GPS — What Makes It Tick
Ultra Mobile Platform … looks pretty cool, doesn’t it? There are a lot, a virtual ton of handheld or pocket devices you can buy that will play music, play video, access the Internet, calculate your stock dividends and make you less of a dork. (well, I’m not so sure about that last claim ;-)). But in almost all cases these devices have used “one off” kinds of processors and chip sets rather than those from the big names, like Intel.
Also, they have typically not addressed GPS … either the personal location aspect or the use of live GPS tracking of people, vehicles or other business assets to get an ROI that translates direct to a business’s bottom line.
About the best I have seen to date have been some HP handsets that run Windows Mobile and have a built in GPS receiver, rather than the common kludge most manufacturers seem to think is adequate … selling you the device without GPS and then selling you some sort of “stick on”, a GPS receiver that talks to the main device via a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port or my absolute least favorite, the under-performing, over-hyped Bluetooth technology which I still look upon as a solution in search of a requirement.
Anyway, about today’s feature
e. SiRF is one of the top of the line chip manufactures who has made a real name for themselves in the GPS world over the past few years. Now, instead of focusing on black pieces of silicon and plastic that can be linked together they are moving into the realm of integrating GPS with the other features of the device … an excellent move in the view of Mr. GPS.
Intel and Microsoft handhelds have had one major problem for years now … they eat power like a 300 pound BBW eats Burger King Whoppers … and there hasn’t been a stomach stapler solution that works up until now.
Not only are these UMPC devices something worth watching (in both senses of the word), but the power saved through smart integration may yet enable Microsoft and Intel to actually penetrate this market with something that will run longer than an hour or two between battery charges.