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Navicore brings award-winning mobile navigation experience to Nokia N800 Internet Tablet

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PRESS RELEASE


Navicore brings award-winning mobile navigation experience to Nokia N800 Internet Tablet

Introduces extended map coverage for North America, Australia, Middle East and South Africa

CES, Las Vegas, USA - January 9, 2007 - Navicore, a leading European provider of easy-to-use GPS navigation software for connective mobile devices, today announced that Navicore Personal will be available for Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, which was announced earlier today by Nokia.

Navicore also announced extended map coverage for Navicore Personal 2007 by introducing maps of North America, Australia, the Middle East and South Africa. Extended map coverage can be used with all Navicore Personal 2007 compatible devices running on Linux (Nokia 770 Internet Tablet and Nokia N800 Internet Tablet) and Symbian S60v3, S80 and UIQv3 operating systems. Compatible Symbian devices include, for example, handsets like Nokia E62 and Nokia N75 among over 30 other supported handsets.

Navicore Personal on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet combine the best features of navigation software with Internet enhanced navigation, benefiting from the high-resolution widescreen display and portable internet access. Internet enhanced navigation enables people on the move to access various Internet services directly from the Navicore Personal map display on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, and to easily navigate with clear visual and voice guidance to interesting locations found from the Internet.

Navicore Personal is an easy-to-use GPS-navigator that is specifically developed for connected mobile devices. It is not only a full navigation system for use when driving, cycling or walking, but also a convenient pocket guide that includes thousands of points-of-interest such as restaurants, hotels, petrol stations and local tourist venues. The basic navigation with Navicore Personal is free of charge once the software is installed, as the software and the maps are installed locally on a memory card and no operator network is required.

"With its impressive widescreen display and extremely fast mobile Internet connectivity, the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is the ideal platform for consumer friendly GPS navigation. By combining the award-winning Navicore Personal with the innovative Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, we can offer a superior navigation user experience that further extends fun and functionality, as well as control and confidence for the mobile lifestyle," said Juha Murtopuro, CEO, Navicore Ltd. "Together with Navicore, Nokia is proud to introduce internet enhanced navigation on Nokia N800 Internet Tablet to people on the move in North America," said Ari Virtanen, Vice President of Convergence Products, Multimedia, Nokia. "With this unique concept, consumers benefit from quick and easy access to all their favorite Internet services, with Navicore Personal they will also be able to find out where they are, where to go and how to get there."

Currently available map coverage for Navicore Personal 2007 includes maps with street names and house numbers for Europe, Australia, South Africa and the Middle East, and is available at http://shop.navicoretech.com. Maps of North America will become available in Q1 2007. European and North American map data is supplied by TeleAtlas with highly accurate street maps and rich digital map content, including points of-interest to enable users precisely and easily find the places, people, products and services they seek. The map data meets the stringent quality data requirements of the International Standards Organization (ISO) from National Quality Assurance, and was recently re-issued the 9001:2000 standard certification for ISO quality assurance standards in North America.

Navicore Personal 2007 navigation software will be available for the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet as a standalone Navigation Kit that includes the software along with a GPS receiver module and car holder, and it will also be available as a complete all-in-one Navigation Bundle that includes the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet in addition to the Navicore Personal software and GPS receiver. The Navigation Kit for Nokia N800 Internet Tablet and the Navigation Bundle is estimated to be available in March 2007 at selected outlets and Nokia online through http://www.nokia.com.

About Navicore
Navicore is a provider of interactive navigation products for connective mobile devices running on different operating systems like Symbian and Linux. Navicore Personal software together with a GPS turns your connective mobile device into a fully functional navigator that is always with you. A connective mobile device based solution provides the most convenient and easiest way to navigate while driving a car, cycling or walking. Navicore products are widely retailed in Europe, the Middle East, South Africa and Australia. For more information, please visit http://www.navicoretech.com.



HEXUS Forums :: 2 Comments

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I own a Nokia N800 personal tablet which is a great little Linux based PDA
with a beautiful 800x480 screen and lots of functionality. Recently I've
decided to buy the GPS kit from Navicore and I'm quite disappointed with my
purchase. I've paid for the GPS kit 154Ā£ (including transport) and from the
hardware point of view I can't complain. It came with a car holder, power
adaptors, SD memory and quite a sensitive GPS/Bluetooth receiver. The software
on the other hand feels more like a beta version.

The one feature that make this device worthless for me (to the point that
I'll return it to the Nokia shop) is that you cannot have your maps pointing
North. You only have a function to temporarily orient the map to North and
then it switches back to its (crazy) rotate map mode so that your car always
heads forward. I don't understand who can use this mode for navigation. Imagine
how it would be like to use a paper map instead and have to rotate it at every
turn you take.

One useless feature is the “Safety Cameras” warning. The software uses a stupid
algorithm which just warns you when a camera is in a certain distance range
even when the camera is not on the same road you are driving on. When you are
on the motorway you get warnings from cameras on the roads parallel with or
intersecting the motorway. The software has also no knowledge of the direction
the camera is pointing to so you get warnings for cameras on the other side of
the road too.

For the traffic information you have to pay extra for the service and have a
GPRS mobile phone connected to the tablet.
Another software design problem is that your navigation screen is fixed, you
cannot alter any fields and the menus and icons are occupying 50% of your
screen area leaving only the other 50% for the map. There is no translucent
mode for the menus and info fields. Because of this poor GUI design it feels
more like looking at your cell phone screen than a high resolution 800x480 one.

Other annoyances: Most of the Nokia tablet owners use the auto-lock function
of the tablet so when it's not in use for a period longer than a few minutes
it locks the screen and then you have to use the stylus to enter your unlock
code to activate it again. This function is not disabled by the Navicore
software and your device locks its screen while you navigate. You can imagine
what is like to enter numbers while driving just to be able to see the map
again. One solution is to disable to auto-lock function before you start using
the tablet as a GPS but this means pressing at least 3 menu items plus your
unlock code every time you want to switch this on and off.

A last problem is the voice guidance although this is not Navicore or Nokia's
fault: you can only barely hear the directions while driving even with the
volume set at max. This is a limitation of the tablet's speakers and the only
solution is to use the 3.5 jack with ear-phones or an amplifier.

For the reasons listed above I'll give a very poor mark to Navicore for their
navigation software usability. Meanwhile I'll just use my reliable Garmin 276C
GPS for every day navigation.
You really don't like this do you?

http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.satellite.gps/

You going to post it anywhere else? :P