US PND market doubles in Q2
Shipments of portable navigation devices (PNDs) in the United States almost doubled in the second quarter (Q2) of this year at 3.7 million units, compared to the 2.8 million units in Q2 2007, but
prices are still dropping, according to market research firm Canalys. At this time last year, unit volume shipments were depressed following an inventory buildup resulting from extremely high sales into the channel in the final quarter. While shipments have grown,
Canalys estimates that average selling prices have dropped approximately 40 percent drop year over year.
Canalys estimates that Garmin remained the US market leader with 47% share, up 4% on its Q1 position, but down slightly on the 50% it had a year ago. TomTom, in second, saw year-on-year growth substantially above the market average, almost trebling its shipments, and giving it a share of 25%. Despite this high growth, this was down on the 28% it had in Q1, meaning that Garmin increased its lead by several percentage points sequentially. Magellan retained its third place with a reduced 11% share. These three vendors have consistently taken more than 80% of the market for several quarters. Outside of the top three, several vendors posted high year-onyear
growth, notably Mio Technology, Navigon and Nextar, albeit on much lower volumes. www.canalys.com

Honeywell selects Spirent GPS simulator for NASA’s Orion project
Honeywell has selected a Spirent GPS/ Inertial simulator to develop, integrate, and verify the navigation system for NASA’s Orion project. The simulator includes comprehensive modeling of the space environment and will provide multiple radio frequency outputs. It will include multiple SimINERTIAL units Spirent Inertial interfaces that provide Honeywell engineers the capability of emulating Inertial sensor output while simultaneously simulating GPS RF signals.

The patented TIDGET® (“tracking widget”) sensor operates by taking brief snapshots of GPS data when activated [1]. These snapshots are stored in the flash memory and forwarded to the LocatorNet Server through the data link for processing [2]. The TIDGET is built using the RF front-end of a commercial GPS chip (see Figure 2). The device is designed to operate with a variety of different types of data links providing a low-power location solution…

The system presented in the paper is designed according to the scheme of compensation and processes navigation data with use of a Complementary Extended Kalman Filter (CEKF). The INS/TACAN/ALT system works with a feed-forward correction, i.e. there is no feedback to INS and its errors are corrected externally. The structure of system is shown in the Fig. 1…

The LBS market has been segmented into 3 main categories: • B2C: Business to Consumer • B2B2C: Business to Business to Consumer • B2B: Business to Business Details of this segmentation are provided in Figure 2. This segmentation highlights the diversity of services that can be offered by an operator. This diversity of services is also a diversity of business model. The LBS market has been especially Figure 1…

For reasons unknown, the “GIS/Geographic” has quietly crossed its rightful “domain

It was up to 1985 that everything …

The Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India and Bentley Systems, Incorporated has launched the 2008-2009 Future Cities India 2020 competition finals. Currently in its third year, the competition encourages students to help prepare India’s cities for the year 2020 by providing design solutions to real-world infrastructure challenges. This …

ESRI’s International User Conference draws more than 14,500 attendees

ESRI President Jack Dangermond
In his opening remarks at ESRI’s 28th …

19-20 August 2008 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

TThe UN sponsored Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure
(PCGIAP) together with …

From the role of land administration in sustainable development…
To the promotion of effective land markets.
e-land administration, land registration, cadastral surveying and mapping.
Poverty reduction and protection of vulnerable groups.
A range of issues.
The 14th PCIGIAP meet at Kuala Lumpur discussed and deliberated all.
Another step in a long journey…
The journey which is difficult and tortuous.
Understandably, when one deals …