China Navigation Map Market Report
According to China Navigation Map Market Report, 2008-2009, the Chinese car navigation market is in its early stage. In 2008, the market penetration rate of car navigation in China was only 4.56%, far lower than the 60% of Japan, and 20%-30% of both Europe and U.S.A. In 2008 a total of 3.1 million navigation devices were sold, more than double than that in 2007. www.pr-inside.com

Third party database & technologies to drive mobile LBS
The consumer LBS market has steadily evolved over the past few years. A number of factors – including the development of third-party location databases and technologies – are poised to finally drive real LBS market growth on mobile phones. According to Frost & Sullivan, ‘North America Consumer LBS Market – The Wireless Carrier Opportunity’, estimates that carrier-generated consumer LBS revenues totalled over $480 million in 2008 and projects this figure to surpass $3.0 billion in 2013. www.frost.com

Geolocation to the web
Opera Software and Skyhook Wireless to partner in bringing geolocation to the Web. With Skyhook’s Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS), any computer or mobile phone with a wireless adapter can take advantage of its positioning technology and locate a user. Users

can now simply choose to share their location with any Web site and get a range of information. www.opera.com

Garmin GPS device users can use MapmyIndia maps now

Garmin GPS devices users can now use MapmyIndia’s India maps, and have access to maps of 202 cities, 130,000 towns and villages, 450,000 point of interests, and navigate to 640,000 unique reachable destinations across India. www.mapmyindia.com

DigitalGlobe announces agreement with Nokia for use of imagery

DigitalGlobe and Nokia have agreed to bring high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery to Nokia Maps, both on mobile devices and on Ovi, improving the global driving, hiking and walking navigation capabilities for consumers who use these applications. www.digitalglobe.coma

NASA to use RFID for spacecraft part tracking
Intermec, USA has announced a cooperative research effort with NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center to investigate new automatic identi?cation tracking (AIT) technologies, to qualify machine-readable symbol markings and RFID devices for use on spaceborne vehicles. Intermec will evaluate markings that have been exposed to low earth orbit environments during the third and fourth Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) missions, and will also prepare additional marked samples and soft and rigid RFID tags to be included in MISSE 6, scheduled for July 2007. www.usingr?d.com

MetaCarta’s LBS for 2012 Olympics
MetaCarta, Inc., and the British Transport Police (BTP) shall provide location based situational awareness for the 2012 Olympics. BTP will use MetaCarta geographic search and referencing solutions to geo-enable and consolidate information from multiple data sources by geographic location and display it in MapView, BTP’s intranet map-based visualisation tool. www.metacarta.com

First indoors GPS application for Nokia Phones
Tagggit has launched their mobile application for Nokia S60 phones with an accurate Indoors GPS. It can fi nd a phone’s position indoors, within a few seconds and accurate to 15 feet. www.tagggit.com

Canalys: EMEA Q3 GPSs phone shipments overtake PNDs
According to Canalys, shipments of PNDs in the Q3 to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa fell to 4.3 million from 4.8 million in Q2, while shipments of GPS-enabled smartphones soared, rising from 4.7 million to 10.4 million. Based on its latest research, the firm estimates that global shipments of PNDs in Q3 2008 rose 14% compared to Q3 2007, with North America and Asia Pacific still seeing considerable volume growth of 49% and 25% respectively. The risk to PND vendors is likely to rise further as the economic situation forces more consumers to take a hard look at their discretionary purchases/ www.canalys.com

Motorola launches GPS-based touchscreen phone
Motorola has launched its touchscreen GPS-enabled phone offering navigation maps and landmarks of 30 cities in India.
http://economictimes.indiaticommes.