Friday, September 10, 2010

Google adds satnav to Maps on Android mobiles (includes video)

Nigel Kendall & ,}

Google now combined a entirely featured GPS heavenly body navigation make use of to the Google Maps focus for mobile phones utilizing the Android handling system.

The new service, for the UK and Ireland, follows a identical launch in the United States last year. The new Google Maps Navigation brings all of the firm"s mapping services together, together with the argumentative Street View, and facilities full voice guidance.

The make use of additionally offers voice control, permitting users to bypass the mostly tedious step of inputting an residence or postcode by simply observant where they want to go.

Speaking at the launch this morning, Steve Lee, Googles Group Product Manager for Mobile Maps, pronounced that mobile map make use of is flourishing with the widespread of smartphones and cheaper interpretation contracts. He pronounced that 50 million people right away use Google Maps on their mobile phones each day. Googles new service, similar to many of the companys products, is formed in the cloud. No maps are installed on a users device; instead, the Android phone accesses Googles vast banks of online data, enabling updates such as trade report to be delivered in genuine time.

The value that gives us, Mr Lee said, is that we have entrance to the whole of Google search. Even if you dont know the name ofthe place you are going, we can still find it. A voice poke of navigate to Rosetta Stone quickly offering the British Museums address.

Googles move in to entirely fledged heavenly body navigation additionally has wider significance, given it outlines an additional margin - after mobile phones - where the company is entering a marketplace already assigned by rarely essential companies such as TomTom, and undermining their commercial operation indication by creation formerly paid-for report or record openly available.

However, TomTom denied that Googles satnav resolution would repairs the market. A mouthpiece said: This is a opposite sort of device for a opposite sort of consumer. The Google Maps make use of has been accessible in North America for some time and we have beheld no stroke on the business. In a way, the similar to digital cameras. Most phones have them built in, nonetheless people still buy separate cameras for their dedicated functionality.

Although the new Google complement is now usually accessible for Googles Android platform, Mr Lee pronounced that growth for alternative platforms, such as BlackBerry and iPhone, will roughly positively take place.

The systems main weakness, he acknowledged, is that motorists utilizing their Google Maps satnav in Europe will be forced to compensate interpretation in motion charges. He suggested that users on legal holiday download a track utilizing wireless broadband internet prior to environment out, and afterwards spin off interpretation in motion to equivocate racking up a outrageous bill.

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