Mapmaker TomTom is working to increase its level of automation, with a 10% reduction in its workforce being the result.
Companies across industries are working to automate processes and leverage AI to accomplish tasks faster. TomTom is no exception as the company looks to automated mapmaking technologies. Unfortunately, according to Reuters, that automation comes at the expense of 10% of its roughly 500 Maps employees.
“Regrettably, this will have an intended impact on approximately 500 employees in our Maps unit,” the company said in a statement. “The full assessment of the financial implications of the reset of the Maps unit is ongoing.”
Despite the news, TomTom believes automated mapmaking tools will help the company build better maps and increase its reach.
In the wake of Huawei being cut off from Google support, the Chinese company is turning to TomTom to replace Google Maps, according to Engadget.
When the Trump administration banned Huawei, it had profound impacts on how the company could do business, especially with U.S. companies. Chipmakers, such as Intel and Broadcom, stopped supplying chips to the company and Google stopped providing Android updates and software that is not open-source.
With its access to Google’s software cut off, Huawei “had to either find a global navigation partner or else accept that its map software would be limited at best,” as Engadget points out. With TomTom being a Dutch company, it isn’t subject to the U.S. ban on Huawei.
The partnership with TomTom will at least ensure Huawei’s customers continue to have a world-class mapping and navigation option in spite of being cut off from Google.
Waze has long been a darling among travelers. A smartphone app that notifies drivers of delays, construction, vehicles pulled over on the side of the road or police trying to catch speeders, Waze provides valuable information and alternate routes to road warriors.
For cities, however, Waze and similar apps are often a nuisance, routing traffic through neighborhoods, subdivisions and backroads in an effort to avoid slowdowns on the main routes. This often causes congestion in neighborhoods and results in additional wear and tear on roads that were never intended to handle the extra load. In addition, because mobile mapping apps aren’t always accurate, there have been instances where drivers were directed to streets that were closed or being evacuated, not to mention sometimes recommending illegal turns.
According to the Daily Breeze, at least one major city is trying to tackle the problem head-on. Los Angeles ran a pilot program designed to help control cut-through traffic. The goal of the program was to “develop data sharing agreements” and the city “proposed restricting vehicle routing onto impacted street segments as a condition of entering into any data-sharing agreements.”
Apple Maps, TomTom and Waze were invited. Apple and TomTom were both willing to be part of a pilot program but Waze and, by extension, Google Maps were unwilling to participate. In response, L.A. Department of Transportation officials are looking at changing the L.A. Municipal Code to prohibit navigation apps from rerouting traffic “inconsistent with City street designations.”
Cities around the country will likely be watching L.A. to see what effect any proposed changes have.
This week TomTom, the makers of stand-alone navigation devices for vehicles, announced that it has released a Navigation app for the Android platform – with a couple of catches.
The TomTom app has been available for a while on the iOS platform for $50, which seems steep, but is understandable on a platform that, until recently, lacked a built-in navigation feature. The Android version of TomTom is also $50. On a platform that often comes with Google’s excellent navigation app pre-installed. While the TomTom app does offer offline navigation, on devices with a data connection a situation where data would not be available and navigation would be important seems (intuitively at least) rare.
The new Android app also only works on Android devices with resolutions of 800 x 480 or 854 x 480. This excludes many newer Android smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S III, HTC One X, and Galaxy Nexus. The company stated that it is “committed to supporting higher resolutions on an ongoing basis,” but did not say when newer devices would get the app.
“TomTom has a history of making great navigation applications,” said Corinne Vigreux, managing director for TomTom’s Consumer division. “Our existing iPhone app gets fantastic customer feedback and regularly wins awards. Today, we are bringing this world-class navigation experience to millions of Android smartphone users for the first time.”
For the record, TomTom’s current iPhone app has a 2.5-star rating, with user reviews complaining heavily about the app’s new forced Facebook integration.
Good news if you’re an Android user who wants more variety in their available navigation apps, as TomTom has just announced that a new app that includes navigation, map, and traffic data will hit Android OS in October. Pricing and the exact launch date will be revealed at a later time.
TomTom says that they will preview the new app at IFA 2012 today
“We aim to make TomTom content and services available to as many devices and platforms as we can,” says Corinne Vigreux, Managing Director at TomTom. “Bringing TomTom navigation to Android smartphones is, therefore, a significant milestone for us.”
The full-fledged Android app will features on-board maps, IQ routes, HD traffic, advanced lane guidance, 2D/3D driving views, and even speed cameras (for a small in-app fee) – technology that TomTom users should be very familiar with.
Android users have been able to downloaded the TomTom Places app, which allows them to search for places of interest like hotels, stores, and restaurants, for awhile now. But this is the first time that a fully-realized TomTom navigation app will hit Android.
Earlier this month, Google maps gave live traffic updates to many more cities across the globe, including 130 smaller cities within the United States. Of course, a TomTom Android app would be in direct competition with Google’s own map service.
In other navigation app news, we heard a report yesterday that Facebook may be interested in Waze. Whether or not its for a collaboration or an acquisition is unknown at this point.
It looks like TomTom is having a pretty good year. First, Apple dropped Google as its primary Maps provider, only to switch to TomTom (along with some other sources). Now, MapQuest announced that it has selected TomTom Maps to power its iPhone and Android apps.
“As the world’s leading supplier of in-car location and navigation products and services, TomTom provides coverage for more than 7.5 million miles of roads across North America,” MapQuest’s Jennifer Asbury said in a blog post. “That’s like going to the moon and back about 16 times. That’s like traveling the length of the Great Wall of China over 1,300 times. That’s like running well over a quarter of a million marathons. Basically, it’s a lot of mapped miles any way you look at it.”
“With MapQuest and TomTom maps, you could drive virtually anywhere there’s a road in the United States with our app as your travel companion (No need to panic if you forget to print off directions before leaving your house.),” added Asbury.
Those familiar with the previous version will take note of one dramatic feature change in particular, the absence of Google Maps. That’s right, Google is out and TomTom navigation and maps are in. This is bad news for Google, but apparently great news for TomTom.
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft fame lost almost $630 million combined as prices dropped yesterday. Larry Page and Sergey Brin form Google were also hit hard and lost a combined amount of $617 million.
But, like I said, the market is down on the whole, so even Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow, lost $116 million in investments yesterday. It’s good news for TomTom, but really, nobody else is thriving investment-wise. Even Apple stocks slipped as trading progressed yesterday, despite the excitement of the new product announcements.
Considering the recent news about mobile devices and the storage of user data in relation to location, this next revelation probably isn’t much of a surprise, but yet, here we go again. TomTom, the popular GPS device, also tracks user data, obviously via the GPS technology they employ. Although this is pretty much business as usual for companies in the mobile tech industry, the data collected by TomTom users is actually shared.
The difference is, neither Apple or Microsoft share the data they collect. TomTom, on the other hand, does.
While they maintain a position that all user data is anonymous, they do share it with government officials, specifically, the traffic information. Not only that, but TomTom also shares vehicular speed data, allowing the police to place speed-deterring cameras at known speeding hotspots. So while the data from individual vehicles remains secret, the fact that TomTom customers speed is not. A direct quote from the company addresses the situation:
We are now aware that the police have used traffic information that you have helped to create to place speed cameras at dangerous locations where the average speed is higher than the legally allowed speed limit. We are aware a lot of our customers do not like the idea and we will look at if we should allow this type of usage [emphasis added by editor].
While the adherence to keeping its customers anonymous, is it much of a stretch to think law enforcement agencies will want more from this technology? Perhaps a daily list of speeders they can send snail mail tickets to? Is that too much of a tin foil approach? Perhaps, but considering the way the US government has already ignored a user’s right to privacy concerning wireless tech, perhaps not.
TomTom users can opt out of the data collection aspect of using the device, provided the conspiracy against them is getting a little too close for comfort. Apparently, and perhaps thankfully, the TomTom company is a little embarrassed by the news concerning their data collection protocols, and so, CEO Harold Goddijn has been making the rounds in an attempt to salve any wounds:
It’s pretty clear snitches will never be an acceptable aspect of society.
TomTom, the Dutch personal navigation company with the fun to say name, has announced today via press release a new site with live traffic data for the masses to access – for free.
Possibly feeling their market encroached upon by the likes of Google and their Maps Navigation for Android, the site will allow anyone in the world to access up-to-the-minute traffic information in their area. That is assuming you live in one of seventeen European countries or South Africa. Sadly the new site, however accessible it is to those in the States, only contains real time traffic data for 18 countries.
TomTom released what they called a “Traffic Manifesto” last year which stated that they were “on a mission to reduce traffic congestion for all.” Around that time they debuted their newest traffic scouting technology, what they called HD Traffic 4.0. They touted it as the best available saying, “TomTom’s real-time and predictive traffic technology now detects traffic jams that other services are unable to. HD Traffic 4.0 reports traffic jams with higher accuracy, reporting up to 200% more traffic jams during rush hours.”
The website itself looks good, not great. It groups accidents in one area with a single icon, which you click for further information. Of course, you’re not getting the latest news on delays in your neighborhood, but it would help on even a moderate length trip. Live traffic in Luxembourg looks like this:
All of this sounds great, except right now it doesn’t exactly benefit many North Americans. Checking the traffic on your computer before heading to work sounds like a worthwhile activity. Even accessing it on a mobile device was fine for me, as it wasn’t any clunkier on the iPhone than on my computer. Maybe TomTom will expand their live traffic service westward in the near future.
Localeze and TomTom have announced a partnership in which TomTom will have access to Localeze’s 14 million U.S. local search business listings for categorized points of interest. TomTom will make this content available for location content and navigation apps developers and device manufacturers.
"The number of GPS-enabled LBS subscribers is expected to take a big leap in coming years with market revenue reaching around US$ 9.8 Billion in 2013," a representative for Localeze tells WebProNews.
"We are pleased to work with an industry leader like TomTom and its industry customers, to deliver our descriptive local search business listings," says Jeff Beard, president, Localeze. "Relevant points of interest and information including a business’ name, address, and phone number drive a more dynamic and interactive experience for consumers when they are on-the-go."
"Localeze has a wide network of local search platform partners and far-reaching, pervasive local search business listings,” adds TomTom VP of partner development Dan Adams. "By working with Localeze, we can strengthen our product offerings with relevant content for our vast range of industry partners."
Among Localeze’s 14 million local search business listings are about 600,000 verified ones. This deal should force that number up.
descriptive local search business listings," says Jeff Beard, president, Localeze. "Relevant points of interest and information including a business’ name, address, and phone number drive a more dynamic and interactive experience for consumers when they are on-the-go."