May
30
2009
German satellite imagery provider RapidEye announced today that they have collected more than 69 Million square kilometers of at least 80% cloud-free images during their first 100 days of operation.
The RapidEye satellites constellation was launched in August 2008 and started to operate in February 2009. The imaging campaigns were concentrated in Europe, the U.S., Brazil and China. More than 36 Million square kilometers of the Earth’s surface, or about one quarter of the total landmass were imaged, often several times.
“When you consider the RapidEye system started operations only in February of this year, the collection rate of more than 69 Million km² of useful images in a little over 3 months is quite impressive,” remarks Michael Oxfort, RapidEye’s Head of Operations and Engineering. “This gives our customers a lot of high quality data to choose from. Even more remarkable is the fact that our system capacity has not been reached yet. We expect our Library to grow to even higher rates in the coming months by expanding our imaging campaigns to other areas around the globe.”
RapidEye operates its own constellation of five satellites capable of downloading over 4 million square kilometers of data per day at 6.5 meter nominal ground resolution.
May
24
2009
Like the movie Marley & Me? Here’s your chance to download a “Marley” icon for your Garmin GPS. Downloading and installing these are easy, and Garmin has some
good directions
to walk you through it.
Get your Marley icon at the Garmin Garage where you’ll also find all kinds of other icons for your compatible navigator.
May
18
2009
The once booming personal navigation device market is grinding to a halt in 2009 with little or no growth expected in most regions. With the European PND market forecast to decline and the North American market remaining flat, Asia-Pacific remains the only growth market.
“While the economic downturn is definitely a major factor, it is not the only reason why the PND segment is struggling,” says ABI Research practice director Dominique Bonte. “The anticipated growth of connected PNDs has failed to materialize due both to a lack of compelling services and to inadequate business models.”
At the same time handset-based navigation is gaining momentum, boosted by a wave of high profile touchscreen GPS-smartphone launches, the central role of navigation and LBS in handset market leader Nokia’s OVI service strategy, and the growing availability of free ad-funded navigation in Europe.
However, ABI Research does expect growth in PND shipments to resume in 2010, as the market for optimized dedicated navigation devices is still largely underpenetrated. Innovative PND vendors such as TomTom which have invested in connected navigation services will finally reap the benefits, helped by a more mature wireless connectivity environment and declining price erosion.
In the longer term PNDs will face increasing competition from new form factors such as MIDs, portable media players, and multi-purpose large-screen connected portable devices.
