Daniel Kinzler wrote:
They call it a "universal location referencing
technology" and call it
"map-agnostic". Not quite sure what's behind it - a collection of data
layer? an
protocol for supplying and polling such data?
I didn't dig deep, just though it might interest you...
Quote: "TomTom has filed patent applications for the core concept of
OpenLR(TM)" :-)
I think they probably realized that nobody is able to provide better
local information than people around world. If you are currently stuck
in traffic, or got caught by the traffic police, or there is a local
market in the town blocking the streets - it takes some time before this
information is centrally processed and distributed for example via TMC.
I like using TMC (whenever I drive a car that is equipped *and* this is
in Germany) but I like citizen's band radio while on the road even
better (works very good for example in Poland). Yes, your range is
limited, and the information may be unreliable, and it's good to know
local language, but you have multiple sources of information and the
decision is ultimately yours. And no navigation system will tell you
where the best food is on the road.
Probably TomTom sees it as a valuable addition to the closed navigation
maps used in the navigation devices.
I wonder how fast everybody will realize that even with maps local
information cannot be substituted. For example, 200meters from where
I live Deutsche Bahn has completed construction of a whole new building
and a street leading to it, I wonder how fast it will be available on
commercial maps. I think that while initial mapping (from nothing) and
importing freely licensed data is a problem, the OSM will be unbeatable
when it comes to incremental, small updates, just as Wikipedia is.
--
<< Marcin Cieslak // saper(a)saper.info >>