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GPS technology has changed the way we travel. While exciting, traveling and exploring foreign countries can be stressful. Everything is unfamiliar. You may not be able to read the road signs or speak the language well enough to understand directions. A GPS loaded with area-specific maps helps you to enjoy your travels with peace of mind. In order to take full advantage of GPS benefits, it is essential to take the time to prepare both the GPS and yourself before your adventure begins.

Learn Your System
One of the first mistakes people make when using a GPS system is taking it out of the box as they begin their journey. If you do this, you may find that there is a learning curve to most GPS systems. They each work in slightly different ways. While new technology often excites us to the point that we just want to go, it is important to slow down and read the manual. At least give it a quick flip through so that you understand the functions of the system. After you understand the basic functions of the system, you will want to explore how it actually works. Take a road trip as a passenger. Set up a route that you travel routinely and pay attention to how the system actually functions in real life.

Experiment with setting benchmarks, orientating yourself and what happens if you need to re-route. If you plan on using the GPS for walking around cities or exploring nature areas, place yourself in those situations on a small scale. Walk around your home town with the device. Take a small hike. Actually using the GPS in a real situation will prevent stress when in an unfamiliar place. You will know exactly how to read and use your device when you need it the most.

Prepare your GPS
Download the maps for your travel with plenty of time to review them and ensure that they give you the necessary information for the area you are exploring. Compare the generated routes to physical maps to ensure that they are routing properly. Take a test run at finding specific addresses, locations and POI’s.

Remember the Power
Power can be a problem when traversing rural areas by GPS. Be prepared by making sure that you have more power than necessary – in case you become lost or change your travel plans. Make sure you have extra battery power, universal adapters, solar chargers or other power systems. If you are relying on a GPS, you don’t want to have it run out of power just when you need it most.

Considerations for GPS Travel
Be smart when traveling with a GPS. Avoid leaving the device exposed in your vehicle. It could easily be stolen, taking your route with you. Carry a physical map with you, just in case. While it may not be as detailed or updated as your GPS maps, it could help you navigate in an emergency. Keep in mind that wondering around a city while blatantly using a GPS can target you immediately as a tourist or lost. Many GPS devices allow you to use ear buds to listen to directions, allowing you to keep the device in your pocket. This can also free up your hands.
Taking the time to understand your GPS and prepare the device helps prevent the stress that often comes from travel situations, leaving you able to enjoy every minute of your adventure.
Source: MemNav.com

Recently Google launched indoor maps and indoor location for its Android operating system. The system offers a map that pinpoints details inside buildings (shops in a mall, etc…) as well as an improved Wi-Fi triangulation system that brings accuracy down to a few meters and position you at the exact floor level.

Indoor location is basically made of two components: map content in one hand and location engine in the other hand. These components are often provided by two different types of companies. Because GPS and Glonass are not working indoor, other types of technologies are offered by a number of companies to provide the positioning of mobile devices: Wi-Fi RF fingerprinting & triangulation (Cisco, Pole Star, Navizon), Bluetooth (NAVTEQ/Nokia), Cellular signal (GloPos), GPS Pseudolytes (Insiteo).

In addition, some companies like CSR/SiRF with its SiRFusion platform are willing to fuse several techniques/sensors to provide the best positioning depending on the sensors available. As it comes to indoor maps providers, there are several of them such as Micello, Point Inside, What A Map and of course NAVTEQ who came late to the game. There are also players which specialize in vertical markets. For example, aisle411 provides store maps and in-store navigation for retailers such as Home Depot or Lowe’s as well as grocery stores in a dozen of U.S. metropolitan markets. FastMall is, as the name implies, specializing in shopping malls maps and navigation.

Before talking about the impact of Google it is interesting to understand the business models and go to market strategies of the players in this market segment. There are basically two ways to monetize indoor location. One is to work directly with venue owners to provide them with tools to offer maps and navigation to their visitors and, sometimes, to track these visitors behaviours. In this category the business model is traightforward: the venue owner supports the cost of the system and offer it as a value added service.

The second type of business model is to provide a service directly to consumers with a mobile app. This type of model requires scale and the monetization is likely to come from advertising. this is where Google is obviously playing. It is therefore interesting to understand that many players are not really afraid of Google because they not directly compete against the web giant.
This is the case for WiFi positioning provider Pole Star. According to its CEO Christian Carle, “Google’s announcement creates great opportunities. It demonstrates to Pole Star’s prospects and customers that indoor positioning and mapping have great value. For Pole Star, it reinforces the value of our high accuracy positioning technology. Google educates on “Where Am I?”, Pole Star’s technology enables step-by-step guidance for users and advanced marketing services to our customers. Moreover, this creates a need for apps with maps whose specific look and feel are able to convey the image of the brand.“

According to Todd Sherman Chief Marketing Officer at indoor map vendor Point Inside, Google is silently building a system that is threatening retailers because it could easily allow in-store marketing from competitors.
“A customer inside a store is a high-value target for advertisers and a lucrative revenue opportunity for Google. It is likely that Google’s indoor maps will operate with Google’s very successful AdWords model where algorithms decide which ads to present and are biased toward the highest bidder – which can easily be a competitor.“

The key here is that indoor location is one of the technologies where brick & mortar players collides with the web giants. Everything indicates there will be a battle over who is going to own the smartphone experience in-store and in-mall. To some extend it is not very different of the battle launched by Amazon against brick and mortar stores with its price check app that is offering a 5 percent discount on any product scanned at a retail location. Small players in the indoor location market might therefore find a good business working with retailers to enable their own indoor maps and navigation applications that will compete with Google products.

“Still at a nascent stage“
Nevertheless, this market is still at its very early days; even Google does not have much to offer yet with only a few location mapped. As noticed by Patrick Connelly, analyst with ABI Research, “A tranche of new technologies from CSR, Nokia, Google, Ericsson, Mexens Technology, NextNav, and Boeing have all been launched over the last three months to help unlock the potential of indoor location and marketing. However, it will take a few years for these technologies to proliferate; indoor mapping has yet to reach anywhere near a critical mass and the ability to build relevant indoor information, marketing, and advertising is still at a nascent stage.“
Source: gpsbusinessnews.com

December 2011 edition of GPS Map Newsletter is out now with wishes for Christmas and New Year.

December issue has links to GPS maps for Garmin, Navitel and CityGuide, Maps to all countries in the Middle East and ….More information