Author - Ky Tang - Marketing Director

I read an interesting article earlier this week on a product that will monitor a (teen) driver’s speed and send a text message alert to his parents if he goes over the speed limit.

The product, called Teen Driver Support System, uses GPS on the teen’s cell phone to monitor the speed of the car.

It looks like the service is not quite ready for mass market use (it’s currently available only through a University of Minnesota program) but it is another way that parents are leveraging GPS technology when it comes to keeping an eye on their kids. (see our previous post on GPS tracking devices for kids)

I know that when my kids are old enough to drive, I might be interested in something like this. What about you? Also, the question remains, how do you get them to use it while they’re driving?

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Author - Mary Beth Lowell - Communications Manager

I’ve seen quite a bit of discussion in other blogs and on customer forums about the difference between mapping services (like Google Maps) and navigation services like TeleNav GPS Navigator. Understandably, many folks are confused about why they should pay for one (TeleNav GPS Navigator) when they can get the other for free (Google Maps).

We’ve created a page on our Web site to try and help clear up this confusion and demonstrate the differences between the two. This page can be accessed here: http://www.telenav.com/about/maps-vs-navigation/ but I’ve pasted below the section on the site which directly compares the two.

Essentially, TeleNav GPS Navigator is just like a standalone navigation device (Garmin, Tom Tom, etc.) whereas mapping services are static text directions with an overview map. Using mapping services is basically like printing out directions from Mapquest. Other than the obvious difference in features, mapping services may be good for walking directions but could certainly be hard (and dangerous) to follow if you are driving.

What do you think? Does this help explain the difference between the two for you? We’d love to hear your feedback.

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Author – Mary Beth Lowell, Communications Manager

As we’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, GPS technology is not just for consumers, it is also becoming relevant for businesses and government organizations of all types and sizes. One of the industries that has begun to leverage the capabilities of GPS is school district transportation. For example, using TeleNav Track on GPS-enabled phones, many schools across the country are now able to easily locate where all of their buses are at any time throughout the day. This means improved safety, more efficient and effective communication with parents, and perhaps even an improvement in school bus routing.

If you are interested, here is a case study (download in PDF) on how the Anaheim Union High School District in Southern California is using TeleNav Track and here is one on how Napa Valley Unified School District in Northern California is using the service.

Survey – Give Us Your Feedback!

Are you a parent with kids who ride the school bus to and from school? We want to get your opinion on using GPS on school buses and your ideas on how it can be used to increase safety for your children.

We’ve posted a very short survey to get your feedback.

Click here to access it and give us your opinion. It should only take five minutes and will help us improve our service and add features you think are important!

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Author—Sal Dhanani - Co-Founder and Sr. Director of Marketing

We’re not normally in the business of spreading news from our competitors but Garmin’s announcement last week on its nüvifone is interesting enough that we think it’s worth a discussion.

It’s no secret that more and more people are using cell phone GPS navigation services like TeleNav GPS Navigator. Just look at many of the comments that our customers have posted about how they have used our service. (By the way, picking winners of this contest is going to be very hard – I love all of the stories!)

More and more analysts are predicting that cell phone-based services will be a big in the next couple of years so it’s not really surprising that Garmin is expanding its portfolio to move in this direction. With more and more talk of convergence in devices, it just makes sense that people will prefer one device over two … a great example? The iPhone.

If convergence is what people really want, then getting GPS navigation on your cell phone vs. a separate navigation device is perfectly logical … Which was, of course, our initial vision when starting TeleNav. It is really exciting for me to see the explosion of growth in the industry and to see companies like Garmin developing devices that will essentially do what we have already been doing since 2003.

It will be interesting to watch the evolution of the nüvifone and to try one out when it becomes available. In the meantime, we’re continuing to develop our application for hundreds of phones and with many carriers – this provides our customers with many choices in devices.

What do you think? If you have thoughts on the nüvifone, we’d love to hear them.

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Author - Mary Beth Lowell - Communications Manager

Today we announced that New York City is using TeleNav Track to help clean up the city. Here’s a link to a news story and video on the program.

City inspectors drive three-wheeled scooters around the city looking for things like graffiti, potholes and garbage. When they see incidents like this, they enter it into their AT&T BlackBerry and our service marks the location using GPS. This information is then sent to the appropriate organization within the city to take care of the problems.

This use of TeleNav Track is pretty ingenious and is a great example of how GPS can be a technologically advanced solution for an age-old problem. NYC’s program (called SCOUT – short for Street Conditions Observation Unit) is the brainchild of Mayor Bloomberg but could certainly be mimicked in other cities.

Here is an interesting article I found in Reader’s Digest on the dirtiest cities in the US.

What are the top 5 you ask?

Here is the list:

1. Portland (OR)

2. San Jose

3. Buffalo

4. Columbus

5. San Francisco

Some of this has to do with air and water quality which TeleNav Track unfortunately won’t fix but it also takes into account things like pollution and sanitation. Perhaps some of these cities can consider looking at NYC’s program as a best practice.

Kudos to NYC which is at the very bottom of this list!

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Author—Bob Rennard - CTO and Co-Founder

Apple’s recent announcement that the iPhone will use Skyhook Wireless’ Wi-Fi location-aware technology has stirred conversation in the press about using Wi-Fi on cell phones vs. using GPS technology. 

I tend to agree with Patrick Connelly, an analyst with IMS research, who stated that the two technologies are more complimentary than competitive. However, one will not replace the other. 

If you are in an “urban canyon” such as Manhattan, securing a GPS fix may be a challenge, especially with phones that do not use the wireless network to assist the GPS receiver in finding the location (assisted vs. autonomous GPS). In this case, for some location-based services, Wi-Fi access points may be an alternative or complimentary to GPS. However, until Wi-Fi access points reach a critical mass in these cities, the location could still be off by nearly 300 feet, especially if the wireless access point is moved after its location is recorded. This obviously would not work for services like driver navigation but may be reasonable for pedestrians who are not moving as quickly.

In more suburban or rural areas, GPS is still clearly the primary choice for most location-based applications since Wi-Fi access points will be few and far between. Some companies have discussed using personal Wi-Fi access points (i.e. you or your neighbor’s Wi-Fi service) in suburban areas, but this could be a huge privacy issue. I don’t see this happening any time soon. 

Other than Skyhook, there are other companies providing some interesting location-aware technologies. Qualcomm and Navizon are also working on Wi-Fi location-aware technologies. Another interesting technology is that of Rosum. Rosum is combining TV with GPS signals to develop a technology that will ideally provide more location-capturing capabilities indoor (where GPS is limited). 

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Author—Sal Dhanani - Co-Founder and Sr. Director of Marketing

I’ve been monitoring some of the GPS news coming from CES this week and it seems like at least one major theme popping up this year is connectivity.

Traditionally standalone GPS devices have not provided a “real-time” connection with the Internet. The mapping and business information must manually be updated by the customer on a quarterly or annual basis.

However, now some of the newer devices have this connection capability and are on display in Vegas at the show. The benefits of connectivity include real-time access to information like traffic, local business listings, etc.

There is a catch though. These connected devices (the hardware itself) will likely cost you much, much more than the non-connected devices and there will be a monthly subscription fee added on top of the cost of the hardware.

What surprises me is that many people still do not realize that their cell phones have provided GPS navigation services and this inherent Internet connectivity for several years now. Rather than purchase an extremely expensive GPS device (for anywhere from $400 - $2,000), they can get the same GPS navigation capabilities on their cell phones.

So, at the end of the day, they can get the same service for ONLY a monthly subscription and they can get it on a device they already own and carry with them everywhere - with the same amount of real-time information.

Our goal in this industry has been from the beginning to bring very high-quality GPS navigation services to everyone at a great value.

Hopefully customers will do some competitive shopping before purchasing expensive connected GPS devices. Try our service for 30 days for free and I think you’ll see that what is being touted as “new” at CES, is already available to you at a much more affordable price.

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Author—H.P. Jin- President, CEO and Co-Founder

As we launch into a new year, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the year behind us and share my thoughts on the opportunities for TeleNav and the industry in 2008.

2007 was a milestone year for us. We are now offering TeleNav GPS Navigator through approximately 80% of the wireless carriers in North America, including AT&T, Sprint, Alltel, T-Mobile, Bell Canada and Rogers. Additionally, we expanded significantly in key global markets including China, Europe and Latin America. During the year, we also launched our mobile enterprise application, TeleNav Track, with AT&T. We have now deployed this service with two of the major carriers in the US – Sprint and AT&T.

In addition to our core products (TeleNav GPS Navigator and TeleNav Track), we also launched two new products in 2007. One is called TeleNav Maps – it is a free, non-GPS, static mapping service for BlackBerry customers. And more recently, we launched Whereboutz - a social networking product integrated with Facebook. These new products are exciting because they allow us to explore new technology and business models. Whereboutz specifically opens up many new opportunities for GPS capabilities integrated with social networking applications.

Last, but certainly not least, we continued to maintain our focus on improving customer support so that TeleNav customers enjoy their experience using our products and working with our team members. Part of this focus on customer service included launching this blog which we hope will offer an easy and enjoyable way for our customers to learn more about the industry and offer suggestions to us for improving our products and services.

2008 will be even more exciting than 2007. With more and more advanced GPS phones (tens of millions) coming to the market, and awareness of GPS capabilities on mobile phones increasing, there will be significantly more people using mobile GPS solutions such as TeleNav GPS Navigator, TeleNav Track or Whereboutz. Tens of millions of users will incorporate GPS services into their daily lives.

We feel great that what we do brings significant positive impact to so many users globally. We are proud that we help our customers be more productive, feel less stressed and have more fun while they are on the move.

I wish all of you a healthy and prosperous 2008!

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Author - Mary Beth Lowell - Communications Manager

Now that the holidays are almost over, it’s time to begin thinking about our New Year’s resolutions. Inevitably, most of us will have on our 2008 list something having to do with losing weight, getting back in shape or at least becoming healthier.

One of the fun (I think) advances in GPS in the past few years has been the increase in technology for outdoor activities. There seem to be GPS gadgets for anything and everything including hiking, biking, walking and running. (Is there something for swimming? Probably …)

As a runner, I love using GPS to monitor my runs. Many of the new GPS watches for runners will do everything but lace up your shoelaces and run for you. I’ve never been a hard core athlete – I don’t monitor my heart rate for anaerobic levels for example – but I love knowing how far each route around my neighborhood really is and if my speed is improving over time.

I tried one GPS running watch last summer which turned out to be a horrible experience (the brand will remain unnamed) – primarily because the GPS receiver which you have to strap to your arm was about the size of a cantaloupe and stopped working halfway through the run. In its defense, the watch was an older one (a hand-me-down from a family member) and probably three or more generations behind what’s available now. I did have a good experience however with a cell phone-based service called Bones in Motion. You can essentially throw the phone (the smaller the better) in your pocket, carry it, or use some sort of strap on your arm (I tucked mine in my iPod strap and it worked great).

I know there are more advanced GPS gadgets and watches out there now though which don’t require huge GPS receivers. (Have you seen the new Nike commercial? I have to admit, it made me want … well, whatever they are promoting.)

Any recommendations on outdoor GPS gadgets or watches that you like? Now’s a good time to hit up those after-Christmas sales…

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Author-Mary Beth Lowell - Communications Manager

This is one for the kid in each of us…

Looking for the best site to track Santa using GPS next week? I did a bit of research (read: a Google search) and found what seems to be the most qualified resource: www.noradsanta.org.

Of course he hasn’t ventured out yet, but keep the site bookmarked for Christmas Eve and you can track his journey to your house. Google will even let you add this to your Google home page via this link so you are sure not to miss him: http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=http://www.labpixies.com/gadgads/norad/norad_new.xml&source=snta.

Now, if we can just make sure he’s using TeleNav GPS Navigator so he doesn’t get lost…

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