Making digital maps more current and accurate
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   15 years
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One of the more common comments heard relates to the accuracy of the digital maps used in our units. Here is an article regarding work being done in Europe to overcome some of the issues around having the most current information.
The article does not talk about how the update information is received from the user and relayed back, but my suspicion is it will use a wireless network connecting sensors (and possibly built-in GPSr systems) to roadside systems over the Dedicated Short-Range Communications frequencies allocated world-wide.
DSRC is another whole topic that will affect how you drive and the information made available to both traffic operations centers and drivers. Basically, it will provide reports from built-in sensors reporting road and weather conditions you have encountered and receive road and weather conditions on the road ahead. DSRC can also be used to change signal timing granting longer green cycles when there is no cross-traffic or alerting a driver of an approaching emergency vehicle.
Making digital maps more current and accurate
One of the more common comments heard relates to the accuracy of the digital maps used in our units. Here is an article regarding work being done in Europe to overcome some of the issues around having the most current information.
That was a good article. Thanks for sharing. Bringing new technology to market is always a bigger challenge than developing it. I don't like the suggested idea of "bundling FeedMAP with the other services already offered by car manufacturers" because I believe it would be the most expensive way to do so. That is based on buying a built-in gps from car manu. for $1,000 versus getting one from Garmin-TomTom-Magellan for as little as $150!
I hope this FeedMAP and other ideas for reporting errors and updating maps catches on, though. We need a more timely system.
Winston Churchill said, “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, after exhausting all other possibilities.”
More Acccurate Maps
Thanks for posting.
I'm hopeful that in the future the maps will get better and be updated faster.
FeedMAP
Actually FeedMAP looks promising for the future, as the price of solid state Hard drives come down, I would imagine most GPS manufactures will incorporate them. I have a Magellan Roadmate 760 w/ 20gb hard drive in the drawer so it's not like they haven't had them in the past. The price of FeedMAP looks real expensive right now, it will have to come way down to be usable. Good article.
Using Android Based GPS.The above post and my sig reflects my own opinions, expressed for the purpose of informing or inspiring, not commanding. Naturally, you are free to reject or embrace whatever you read.
no need for SSD, GPSrs already use flash
...as the price of solid state Hard drives come down, I would imagine most GPS manufactures will incorporate them....
SSDs are based on flash memory, which most current GPS devices already use. There is likely no benefit to GPS receiver manufacturers buying packaged SSDs and building industry standard interfaces to talk to them when they can just include the desired amount of flash memory into the GPS.
Flash technology will continue to evolve, with different types of flash memory and greater densities and faster speeds. But I doubt that you will see anything other than a very specialized GPS receiver use a SSD rather than just incorporating flash memory directly into the hardware design.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but.......
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a nuvi an SSD in and of itself? Or is an SSD defined as flash in an HDD format. As far as I can tell, an SSD in a laptop is nothing more than a massive amount of flash memory (no different than in a USB stick) plugged in where your HDD would be.
If the above is true, the only advantage of using the SSD (HDD format) would be that if your memory crapped out it would be easy to replace.
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If the above is true, the only advantage of using the SSD (HDD format) would be that if your memory crapped out it would be easy to replace.
An SSD is flash memory specially packaged for both a standard form factor and an industry standard interface (such ad SATA). The GPS industry has little motive to ever use SSD technology. It would increase the cost and physical size of the GPS. More importantly, if all of the memory in a GPS were in a SSD then a user could access it by putting it on another device. The GPS makers would not want this, as they include some information (including the model number and serial number) in parts of the flash memory that the end user can't normally access. This helps them protect their firmware and map data. If you couyld just swap out a SSD drive then it would be much harder for them to protect their firmware and data, unless they included other flash memory. And they have little incentive to include two different types of flash memory.