The RV Navigator

The Kindle, Amazon’s e-book reader, just got more appealing for RV’ers when Rand McNally announced its first set of maps this month specifically for the Amazon Kindle.  You may recall I did a review of the Kindle back in February on CoolRVToyz (read that review here).  I’m a fan (so is Oprah by the way!), but my wife isn’t.  I think it’s a cool device, but she would still rather read a book.  But maps?  That may even be enough to change her mind.

Earlier this month Rand McNally announced its first set of maps for the Kindle (press release). The cost of the maps is very reasonable at $1.99 each for California and Washington State.  Additional maps are slated to be available in 2009. The maps include a searchable index of every city on the map as well as National Parks and other federal areas. They also feature individual overview maps of major National Parks as well as major cities and towns.  Being able to search the maps is a big plus over conventional paper maps.

Being a big GPS fan I have to admit I was skeptical, until my wife reminded me of the Rand McNally atlas we keep in the truck.  Even though we use a GPS heavily, we still rely on conventional maps on occasion.  Having those maps in a digital format that’s easily searchable and compact makes sense to me.  Best of all, I don’t have to fold it up when I’m through.

If you’re a Kindle fan, or if you just like cool gadgets, you may want to check out these new maps from Rand McNally.  They’re downloadable from the Kindle store at Amazon’s website.

It couldn’t come at a better time with peak RV’ing season just around the corner. Crude oil for January delivery declined $1.54, or 3.5%, to $42.06 a barrel today on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures dropped to $40.20, the lowest price since July 14, 2004. Prices have plummeted 72% from a record $147.27 in July.

That’s not necessarily good news for those invested in oil stocks or futures, but it is great news for those of us that don’t like to let our RV’s set in one place for very long. That should translate to noticeably lower diesel and gasoline prices by spring if the trend continues.

We’re currently in Missouri at the moment and the local price for diesel has fallen to $2.15 per gallon. I know people are watching fuel prices very closely because the number of people logging onto CoolRVToyz.com and using the fuel prices widget to check the price in their local area has increased over 7 fold in the last 6 months. If you haven’t been on the web site lately, check out the fuel prices widget. It’ll keep you informed where to get the lowest fuel prices.

According to OPEC president Chakib Khelil, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed that the group’s 11 members with quotas will trim current production by 2.46 million barrels a day to 24.845 million barrels a day OPEC has held four meetings in the last four months.

“It’s less than meets the eye,” said Lawrence Eagles, global head of commodities research at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “This may stem the bloating in stocks but isn’t enough to get rid of the surplus.”

“They are facing the distinct possibility of oil falling to $30 a barrel and even lower,” said Addison Armstrong, director of market research for Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut. “They have to bring supply down further because they aren’t getting any help on the demand front until the second half of next year at the earliest.”

“There is nothing bullish in these numbers,” said Nauman Barakat, senior vice president of global energy futures at Macquarie Futures USA Inc. in New York. “The OPEC announcement looks big on first glance but really isn’t. They are playing with smoke and mirrors.”

Looks like “Happy RV’ing …” may actually be in store for us this summer.

Phil King

MiTAC has bought another GPS company today, and this time it’s a big one! The Taiwan company bought Magellan’s consumer products division today in a deal where financial terms were not disclosed.

MiTAC is the parent company of Mio, who also makes consumer GPS devices. The future of the Magellan brands, including RoadMate, Maestro, and Triton product lines is unclear at this point.

The press release didn’t elaborate. Magellan has been struggling of late, losing ground to the product releases of Garmin and TomTom. The closing should happen in January. The entire press release follows:

“Magellan Enters into Definitive Agreement to Sell the Magellan Consumer Products Division to MiTAC International Corporation

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 15 — Magellan Navigation, Inc. today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the Magellan consumer products division to MiTAC International Corp. Closing of the transaction is anticipated in January of 2009. Financial terms are not disclosed.

Recognized as an industry innovator, the Magellan consumer products division is the creator of the award-winning Magellan(R) RoadMate(R) and Maestro(TM) series portable car navigation systems, and the Magellan Triton(R) outdoor handheld navigation devices. The company is recognized worldwide through its Magellan brand.

About Magellan

Magellan allows people to travel, work and play their way with leading portable navigation and positioning solutions across multiple consumer markets. Recognized as an industry innovator, the company is the creator of the award-winning Magellan RoadMate, and Maestro series portable car navigation systems, as well as the CrossoverGPS(TM) and Magellan Triton outdoor handheld navigation devices. Magellan is privately held and headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. For more information on Magellan, visit http://www.magellangps.com.

About MiTAC International Corp.

MiTAC International is a global ITC (information technology & consumer electronics) company headquartered in Taiwan and publicly listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Its business spans three major areas — mobile communications (personal navigation devices, GPS smart phones and mobile Internet devices), enterprise systems (workstations, servers, and storage equipment) and client systems (personal computers and digital home entertainment products). MiTAC International has large vertically integrated manufacturing sites in China, as well as extensive R&D facilities in US, China, Taiwan and New Zealand. MiTAC International also has marketing operations in the U.S., West Europe, Central East Europe, APAC, China, Japan, Australia and rest of the world. The company is recognized by the industry for its innovative product design capability as well as its integrated design-and-delivery system. For more information about Mitac, please go to: http://www.mitac.com.”

The Black Friday/Cyber Monday results are in and this year held no surprises as to which GPS brands remain at the top. If you’re looking to get a new GPS this season, you may want to consider who’s leading the pack. Once again, Garmin, TomTom and Magellan came out on top with a combined 95% of the sales.

Why does that matter? It’s not that the “lesser” brands are bad devices, some of them are impressive. The numbers matter because of companies like CoolRVToyz.com, who produce enhanced products for GPS units. Unfortunately, there is no “standard” for producing add-on information to GPS devices in the form of Points-of-Interest (POI) data and other enhancements. When companies develop these accessory products for GPS devices, they often can’t afford to focus their resources on the smaller segments of the market. It’s just good marketing strategy to put their resources into that 95% of the market.

So, as a consumer looking to purchase a new GPS, this is a big consideration. Sooner or later you may want additional POI’s for your GPS. Your selection will be much larger if your GPS is one of the brands with the larger market share.

I got an email today I was approved as a beta tester for the new TomTom Online Route Planner Beta program. I’ve been looking forward to trying it out since I applied for the beta program some time ago. (Excuse me, should those read “beta programme”?) It didn’t take me 10 minutes from the time I read the email to clear out what I was doing and go online to play.

As you all have probably figured out by now, I’m more of a Garmin junkie than a TomTom fan. Not that TomTom isn’t a great GPS device. I’m just used to hearing the interstate called a freeway instead of a motorway. Being primarily a European company, TomTom has been a bit slow to hire some native-born Americans to help them get the American terminology down. Having said that … TomTom continues to earn more of my respect every time I get a chance to play with a new GPS from them. They keep getting better.

I digress. What did I start out talking about? Oh yes, the new TomTom Online Route Planner Beta. Most of us who use a GPS also like to use some form of route planning software. Some of us have standalone programs like Microsoft Streets and Trips or DeLorme Street Atlas. Some prefer one of the online services like Google Maps or MapQuest. MapQuest has become so popular it’s not uncommon to hear someone say, “I’ll MapQuest It”. Are we going to start hearing people say, “I’ll TomTom it.” shortly? Well, maybe not anytime soon.

Putting the normal bugs of a beta application aside for a moment, my first impression of the TomTom Online Route Planner Beta was positive. The interface is simple and easy to follow, the map is detailed enough without being too busy, and the directions are easy to understand.

One positive point was I felt they succeeded in striking a good balance between enough information and not enough. Early versions of MapQuest pointed out every crack in the road and missing barn. Its directions were so detailed they became almost impossible to use. TomTom seems to be on the right track where that’s concerned. I saw just enough information to keep me on track, but no more. The driving directions reminded me of the voice instructions you’d receive from any TomTom GPS.

Another great feature is the traffic service. Check the box to “minimise traffic delays” and it will add that to your route calculations. No, I didn’t just accidently misspell “minimize”. There’s that European thingy again. I had to play with it a lot to get it to find some delays worth mentioning, but they too were easy to understand.

The rumor is that TomTom plans to make this a part of their HD Connected Service which would allow you to plan your route on the TomTom Online Route Planner, and then send it directly to your connected GPS. Between this and the traffic delays feature, that puts TomTom already ahead of many of the other online route planning services.

I’ll post again when I’ve played with it some more.

I bought a new Blackberry 8830 World Edition not too long ago because I was way overdue for a phone upgrade. My old 3 pound phone just wasn’t cutting it any more and I’ve seen kids cell phones better than what I had. One of the first things I noticed was the really cool GPS and mapping features built right into the new phone. Wow! It worked almost like my Garmin nüvi 780, only smaller. Maybe I didn’t need my nüvi anymore.

Well, let’s not get too excited. I started talking up my new toy on the forums and raised a firestorm. While the navigation features of my Blackberry are cool and fun, they aren’t quite up to the tasks performed daily for me by my Garmin. One forum junkie correctly pointed out many of the flaws in my logic that my phone was going to replace my trusted Garmin.

Danger, Will Robinson!

(That probably gives away more about my age than I’d like) The first issue is safety. Trying to communicate a destination to my Blackberry is a full attention task. Not something that’s very intelligent when barreling down the road at 65MPH in a 15 ton vehicle. My nüvi doesn’t have voice recognition, so I still have to set it manually. I usually relegate that task to my navigator (pronounced: spouse) while driving because it’s bad enough. We could be there before I got the destination set on the Blackberry.

What’d She Say?

The next problem was one of sheer volume. Between the diesel engine, the wind noise (little as that may be) and the satellite radio there was no way I could hear the phone giving directions unless I used the headset or held it next to my ear. By this time my wife is on the laptop with the air card looking up information on hearing aids. My nüvi doesn’t seem to have a problem shouting over all that. The older I get, the more it seems I need my GPS to shout at me too.

Where’s That Magnifying Glass?

Did I mention I’m getting old? I forget? Along with the memory and the hearing, the eyesight seems to be giving my age away too. The 4.3 inch screen on my nüvi gets smaller every time I use it. Trying to see the map on my Blackberry is out of the question.

One Satellite, Two Satellites, Three Satellites, Four.

The last issue we had was finding enough satellites to get a signal accurate enough to stay on course. If I set the Blackberry up on the dash that helped, but then there’s those pesky hearing and seeing problems again. It just wasn’t working for me way up there.

Conclusion.

I think next time I’m hiking in the woods and wonder if I’m getting lost, my Blackberry’s navigation features may come in very handy. I had given fleeting thought to buying a hand held GPS just for that purpose, but I wouldn’t use it very often. So, maybe I won’t need one now. I’ll just try using the Blackberry. For occasional hand held application, there may be some validity to my argument that this new toy in my phone can replace a real GPS. But, since most of my satellite navigation takes place going down the road in the RV, I think I’ll stick with my Garmin for now.

Ok, this is too cool. Are you familiar with the Exchangeable Image File Format, or EXIF? You probably use it and don’t even know it. EXIF is a specification standard for storing information within digital image files. EXIF data is captured by most newer digital cameras. When you take a photo, information is embedded within each digital image file. The most commonly included information typically includes the camera model, date and time, exposure, etc. When you download your photos into your computer you see this information in your image viewer.

That’s not the cool part, that’s been around for a while. Products like the Sony GPS-CS1KASP GPS Receiver have been around for a while and can be used with any camera that marks the photos with the date and time. GPS satellites are used to calculate and record position data of captured digital photos and video. The supplied Image Tracker software matches GPS receiver time with digital camera time to write positioning data to photos. Additional capabilities are pretty cool too. It’ll work for up to 14 hours on NiMH batteries or about 10 hours with Alkaline batteries. You can store up to 1 month or 360 hours of data with 31MB internal memory. It’s compatible with all digital cameras and digital camcorders that have built-in time/date stamping. You can click the photo to go to TheNerds.net for more detailed information. They’re also the place I’d recommend buying one if you’re interested. If you’ve got a DSLR camera and want more capabilities, then the Jobo PhotoGPS unit may be your ticket. It’s more expensive and requires a compatible hot shoe, but it does mount on your camera.

The really cool part is the new digital cameras and attachments that capture your geolocation and store that in the EXIF data as well. Many and the major camera manufacturers like Canon and Kodak have announced plans to include GPS data in the EXIF photo information in upcoming models. They may already be out depending on when you’re reading this. Some Canon EOS system cameras can already be connected to an external handheld GPS to record GPS data in the EXIF. If you’re in the market for a new digital camera, you might want to do a little resaearch and see if you can find one with this capability built in. Never again would you go through your photos trying to remember exactly where each one was taken. The embedded EXIF GPS data would give you an exact location in addition to the traditional date and time.

Now, if they can just incorporate facial recognition so the camera even marks who’s in my photos.