free global utility can be counted on to support peaceful civil activities around the world, the statement said.
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(InfoWorld) - Is a picture really worth more than a thousand words? A Dutch company believes so. Tele Atlas NV is amassing data for 3-D views of roads and their surroundings to be featured in a new generation of satellite navigation systems that could give voice-centric devices a run for their money. The company is venturing into 3-D digital navigation maps in a move to expand beyond providing data for the highly competitive market for 2-D maps. Tele Atlas has sent off a fleet of 22 orange-colored camper vans equipped with cameras, laser sensors, GPS hardware, and computers to snap pictures, determine the height of bridges, and record the slope of roads around the globe for 3-D digital maps. Data for 3-D maps is already complete for several cities, including Berlin and Rome, with 50 cities currently in production. Maps of the United States and Asia could follow as early as next year. Unlike two-dimensional navigational maps that show lines and arrows, 3-D maps show actual roads, flanked by buildings, trees and traffic signs. "3-D maps render a very realistic picture of a street and its surroundings," said Tele Atlas database director Georg Fisch. "If a friend tells you to look for a familiar store or restaurant at a specific corner, you're going to see it." The data-gathering process involves a two-person team steering the camera-equipped van down roads, including highways and city streets, and snapping pictures along the way. Belgians Stijn Ulenaers and Gudrun Vanlaar welcomed a group of journalists in Neuss, Germany, last week to hop in their Tele Atlas mobile mapping van and accompany them on a small trip to record street data in the area. The van is fitted with two PCs, two detachable hard drives, a GPS system, a gyroscope, a tablet computer, and a mobile data card. The pen-operated tablet PC, mounted between the driver and rider, shows in separate windows what each camera is recording and can also overlay a road map of the area, together with the vehicle's location. Six cameras -- two in the front, one on the side, and three in the back -- snap pictures every three seconds. The wide-angle lenses are configured to produce a 360-degree perspective. The digital photos, together with their GPS positions and odometer readings (necessary in tunnels), are stored on two master and slave 250GB drives. The van can travel at speeds up to 130 kilometers per hour on highways when the sun is shinning but also as slow as 80 kilometers per hour when the weather is bad. The fleet of Tele Atlas vans currently cover around 360,000 kilometers of roads a year, generating 250TB of data, which includes 2.8 billion digital pictures. The data is compiled in the Geographic Data File (GDF) format but can be converted to nearly all formats used by navigation system vendors and providers of mapping services, including TomTom International, Navman Europe, Google, and Microsoft. All pictures are sent to India, where Tele Atlas employs several hundred people to map the images to existing road maps, aerial photographs, and other road information to ensure accuracy. Could 3-D navigational systems add to the stress drivers already have, particularly on crowded, speedy European roads? Tele Atlas key account manager Sven Peters doesn't think so. Voice instructions will remain a key feature of next-generation navigation systems, he said. What will change as a result of 3-D maps, however, is the quality of information that drivers receive when they look at the navigation screen. Tele Atlas is not the only company working on developing 3-D maps for navigational systems. Navteq is one competitor. It's still unclear, however, when consumers can expect to see 3-D navigational maps and what they'll cost. "We're busy compiling the data now, but it's difficult to say when suppliers of navigation systems will want to invest in next-generation maps," Peters said. "Many of them are still making good margins on their 2-D systems and don't see a need right now to plunge into 3-D."ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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LONDON/DUESSELDORF, Germany  - German-owned Thomas Cook is to buy British package holiday rival MyTravel, the companies said on Monday, creating a new company worth about 2.8 billion pounds ($5.45 billion).
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Experts see Google partnering with a handset maker for bundled software that will enable everything from IM and maps to monitoring blood pressure.Image: Looking for clues in Google patent
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Digital cartographer Tele Atlas NV has brought its first orange mapping van to Asia as a part of its effort to collect global data for portable, Internet, in-car and wireless navigation systems.
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BT Group Plc, the UK&#39;s largest phone operator, agreed to sell its stake in Eutelsat SA for 363 million pounds ($685 million) in cash, marking the company&#39;s exit from the satellite operating business.
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Dans le cadre de ses initiatives stratÃ©giques en matiÃ¨re de technologie MirrorBit(TM) annoncÃ©es ce jour, Spansion LLC a Ã©galement annoncÃ© ses plans pour une nouvelle gamme de pÃ©riphÃ©riques mÃ©moire Flash.
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(InfoWorld) - Making a splash as honing gadgets in spy movies, GPS (Global Positioning System) devices are now practical and make for pretty cool gifts. Axion's Geo-320 GPS navigation system -- when plopped on a car's dashboard -- barks out directions to drivers, while TeleNav's GPS Navigator service for smartphones voices directions to pedestrians. Despite the rise of GPS, atlases will remain, and it's good to have Brookstone's affordable Map Light to view paper maps at night. An Ã¼ber cool gift could be Hammacher Schlemmer and Co.'s LP-to-MP3 Converter, which converts songs from LPs to digitized MP3 files. But, first find people who own LPs. GPS for drivers For people who love to take wrong turns, a GPS system is a no-brainer as a gift idea. Axion has added the compact Geo-632 GPS system to its nifty array of in-car entertainment devices. The GPS system is real eye candy, and offers 2D and 3D viewing of preloaded maps on its 3.5-inch touch screen, voicing out directions. Like most GPS devices, it also has a listing of restaurants, hotels, gas stations, banks, and other tourist destinations. A lithium-ion battery operates the GPS unit for eight to 10 hours. It also has a Secure Digital flash memory card slot to load map updates. Map updates will be provided free at their Web site , said Jesse Lee, product engineer at Axion. As an add-on, the portable GPS unit can play MP3 files and view JPEG image files, allowing users to share music and images, said Joanna Zhang, an Axion spokeswoman. The $349.99 unit became available in the U.S. in November. GPS for pedestrians GPS systems can also be used by lost pedestrians. TeleNav's GPS Navigator software loads on to a smartphone and gives a 3D view of maps, with voice and on-screen directions. It provides directions to more than 10 million business listings in the U.S., including Wi-Fi hotspots and tourist destinations. The system can also be used in cars, and as an added bonus, its "fuel finder" locates spots with the lowest gas prices. However, maps on a smartphone's LCD (liquid crystal display) screen may be too tiny for a driver's comfort. The service works on smartphones with most U.S. mobile service providers . Alltel recently launched the TeleNav GPS wireless service in the U.S. for $9.99 a month, and it works on Research In Motion's BlackBerry 8703e and Samsung Electronics' u520 smartphones. For $2.99, a one-time use service is vailable, which works only on Samsung u520 phones. The beat goes on After an LP to CD recorder, Hammacher Schlemmer has introduced the LP to MP3 Converter right in time for the holiday season. The turntable plugs to a computer via a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port, where it digitizes LP audio files. It helps save out-of-print music and spoken-word recordings on LPs to a more reliable digital format, according to the company. The software included removes scratches, hisses, and pops usually heard from LPs. The $169.95 systems also works as a stand-alone LP player, connecting to a stereo system via an RCA output. Change your wireless TV headset Sharper Image Inc. is offering Bluetooth Wireless Stereo Headphones , which allows users to wirelessly listen to a TV, iPod, stereo -- anything with a headphone jack -- from up to 30 feet away. It comes with two pieces -- a wireless headset and a receiver. The Bluetooth receiver plugs into the headphone jack and the headset connects to the receiver, getting the sound wirelessly. This $99.95 Bluetooth headset could be an excellent alternative to traditional RF wireless headsets, known to be unreliable in coverage and performance.
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By Michael Davis, Chattanooga Times/Free Press, Tenn.  Jun. 9--CARTA has launched a Web site for the Incline Railway that, later this summer, will allow people to buy tickets for the Lookout Mountain attraction online.
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TomTom , the world's biggest  maker of car navigation devices, plans to buy its main map  supplier, Tele Atlas, for 1.8 billion euros ($2.5 billion) to  improve the digital maps used by millions of drivers.
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Just in time for a 1,500 mile road trip tomorrow, AOL owned MapQuest has announced the launch of their new MapQuest Gas Price Finder which allows MapQuest users search for the cheapest prices for gas, diesel or alternative fuels. Features include (from MapQuest PR department): *  Convenience and integration of MapQuest&#8217;s directions feature allows consumers to [...]
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The world&#39;s top mobile phone maker Nokia said on Tuesday its phones would be used in a project to test wireless public transport fares in Hanau, near Frankfurt in Germany, beginning early next year.
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Company to offer 3 devices with Bluetooth and GPS capabilities.