T-Mobile Offers New Mobile Phone Navigation System
T-Mobile is getting creative. They’re launching a new mobile phone-based navigation system combining GPRS, Bluetooth, and GPS in one single solution. It’s not all included in a single device (which would be cooler), but appears to work as follows: first you need a special GPS receiver in your car. Then you need a T-Mobile phone running on GPRS with Bluetooth. The driver enters a destination, which is sent to T-Mobile’s servers via GPRS, which figures out the best route from the current location (determined by the GPS system), and then sends it back to the phone. Directions can then be read outloud, and displayed on the mobile phone as well. The GPS constantly tracks the destination and adjust accordingly. In effect, this isn’t all that different than other navigation systems, but it does demonstrate some of the potential for combining GPS with mobile phone networks. It also means that you always have the latest map data and don’t have to by costly map and route “updates”. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more wireless applications making use of GPS data.
