Technofile: Like a lot of people today I work mobiley. So you'd think I'd be tooled up with the latest GPS satellite tracking system to get me around town, right? Wrong. Laptop, mobile and MP3 player are about as much as I can handle right now. So a new device which puts GPS into a mobile phone caught my eye.
Navicore (Navicore.co.uk) is a Finnish company selling GPS (satellite navigation) that runs on mobile phones - specifically those which have the Symbian operating system which runs on Nokia phones (Nokia is also a Finnish company, as it happens). But fear not; there are 25 different handsets from eight manufacturers supported. In practice, that means the names you've heard of, as in Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and so on.
Navicore boils down to a memory card for your phone and an impossibly small GPS receiver, the size of a pebble. On the memory card is the software and maps. This then talks to the GPS receiver via Bluetooth. It's that simple.
Basically, if you can text, you can use Navicore.
How does it work? You type in a postcode or address of where you want to go and the software will find your destination. Often with software which runs on a mobile phone the performance can be sluggish. Luckily Navicore has been specifically designed for the mobile phone, unlike a lot of other products on the market, which have had to be converted from running on a PC or a PDA.
This is particularly important with GPS applications - if it can't keep up with you whether walking, running, cycling, driving or on a high-speed train, it's not much use. The software uses maps from Tele Atlas, a well-known firm in the mapping arena.
The detail included is designed to be useful for the person on the move, including car rental companies, doctors, bars, museums, cinemas and so on.
You can buy the whole of western Europe - the only limit is memory, so if you feel the need to carry street-level maps for four or five countries in your pocket, you can.
Perhaps another useful aspect of this tool - outside of buying a full-blown stand-alone GPS receiver - is that there are no other costs once you have bought the system. Most other solutions designed to work on a mobile phone often involve you having to download map data "over the air", which means you will start to rack up a bigger phone bill. Navicore is priced at €299 for phones running Symbian series 60 and 80 operating systems (that's Nokia, Sony Ericsson etc).
The system also employs Sirf III, the most sensitive version of GPS technology on the market, which doesn't actually need line of sight to the satellite. Thus, you will know where you are even if you have the Navicore device hidden in your bag or pocket. Since everyone stares at their phone these days, looking like you are trying to work out where you are going need not be as obvious as it once once.
Once you have it all up and running, things you used to do, like walk to the shops from work, start to take on greater novelty. Especially when Navicore tells you that you have been taking too long a route for the past three years! Overall, however, there now becomes no possibility - outside of being stuck in deepest Utah - of ever getting lost again. Add internet access on the phone and you start to wonder if we really are living in a Star Trek era.
