Word: tomtom
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...lack of space. Previous attempts to reduce traffic - from offering incentives to people who carpool to giving away free croissants and newspapers on public transport - have had little effect. The government estimates that a typical rush hour has about 270 kilometers of traffic jams, although the GPS maker TomTom often records up to 1,000 kilometers of back-ups during peak hours. (See a TIME video of a GPS tour of the Berlin Wall...
...Beacon" feature that lets you map your friends' precise whereabouts on your handset.) Personal navigation units could easily incorporate the same features, but device makers say there's little demand. "Most consumers are just looking to get from Point A to Point B," notes Tom Murray, vice president of TomTom...
...logical next step. As for why device makers don't offer it yet, even though the technology has long existed to do so, she says, "They never really had to compete in this space, so there wasn't the need." But as prices come down (on April 23, TomTom reported that its average product price had fallen 42% over the past year to $185 per unit) and as the number of GPS device manufacturers increases, companies are scrambling for ways to differentiate their wares...
...subscribing to the unit-tracking function, in part because that service would increase the annual fee - about $50 - that many companies already charge to transmit traffic updates and other information. What's more, it's not the average consumer who would track down a criminal to get his TomTom or Mio back. But the fact that it could be tracked at all would serve as a powerful deterrent; it would also help authorities locate and bust larger-scale crime rings, which typically hawk stolen electronics in pawn shops, on street corners, and on websites like Craigslist and eBay. What...
...market for a navigation product, the Blackbird certainly holds its own against competition from Garmin, TomTom, Magellan and soon, Sony and Mio. But if you want to get your $750 worth, you had better be ready to upgrade (via Web download or CD-ROM) this summer...