Source_GPS

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stor...28/daily35.html It appears that Garmin has found a way to converge all of the devices into one, hopefully as a good GPS first and a phone second. Let's see if their Q3 push is realistic (historically they have not been reliable). I hope it is not as buggy when it comes out as the Colorado. Edit: I have cancelled my preorder for my Colorado and Nuvi 880 hoping this will take the place of these and my cell phone.

I sent the link to the issues list and received a different response: Dear Steve, Thank you for contacting Garmin International. We appreciate the information. We will take a look accordingly. With Best Regards, Kim J Product Support Specialist Outdoor/Fitness Team Garmin International 913-397-8200 800-800-1020 913-397-8282 (fax) Att: Kim J www.garmin.com Maybe we should all contact Kim! Perhaps we're starting to get their attention more seriously if the acknowledgements are changing. I could alway arrange for a conference call and we could call support with 50 people on the line

I have to agree with Nicolo, although I would not say it so pointedly As others have said, this needs to be something you are willing to work through understanding this is the first run at the product. If you bought the first new model year of a car's redesign, would you return it? Probably not, right? You would have the dealer fix the issues. That's what Garmin is going to do. It sounds to me if your posed the question, your mind may already be made up. Steve

G-O, The link in your signature to the issues list is not workin, although the FAQ one is. Steve

Ahh! That does sound pretty cool.

I am going to ask something that probably has an obvious answer, but I am curious: What is the attraction to geotagging a photo? What purpose does this serve?

I was afraid you were going to say that - that is not good - especially when you plan to be on camping expedition for a weekend and have no way to charge them (except a solar charger which is not efficient).

I can reccommend a really great bicycle mount that I use and that I sold a bunch to an ATV club for mounting their rinos - the Lobstermount! www.lobstermount.com They come with a universal handlebar mount and will fit just about any handlebar. You cna also get other mounts for other applications, such as a suction cup, screw down mount, etc. I am very happy with mine and it is indestructible. It holds my Rino's and E-map perfectly.

Or you could take all of your devices and crazy glue them together to create one unique awkward contraption of plastic It could start a new trend - PMCT (Poor-man's convergence technology)

Interesting article I found this morning. Could prove useful in future GPS devices to aid in improving TTF times: Start-up to launch innovative GPS chip, targets digital camera market Air Semiconductor, a fabless GPS semiconductor company formed in May 2006, has announced today its first product, Airwave1, that deliver low power continuous GPS tracking in order to solve the time to first fix issue for non-connected consumer electronics devices. Air Semiconductor claims its Airwave-1 chip consumes “only 1% of power required by current GPS solutions”. Airwave-1 is particularly dedicated to the digital camera market where time to first fix is critical because consumers are not willing to wait minutes to take a picture. While the cell phone market has pretty much solved this problem with assisted GPS solutions, using the network to accelerate the first fix, non-connected consumer electronics devices is still facing this issue. To achieve such a low level of power consumption (1mA while tracking), the technology developed by Air Semiconductor is trading up accuracy against power consumption. Once embedded into a digital camera the Airwave-1 chip will keep tracking of GPS satellites but not spending power on finding its accurate position. However, when the user will take a picture the technology will immediately shift into “accuracy mode” to get a precise position for the instant of the picture. This technology will also solve the problem of taking a picture inside a building. Its “always on” mode will record your last position when you enter the building. A demand for GPS-enabled cameras? According to Stephen Graham, co-founder and CEO of Air Semiconductor: “there is a real demand for picture geotagging. First, consumers are increasingly tagging picture manually. There are 30 million geo-tagged photos on Flickr and 2.5 million added per month! Second, these online services (Flickr, google Earth,etc) are pushing geotagging because it brings more features to their users. “The third reason is more subtle”, he said; “this is the threat of camera-phones supremacy for digital camera manufacturers. So far camera-phones have pretty much offered downgraded camera experiences, but moving forward, with GPS and A-GPS they will have the opportunity to bring location to pictures and finally offer a better experience, a real threat recognized by camera manufacturers”. Air Semiconductor is initially focusing on the digital camera market because it is the most obvious for its technology. However, it also intends to target other battery powered consumer electronics devices that are not connected. “The Airwave-1 approach to GPS is truly novel and addresses a real market need," said Will Strauss, President and Principal Analyst at the market research firm Forward Concepts. "Air Semiconductor's very-low-power technology allows them to address portable markets that have been impractical for GPS because of battery drain and first-fix timing concerns associated with current chip products.” Ultimately, Air Semiconductor thinks its “always on” GPS technology can be very useful to forthcoming applications on cell phones because the balance between accuracy and power can be finely triggered by software algorithms. For Stephen Graham “there is a commercial opportunity in mobile handsets for proactive location-dependent services, where the users' location triggers a service such as an alarm, a reminder or a promotional message”. Serie A round of funding Air Semiconductor has raised a serie A round of funding with Pond Venture Partners. While Stephen Graham was not willing to disclose the amount it raised during this first round, he recognized to GPS Business News: “We have been financed enough to go easily through 2008”. The company has a current staff of 12 people and expects to hire eight additional engineers by the end of this year and to have Airwave-1 first engineering samples ready this summer. “Pond has invested in Air as we see a combination of groundbreaking, next generation technology, a large potential market and a superb team,” commented Mike Gera, a General Partner at Pond Venture Partners. But the success of Air Semiconductor will highly depend of the willingness of camera manufacturers to include GPS in their products. During a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2006, Kodak's CEO Antonio Perez was already talking about the interest of geotagging to sort pictures in the “digital shoebox”: two years later we are still waiting to see anything coming out of the box. Thursday 24th January 2008 Ludovic Privat Link can be found here: http://www.gpsbusinessnews.com/index.php?a...mp;TOKEN_RETURN

This is the most comprehensive list I've seen. Great idea!

Thanks for the post! I didn't realize that there was a fairly considerable difference in size (at least for someone looking to carry this in their pocket) between the two. The problem with the Colorado's backlight is also discouraging. How has the battery life been for each of them? What type(s) have you used in each? I have read in the other forums that the Colorado isn't getting nearly what Garmin claims it should be getting for battery life. Also there seems to be a problem with the unit measuring nimh battery life.

If anyone has both a Colorado and a Vista (or other etrex), I would be interested in seeing side by side photo comparisons of size. Thanks!

HAHA! Better have it plugged in!

It would be interesting to see what the feedback is using say, an 8GB card to see if their is significant degredation in speed accessing the data. I'm surprised that if it supoprts 2.0, that they would want to advertise that.

Since some users have had the chance to play with the device, does the documentation say whether it supports SD 2.0 (capability to read SD cards from 4GB-32GB)?

I'll stick my 2cents in for what it's worth - about 1/2 a penny My approach has always been this: multi-function devices are never the best at all the functions they provide, they only sample features in adequacy. Although I like the idea of incorporating a sleek GUI that displays weather forecast and plays MP3's, i still like separating my devices. IMO, for hiking/camping/survival exercises, choose a good GPS that is nothing but a good GPS - if it has some great extra bells & whistles, then great. If you want good accurate and specific weather forecasting, get a watch with a thermometer and barometer on it (i.e, Casio Pathfinder or a Suunto). Also, Mp3's are light enough and inexpensive enough to carry, plus you're not relying on one battery to supply power to all of these functions. Bushnell might make a good GPS but I wouldn't trust it against a Garmin, Magellan or Delorme.

Actually they can not participate in forums as it is a violation of SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) requirements. This can be viewed as "hyping" the company for stock inflation purposes.

Keep your eye on Woot.com or buy.com - I see the the SD's pop up every other week or so - 4GB SD's are usually around $20 and the 8GB's are around $40. Also found an 8GB here for $44: http://www.supermediastore.com/pqi-sdhc-8g..._mey_googlebase

The 400t is capable of a 3D rendition of the topography, yet I haven't seen this from any users posts -any out there?

I would peg the 2nd generation Colorados to have them. That Bushnell product is very cool - I am thinking of adding it to my collection this year.

Sno, Not to deviate from the topic, however you can accomplish the background loading by compartmentalizing the application over a distributed architecture. The easiest and most primative example of this is using frames within a browser - each frame loads a separate page, which in turn is processing data from a different location but all displayed in a central location. Using java or flash could also empower one to provide similar results. I think what we'll see over the next 12 months is a refinement of these bugs (or "undocumented features") based on user feedback. Like new cars, they're trying to push the latest and greatest to the market first without ample time to properly refine them. Some say never buy the first model anything (or anything built on Monday or Friday). I say, I don't mind being the Beta tester.

Did you load the drivers from the CD? You can also download them from Garmin's support site.

I didn't even know you could still get $2 bills. Not a bad idea.

Ah! Well, its good to know that the Colorado uses a magnetic North versus GPS detection for its compass.