CeBIT video pickings: nüvifone

Two commercials by Garmin for the nüvifone.

GPS Phones – Garmin nüvifone

Garmin announced on 11 February the nüvifone for Q3. A prototype was shown at GSMA Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, Spain, February 11-14.

The nüvifone is a quad-band GSM mobile phone with UMTS and high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. “Google local search” is integrated. Free and subscription based dynamic content is served via Garmin OnlineTM, an online service offering dynamic content as real-time traffic, weather forecasts, and safety camera information.

A built-in camera has Location Message Service (LMS), tagging every location with the exact latitude and longitude reference of where the image was taken. There is also a direct access to the geo-located photos of Google’s Panoramio.

PR: www.garmin.com/pressroom/mobile/021108a.html

Product presentation: www.garmin.com/nuvifone

Video via YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtD4USzpoLI

Media: Garmin

GeoTours Premium

According to GPS World Geovative Solutions launched a premium service for destination marketing:

“Geovative’s GeoTours Premium was designed specifically for destination marketing organizations, the company said. ‘It’s basically for any organization that wants to attract people to their location in a unique fashion,’ said Scott Rock, co-founder of Geovative.”

At Geovative.com you can “create ‘tours’, or groupings of locations on a map, and add text, images, or audio files to each location. Tours can be shared with anyone across the world through GeoTours Xchange. If you prefer seeing things in person, you can download tours to a supported GPS device through GeoTours On the Go.”

The Premium service allows “you to create personalized Mini-Sites, add tours to your own web page using Tour Widgets, and view detailed statistics and graphs about your tours. Plus, GeoTours Premium is ad-free and you get 10 times the normal storage space! GeoTours Premium is a subscription-based service, but there’s also a free 1-month trial available.”

http://www.geovative.com/blog/2007/11/introducing-geotours-premium.htm

Via GPS World.

Garmin with GPS Gaming

Garmin introduced (2008-01-03) the Colorado series – “handheld GPS devices for outdoor, marine and fitness enthusiasts” – geocaching is part of the game:

“Colorado users will be the first to experience Wherigo^TM, the newest GPS-based activity from Groundspeak, the people who made geocaching a worldwide phenomenon. Wherigo (pronounced ‘where I go’) is a toolset for creating and playing location-based multimedia experiences in the real world. Using the Wherigo platform, Wherigo authors can build exciting adventure games, historical tours or other innovative activities. Wherigo players use the Colorado or other GPS device running the Wherigo Player application to visit physical locations, use virtual items, interact with virtual characters and solve real world puzzles. Garmin and Groundspeak will host special events to teach people more about Wherigo and let them experience it for themselves. Also, a limited-edition geocoin has been minted to commemorate the launch of Colorado and Wherigo. Details on the Wherigo experience, events and geocoins can be found at www.garmin.blogs.com and www.wherigo.com. And geocaching just got easier with the Colorado, which quickly downloads online information for every cache, such as location, terrain, difficulty, hints and description, so that you don’t have tote printouts with you.”

http://www.garmin.com/pressroom/outdoor/010308b.html

(Picture: Garmin)

“Roadtour” – Audio-visual guide for satnav

Promotional introduction: “ROADTOUR delivers audio-visual guides directly into your car via your Satnav or GPS enabled mobile phone, automatically telling you about interesting locations as you approach them. Using ROADTOUR you can hear all about the nearest castle, see pictures of historic homes and even read all about the best local pubs.”

Product experience: “Roadtour works on your Satnav or GPS Mobile which knows your location. As you approach interesting heritage locations, ROADTOUR tells you about them over the loudspeaker. On the screen ROADTOUR also shows you pictures of the location, opening times, prices and, in the case of Pubs, colourful and individual reviews.”

Platforms: Garmin, Windows Mobile

Pricing:
ROADTOUR Heritage (600 UK Heritage sites) from £19.95
ROADTOUR Pubs & Inns (in association with Sawday’s) from £14.95
ROADTOUR – The Full Trip (UK Heritage + Pubs & Inns) from £29.95
Availabe as download, CD rom or SD card.