GPSProducts2u.com

The one-touch favorites feature, means that users can have their favorite places such as cafes, right at their fingertips. Furthermore, having taken consumer interests into consideration, the Maestro 4700 now includes twelve additional bookmarks which can be used in order to store information regarding one’s places of interest. Of course, one can also bookmark your most common searches and because the device has a large 4.7 inch touch screen, viewing is easier than ever.

As bluetooth technology becomes more prevalent and integrated with our lives, our expectations for it increase. As such, the Maestro enables bluetooth calling for a wide array of compatible phones. Simply have your phone and Maestro within a few feet of each other and Maestro will play back calls on its available speakers. Maestro can even call points of interest automatically using phone numbers associated with the map data. Maestro can also access your phone’s internal address book, and a noise-canceling microphone reduces road noise for quieter, clearer calling.

The Maestro 4700 also incorporates a “traffic analysis” feature due to the fact that many navigators feel they cannot rely on radio reports. Furthermore, the device’s “predictive traffic analysis” feature is able to create routes which avoid traffic congestion, simply by using past traffic patterns. On the downside however, the 4700 cannot receive live traffic updates in the same way that certain other units can.

Amazingly, the unit includes a “pedestrian mode” which in essence means that you no longer have to worry if you forget where you’ve parked your car. In fact, irrespective of how crowded a parking lot maybe, the device will lead you back to the exact place.

Having a standard database together with Magellan’s exclusive AAA Tour Book guide, access to points of interest is nothing other than exceptional, considering that the search results are organized in a convenient tabbed format. QuickSpell, which is a feature using smart spell-correction technology, makes searching easier than ever when it comes to entering addresses or names of cities for the purpose of route planning.

If by any chance you’re the sort of person who prefers landmarks rather than directions, then you’ll be pleased to know that the Maestro’s 3-D landmark view can provide you with additional context rather than only standard driving directions. Also, thanks to “touch zone technology”, drivers can also take advantage of a fully interactive context-sensitive map. A built in voice command feature makes speech based and hands free access to key commands possible. Text to speech capability allows the device to speak the names of streets and etcetera so that one doesn’t need to take one’s eyes off the road while driving.

With a price tag of approximately $299.99, it is expected that most travelers will want the Magellan Maestro 4700 to be part of their toolkit. With features such as the touch screen enhanced interface and Bluetooth calling, the Maestro 4700 certainly won’t be out of place on your dashboard.

Smartgrid2: We were right about cable modems and BPL is next

Former European cable execs see BPL parallels

Firm poised to ease BPL’s entry into Europe

Reproduced from the Jan 30 issue of BPL Today with the permission of the publisher, GHI LLC (202-298-8201, www.bpltoday.com).

Two former vice presidents of reportedly Europe ’s largest triple play firm started a BPL integrator/operator called Smartgrid2.

Tom Walsh and Patricia McGrath were executives at UPC Broadband — now owned by Liberty Global. The Netherlands-based firm grew from a 200-user cable modem trial network in Amsterdam in the mid 90s to a customer base of over 1.5 million cable broadband subscribers in 14 countries in 2002. Walsh was vice president of engineering and then operations and McGrath was vice president of network planning and implementation.

The two left UPC and in 2005 they started Smartgrid2 in Ireland . They looked at various alternative technologies and soon found BPL.Smartgrid2 is convinced BPL is the technology it had been looking for and set its sights on deploying BPL for utility services and retail triple play throughout Europe .

Walsh and McGrath spoke to us Thursday from their headquarters in County Kerry in Southwest Ireland .Walsh is CTO and McGrath is director.“ Europe will offer incredible opportunity for ‘smart grid’ technology players for the next 10 years,” said Walsh. He believes the key for BPL technology firms to succeed in Europe will be to maintain a presence without draining resources and funds.

Smartgrid2 ( www.smartgrid2.com ) is set up to help. The firm’s been trying to land BPL projects with utilities but like everywhere, European utilities have resisted.

EU’s pushing BPL

“Utilities have been slow to come to the table so far — but here in Europe the EU is actively pushing the technology,” said Walsh. Why is the government of Europe pushing BPL?

A BPL initiative is underway to “overcome the energy challenges presented by a rapidly expanding [EU] membership where demand is outstripping supply,” Walsh reported. He and McGrath are involved in that government effort and they’re confident “it will happen,” she added. The firm wants to introduce to Europe some of the main players in the BPL world “that have existing and proven technologies and proven business cases so that we can jump start some technology trials.

“We believe that some of the strongest players have a great opportunity to be in at the beginning” — with a real possibility to turn those trials into commercial deployments.

Smartgrid2 hopes to avoid “open-ended science experiments — that I think have been some people’s experience in the past,” said McGrath. Some of the utilities in the EU are trying to “reinvent the wheel,” she added — and Smartgrid2 wants to show them wheels are “already out there,” she added.

The challenge for Smartgrid2 is to make deals with international BPL technology firms including US firms and represent them in Europe .

The name says it all

Smartgrid2 learned early that utilities aren’t usually interested in hype about the broadband business. True to its name, the firm is focused on utility applications and sees that market offering huge potential. Commercial broadband is a side benefit that can be delivered by firms that lease bandwidth from the utility, he noted.

But the need for the 21st century smart grid is urgent. The EU grew from 15 to 27 countries in the last 3 years, Walsh reminded. Many have rapidly growing economies that are putting incredible demand on power grids.

These states have limited raw resources for energy production and a lack of organization in the power interconnection between countries. The EU doesn’t have a system to manage the grid or know “who’s producing power” and who’s using it.

“Smart grid efficiency and control are finally being seen as the way to integrate and manage the various networks” — and cut reliance on generators outside the Union , said Walsh.

Meanwhile less developed nations in the EU are trying to build their economies and getting access to broadband is a key ingredient. “Pilot projects are being planned to take the best existing solutions and test them for commercial roll-outs throughout Europe .”

Walsh expects BPL’s role to expand as green power generation projects such as home-based generation, solar panels, wind farms, tidal power and more start populating the grid. Interconnection with those projects will make managing the reliability of the grid ever more complicated — and some look to BPL as an obvious answer to managing that complexity.

They saw cable get smart

BPL reminds Walsh of the early days of cable. People in 1997 told him cable modem networks “couldn’t happen, it wouldn’t work — we were dreaming.” BPL is in roughly the same position as cable was then — with a lack of standards, some engineering challenges in creating networks plus it’s got its nay sayers.

The broadband boom in Europe was similar to “the wave that’s building for smart grids. ”Cable traditionally was a one-way, wire-based distribution network. Sounds familiar.

Cable modem technology introduced tremendous advantages by adding IP to those networks.

Suddenly the operator could see the condition of every piece of gear on the network all the way to the customer’s modem.

That gave Walsh a brand new kind of power in making financial decisions. He could make choices on where to spend money on the network — based not on which technology officer in field wrote the most compelling request, “but on actual live statistics,” he stressed.

His operational crews — that had only ever been reactive — could now act proactively based on real-time data and “before stuff breaks.” Walsh would set targets and key performance indicators for his managers and then “see how they were doing — not based on a score card but actual real statistics, real facts.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: All of a sudden you had huge efficiencies coming into the operation which means you gave better end-service to the customer. At the same time you were able to reduce costs of providing the service. This was all happening in the cable sector probably in the years of 2002, 2003. Take that benefit and combine it with BPL and you are making that business case look much rosier.

Tom Walsh, CTO, Smartgrid2

These folks have scaled

Another similarity with cable is the problem utilities face in scaling data networks to cover entire utility footprints. Those are the same problems Walsh tackled with cable-based broadband, he reminded.

It takes “business nerve” to wait for the opportunities to ripen — and then capital to take advantage of the moment when it’s right.

Superior technology will win out, he added. “For us, ‘smart grids’ is nothing new.

“We deployed similar technology on communications networks and quickly realized the operational benefits when scaling is handled correctly.”

While Smartgrid2 works on landing utility contracts, the firm has started deploying MDU networks in the hospitality industry in Ireland .That work helps the firm add hands on experience with BPL plus generate revenue. ( www.mains4.com )

An invitation to Europe

Grids around Europe offer various challenges and “customizing hardware and software for individual markets is crucial,” said Walsh. “A partnership with the right European player can ease that pain.

“We are actively seeking to represent manufacturers over here.” Smartgrid2 partnered with a firm that’s got 180 trained, certified line crew workers “who excel on the physical installation of utility gear.

“Any executive struggling with how to hit Europe should get in touch. “If they are serious and can deliver, we’ll be happy to help them exploit the European opportunities we uncover through our role in the advisory and working groups.”

Smartgrid2 isn’t married to any manufacturer or chipset, Walsh reported, and that lets it “work in an unbiased way to select best-of-breed technologies.

“The smart grids principle is not new. “It’s been [used] in the telecom sector for over four years and has revolutionized both technical and operational management.

“These benefits can now be realized by power utilities, too”

by, Jeff Sanders

by, Jeff Sanders
Garmin GPS Navigation Systems

Geocaching, what is it and how do I Join in the fun and Adventure of Geocaching

Geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing) is an widely popular, high-tech treasure hunting game that has taken off in popularity, especially in the past few years. Many adventure seekers throughout the world are finding caches of treasure (called “geocaches” or “caches”) that have been left for them to find by fellow Geocachers. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, usually a Tupperware or ammo box containing a logbook and treasure. You hunt and locate geocaches with your GPS device, and inside you find treasures that other people have left. You can even leave your own treasure for the next person to find and share with a their friends.

Don’t think there are any geocaches in your neck of the woods? That’s because they are not in plain view but hidden, so you need to hunt for them. You also need the longitude and latitude (coordinates) of their location to be able to find them. There are over 800,000 active geocaches around the world and they can be found on all seven continents, including Antarctica. With that number growing rapidly, you are sure to find them in your own neighborhood, on vacation half way around the world, in urban locations and even way out in the woods on your next camping trip. Don’t forget to mark your car or campsite as a waypoint to ensure you find your way back. the

Typical cache treasures are not high in monetary value but may hold personal value to the finder. Aside from the logbook, common cache contents are unusual coins or currency, small toys, ornamental buttons, CDs, or books. Also common, are objects that are moved from cache to cache, such as Travel Bugs or Geocoins, whose travels may be logged and followed online. Cachers who initially place a Travel Bug or Geocoin often assign specific goals for their trackable items. Such goals might include a destination like to visit all seven continents or certain country’s. Occasionally an item of higher value is included for the first person who find’s the geocache, or in locations that are harder to get to or find.

How to know where to look for Geocaches

The GPS coordinates of the caches are published on Geocaching websites like www.Geocaching.com (also known as “Groundspeak”) and the original site www.Groundspeak.com. You can find the locations (coordinates) of geocaches, along with the details of their location’s so you know what to look for and how hard it is to find before you get there. After you find the cache you can share your adventure and photos with the rest of the geocaching community online. There are also many local geocaching chapters that cater to just a state or even city that have information on caches in that particular area. Most Geocaching associations and chapters hold annual functions or outings, much like a high-tech Easter egg hunt. That is a great way for the whole family to get out and have fun together. There are many blogs and forums that are dedicated to Geocaching where you can read about other Geocachers experiences, events and functions that are in your area as well as in other countries all around the world. They are also a great way to keep in touch with the Geocaching community and learn the in’s and out’s of Geocaching.

There is also a invitation only Geocaching community (www.TerraCaching.com). This isn’t so much to keep people out, but to delegate much of the responsibility for ensuring high  quality, legal and appropriate caches to the community itself. They use a complex, dynamic rating system which learns from members and actively encourages a focus on the quality, not quantity, of caches that members post to provide more fun, memorable and challenging cache hunts. To become a member you need two existing members to sponsor you. To start you just register a “starter account” and their system will automatically look for potential sponsors in your area, also you can post a message pleading your case to the “Applications for Sponsorship” section of the forums. They say that most new members who post here get sponsors within a few hours depending on time of day and the day of the week.

Caches come in all shapes and sizes. From a small vial the size of your pinkie that is only big enough to hold the paper with the log on it, to a five gallon bucket and even larger. Geocaches vary greatly in difficulty and location from simple caches commonly referred to as “drive-bys,”  to much more complex multi-staged geocaches with points containing the coordinates for the next stage along the way. The final stage contains the log book and trade items. There are even underwater caches and caches that are located 50 feet up a tree. There are even night time caches where you may need to shine a flashlight in a particular direction and fallow the reflectors to the cache. There is really no limit to how you can hide a cache, the only limit is to the imagination and that adds to the fun of the hunt.

Geocaching Guidelines and Etiquette

You want to be aware of local laws when hiding or hunting for that cache on public lands. You can get this information from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) at (www.blm.gov). Be sure to go to the state and county that you are interested in. As for National Parks and National Monuments, in most cases you just need a permit for Geocaching from the National Park Service (www.nps.gov). Each National Park and National Monument has their own website, most of them have dedicated a page of that site to information on Geocaching in their park (if you can’t find it just call). Of course the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management are charged with the care of our public land, and as you can imagine they would need to know where these caches are located as well as how many people are hunting for them because of the delicate ecosystems they need to protect.

Of course you must follow all legal laws like Trespassing laws, so always get the permission of the land owner. Although each website has their own specific guidelines for acceptable geocache publications, in general once Geocachers find a cache, they follow these four simple and basic rules: (1) Fill out the logbook. (2) If you take something from the geocache, leave something of equal or greater value in return. (3) Return the cache to the exact position and condition in which it was found. (4) Be mindful of the environment, practice Cache In Trash Out. Believe it or not, the bomb squad has blown up a few caches. Yes we live in some crazy times. Someone not familiar with you or the sport of Geocaching might think something suspicious is going on and call the authorities. Even though hiding and hunting Geocaches is not illegal (provided you get permission of the land owner) not being aware of your surroundings and/or being stealthy could result in a perfectly good cache getting blown up.

What to look for in a Geocaching GPS receiver

All you really need is a GPS that can point you to a specific Longitude and Latitude position, something that most GPS devices can do. Though there are some basic features to look for that will make your Geocaching experience much more enjoyable. General features to look for when purchasing a GPS unit to geocache include: (1) Lightweight and compact, makes it easier to carry especially on long hikes and when you need to negotiate through rocks and trees (look for a wrist strap too!). (2) Waterproof, caches can be hidden under or near water and you never know when you might slip crossing a creek or river. (3) Long battery life, a must for those hard-to-find, remote caches. (4) Waypoint storage, that will hold more cache locations (don’t forget to mark your car as a waypoint to ensure you find your way back.) (5) Screen readability, should be easy to read in daylight and at night.

There are some more advanced features to look for that will make it even easier for you to find that big cache that include: (1) WAAS-enabled, that means your GPS unit will give you better position accuracy, within 3 meters (10 feet) 95% of the time. (2) Built-in digital Compass, they are convenient and come in handy when you get within 100 feet of your cache (you’ll need to stand still for a few seconds to get a direction reading). (3) Altimeter, shows how high up you are for those vertically hidden caches. (4) Mapping Capabilities, makes it easier to navigate when you can download maps to your unit and are able to see the terrain you will be trekking through, as well as when looking for places to cross rivers and things. Garmin’s Colorado and Oregon GPS receivers come with topographical maps already pre installed. (5) External antenna, for use under heavy tree cover or difficult terrain where it may be difficult for the GPS to maintain a strong lock on the satellite signal.

There are, what are called “Paperless Geocaching GPS receivers.” Garmin has worked with Groundspeak to enable their Colorado and Oregon handheld GPS receivers to be compatible with the “.gpx file.” This allows you to download cache data including descriptions, hints, waypoint information, and cache logs directly from www.Geocaching.com to your Garmin GPS unit via a USB connection to the computer, so you can eliminate printing out paper cache pages. In addition, Geocaching data can be transferred wireless between two Garmin users in close proximity. This make the Garmin Colorado and Garmin Oregon handheld GPS receivers truly a “Geoaching friendly” GPS receiver.

Groundspeak has also created a interactive Geocaching experience with their “Wherigo player” that combines adventure games with GPS technology. Imagine playing Zork, Secret of Monkey Island or Myst, but in the park around the corner, or on the beach during your family vacation. Rather than clicking the mouse and selecting a location to move your character, you physically move from one location to the next to advance the story. Rather than searching for puzzle clues on a screen, you look for them in the real life. Garmin is the first GPS manufacturer to include the Wherigo player already installed on their Colorado and Oregon handheld GPS receivers. Using Wherigo, you can create interactive tours, adventure games and puzzles that give you endless possibilities of adventure.

by, Jeff Sanders
Garmin GPS Navigation Systems

Former European cable execs see BPL parallels

Tom Walsh and Patricia McGrath were executives at UPC Broadband — now owned by Liberty Global. The Netherlands-based firm grew from a 200-user cable modem trial network in Amsterdam in the mid 90s to a customer base of over 1.5 million cable broadband subscribers in 14 countries in 2002. Walsh was vice president of engineering and then operations and McGrath was vice president of network planning and implementation.

The two left UPC and in 2005 they started Glasnua Ltd. in Ireland. They looked at various alternative technologies and soon found BPL. Glasnua, are convinced BPL is the technology it had been looking for and set its sights on deploying BPL for utility services and retail triple play throughout Europe .

Walsh and McGrath spoke to us Thursday from their headquarters in County Kerry in Southwest Ireland .Walsh is CTO and McGrath is director.“ Europe will offer incredible opportunity for ‘smart grid’ technology players for the next 10 years,” said Walsh. He believes the key for BPL technology firms to succeed in Europe will be to maintain a presence without draining resources and funds.

www.glasnua.com is set up to help. The firm’s been trying to land BPL projects with utilities but like everywhere, European utilities have resisted.

EU’s pushing BPL

“Utilities have been slow to come to the table so far — but here in Europe the EU is actively pushing the technology,” said Walsh. Why is the government of Europe pushing BPL?

A BPL initiative is underway to “overcome the energy challenges presented by a rapidly expanding [EU] membership where demand is outstripping supply,” Walsh reported. He and McGrath are involved in that government effort and they’re confident “it will happen,” she added. The firm wants to introduce to Europe some of the main players in the BPL world “that have existing and proven technologies and proven business cases so that we can jump start some technology trials.

“We believe that some of the strongest players have a great opportunity to be in at the beginning” — with a real possibility to turn those trials into commercial deployments.

Glasnua hopes to avoid “open-ended science experiments — that I think have been some people’s experience in the past,” said McGrath. Some of the utilities in the EU are trying to “reinvent the wheel,” she added — and Glasnua wants to show them wheels are “already out there,” she added.

The challenge for Glasnua is to make deals with international BPL technology firms including US firms and represent them in Europe.

The name says it all

Glasnua learned early that utilities aren’t usually interested in hype about the broadband business. True to its name, the firm is focused on utility applications and sees that market offering huge potential. Commercial broadband is a side benefit that can be delivered by firms that lease bandwidth from the utility, he noted.

But the need for the 21st century smart grid is urgent. The EU grew from 15 to 27 countries in the last 3 years, Walsh reminded. Many have rapidly growing economies that are putting incredible demand on power grids.

These states have limited raw resources for energy production and a lack of organization in the power interconnection between countries. The EU doesn’t have a system to manage the grid or know “who’s producing power” and who’s using it.

“Smart grid efficiency and control are finally being seen as the way to integrate and manage the various networks” — and cut reliance on generators outside the Union, said Walsh.

Meanwhile less developed nations in the EU are trying to build their economies and getting access to broadband is a key ingredient. “Pilot projects are being planned to take the best existing solutions and test them for commercial roll-outs throughout Europe.”

Walsh expects BPL’s role to expand as green power generation projects such as home-based generation, solar panels, wind farms, tidal power and more start populating the grid. Interconnection with those projects will make managing the reliability of the grid ever more complicated — and some look to BPL as an obvious answer to managing that complexity.

They saw cable get smart

BPL reminds Walsh of the early days of cable. People in 1997 told him cable modem networks “couldn’t happen, it wouldn’t work — we were dreaming.” BPL is in roughly the same position as cable was then — with a lack of standards, some engineering challenges in creating networks plus it’s got its nay sayers.

The broadband boom in Europe was similar to “the wave that’s building for smart grids. ”Cable traditionally was a one-way, wire-based distribution network. Sounds familiar.

Cable modem technology introduced tremendous advantages by adding IP to those networks.

Suddenly the operator could see the condition of every piece of gear on the network all the way to the customer’s modem.

That gave Walsh a brand new kind of power in making financial decisions. He could make choices on where to spend money on the network — based not on which technology officer in field wrote the most compelling request, “but on actual live statistics,” he stressed.

His operational crews — that had only ever been reactive — could now act proactively based on real-time data and “before stuff breaks.” Walsh would set targets and key performance indicators for his managers and then “see how they were doing — not based on a score card but actual real statistics, real facts.” www.glasnua.com

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: All of a sudden you had huge efficiencies coming into the operation which means you gave better end-service to the customer. At the same time you were able to reduce costs of providing the service. This was all happening in the cable sector probably in the years of 2002, 2003. Take that benefit and combine it with BPL and you are making that business case look much rosier.

Tom Walsh, CTO, Glasnua

These folks have scaled

Another similarity with cable is the problem utilities face in scaling data networks to cover entire utility footprints. Those are the same problems Walsh tackled with cable-based broadband, he reminded.

It takes “business nerve” to wait for the opportunities to ripen — and then capital to take advantage of the moment when it’s right.

Superior technology will win out, he added. “For us, ‘smart grids’ is nothing new. www.glasnua.com/aboutus.html

“We deployed similar technology on communications networks and quickly realized the operational benefits when scaling is handled correctly.”

“The smart grids principle is not new. “It’s been [used] in the telecom sector for over four years and has revolutionized both technical and operational management.

“These benefits can now be realized by power utilities, too”

Last December, a 7.1 earthquake off the coast of Taiwan severely damaged Asia’s undersea fiber-optic cables, disrupting telecommunication circuits across the continent.

China and Southeast Asia saw their communications capacity fall to between 2 and 10 percent, and though a portion of service has since been rerouted to alternative fixed lines and suicidally slow satellite transmissions, the P.R.C. has yet to fully recover from the technological aftershocks, what Mainlanders are now referring to as the “World Wide Wait.

Repair status is conflicting, with Chinese telecom officials publicly alternating between evasive (”the work is slow because of complicated conditions”), blameful (”the repairs are done by other companies we commissioned”) and unrealistically optimistic (”a few more days”), as quoted in the state-run media.

International news sources cite a more likely and longer completion date of early-March for a return to full capacity, perhaps due to what global news service AFP disturbingly reports as China “relying on 19th century technology to fix a 21st century problem.

In an effort to downplay the crisis, China precipitately announced that it expects to become the world’s largest Internet user, overtaking the United States with an estimated 137 million users. That’s quite a bullish forecast for a country that has suffered nationwide telecommunications outages since the new year.

In fact, internet blackouts are nothing new to foreigners residing in the People’s Republic, who are accustomed to limited access to overseas sites that have been blocked by the central government’s web monitoring entity, commonly referred to as The Great Firewall of China.

But the newest online paralysis resulting from the recent natural and technological calamity has most certainly affected international businesses in Mainland China, many whom rely on consistent online communications and B2B transactions to stay above international water. Even multinational conglomerates Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, who are already struggling in the Asian market, are now regularly met with “cannot display” time-out errors.

Conversely, China’s e-commerce giants just don’t understand what all the fuss is about. China News Service reports that amidst the first several weeks of Internet outages, Chinese-based ISPs boasted a 99 percent uptime as the country’s largest web corporations including Sina, Baidu, Alibaba, Tom and Tencent saw their site traffic, and earnings, multiply.

But for China’s Internet-deprived expat community from Beijing to the Bund, hope is literally on the Verizon. A consortium of international telecom providers including China Telecom, CNC and U.S. carrier Verizon have jointly invested $500 million in the construction of a new Trans-Pacific Express (TPE) Cable Network connecting Mainland China directly with the United States.

The next-generation submarine optical cable system, expected to be completed in 2008, will span the Asia-Pacific at 60 times the present capacity, rendering obsolete the damaged FNAL cables beneath the Taiwan Strait.

Indubitably, China’s easily-crippled telecommunications infrastructure and the prolonged aftermath can be blamed on poor foresight and co-dependent technology and is both a devastating episode for foreign companies in China and a chin check for a nation striving to compete as a 21st century world player.

But if the completion of a bigger and better trans-Pacific cable network has anything to do with the cause for the delay, then foreign and Chinese companies alike will just have to wait that much longer to resume to normal operating speeds.

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