Garmin International Inchas announced the StreetPilot 2820, a premium automotive and motorcycle navigation device for customers, as well as a configurable platform for Garmin’s growing list of OEM partners. The StreetPilot 2820 builds upon the success of the StreetPilot 2700 series, and also incorporates Bluetooth wireless connectivity and a hands-free calling interface.
www.garmin.com

Tele Atlas has announced that its phonetic data is now integrated in the newly-available Pioneer AVIC Z1 model in-car navigation and TomTom 910 portable navigation systems. Tele Atlas’ phonetic data increases the quality of speech technology used in map-based applications by providing more precise pronunciations of location and directional information.

The phonetic data, critical in handsfree environments and created by Tele Atlas’ own team of linguists, is the most complete available. It includes street and sign name data, administrative information for country, state, county, city and municipality levels, and points of interest in a range of pronunciations covering more than 10 European and North American languages.
www.teleatlas.com

Telcontar, the supplier of software platforms and services for the location-based services (LBS) market, announced the launch of its Drill Down Server (DDS) 4.1. The newest version of the LBS industry’s most widely deployed geospatial software platform adds China map data and a host of customized performance enhancements that enable Telcontar customers to deploy dynamic locationenhanced applications that meet the region-specific needs of China’s burgeoning market. www.telcontar.com

Cisco Systems has announced a collaboration with software provider Appear Networks to deliver an Integrated Location Services Solution for the Stockholm Subway, delivering personalised, real-time information to users in underground stations, anywhere across the Wi-Fi network.

Based on contextual information such as time of day, job role, and current physical location, the solution is able to access the right information, which is interpreted and pushed out in real time to the right users, and to the right location.
http://newsroom.cisco.com

Dundee moved a step closer to becoming Scotland’s city of wireless innovation, with the announcement of a partnership between the University of Abertay Dundee and LastMile Communications, the British company pioneering a wireless delivery platform using WiFi. Under the agreement, the Abertay campus will become a test bed for LastMile’s state-of-theart node-based wireless information system. The technology offers end user-focused content to mobile devices on demand, and tailored precisely to their location.
www.lastmilecoms.com

ESRI has announced that Xionetic Technologies has selected ESRI’s RouteMAP IMS software to power its new store locator service. Xionetic is using RouteMAP IMS to create Locator Web, a Web-based hosting solution that allows companies including Kohler, North Face and Sketchers to easily add a dealer or store locator and mapping and driving direction functionality to their Web sites without hosting the services themselves. Xionetic hosts more than 170 customers’ sites and plans to use RouteMAP IMS to rapidly grow this in the coming months. www.esri.com