Nokia purchased NAVTEQ / Nokia (NYSE: NOK) for $8.1 billion dollars in 2007 when Nokia's stock was trading upwards of $30+ dollars per share.  Now Nokia's stock is trading at less than $6 per share and sinking.  Nokia's market cap is approximately $20B with annual sales of $55B.  When Nokia purchased Navteq it had a market capitalization of $120B.  So this begs the question of how much is NAVTEQ worth to Nokia these days?  It appears that NAVTEQ will do €600 million in revenue ($1B in US dollars) in 2011 while still losing money.

With Nokia struggling to get traction in the smartphone space it makes sense that NAVTEQ could be a ripe buyout candidate from a company like Microsoft or Apple who desperately need a map platform.  NAVTEQ products embedded in just about every car that has a navigation system embedded in the car.  Overprice I must say but the car manufacturers are selling the software for thousands of dollars when Google Maps is free.   Google Maps on the other hand is free but ad support and works great for most smartphone users.  Google Maps is not as reliable as NAVTEQ for navigation but it gets the job done at a fraction of the cost.  

Don't buy Navigon's USA Speed Camera database that is missing thousands of locations.  The company describes the camera on the iPhone app as Speed Cameras when 90% of the cameras in the US are red light cameras.  There are only a few hundred speed cameras operational in the US unlike Europe which has upwards of 40,000.  Navigon is licensing a database from RoadTraps.com which says to only have 3,800 locations in the database.  PhotoEnforced.com 2X the number of the locations in our database which we have been sourcing for 5 years longer than any competitor.  We continue to still have by far the most complete database.

Navigon charges $4.99 for the in-app purchase after paying $34.99 for something you can already do for free using Google Maps.  The company is trying to copy its method of doing business in Europe which has ten times more speed cameras than the USA.  They also charge you $14.99 to view traffic which you can also do for free using Google maps on an Android or iPhone. 

Navigon Licenses Data from RoadTraps.com

RoadTraps.com is missing thousands of locations from its North American database.  Yet companies like Navigon, Garmin and TomTom still charge $4.99 USA Speedcams for the In-App Purchase in the iPhone store.   RoadTraps.com is clearly operated by a company in Europe and have poor information.  The United States does not have as many speed fixed traps like Europe.  Navigon charges $44.99 for the North American app and $34.99 for the USA and Canada versions.  I commend their claim that they are the #1 Database in the World.  

Public sentiment for red light camera and speed camera use is overwhelmingly negative in the US.  Why? Because it lacks transparency about where the locations are and where the money goes. If the goal of using red light and speed cameras is to save lives and ensure compliance with safety measures.  Doesn't it seem logical that drivers and citizens should have access to this public information?   Drivers could be alerted to accident photo enforced locations and potentially hazardous areas.  Disclosure of locations is not about evading the law its about avoiding other idiot drivers.  As a taxpayer I would also like to know where the tax on bad drivers is going.  How about slush fund for schools who desperately need the revenue?

Car navigation systems have not integrated our data points into GPS vehicles thus far for two main reasons: locations change frequently and in some Countries such as Germany and Switzerland, it is illegal to have these locations in navigation systems.  We recommend that its time for law enforcement and city officials to be more transparent about their speed and red-light enforcement activities with the objective of building citizen support for the use of cameras for the enhanced safety of all.

Read more from Strategy Analytics: Red-Light, Speed Cameras: Damn Lies, Statistics Impede Progress. 

Pete Tenereillo, the founder of Trapster has apparently been acquired by Navteq / Nokia.  Navteq is a struggling  Chicago-based mapping company, that is a division of Nokia which is another struggling mobile phone maker who is quickly losing market share.  AutoBlog broke the news and said there were about five companies in the running and there was a bidding war for the company. The terms of the deal are not available. We are waiting to hear back from Nokia and Trapster.   

Pete is an engineer and a sports car enthusiast who founded the company to primarily help his fellow drivers slow down when police were near while driving through the roads of San Diego.  We met with Pete when shortly after he launched the application and only had a few hundred thousand users.  The company interest in working with us to verify our database of fixed red light camera and speed cameras locations.  We never licensed our database to Trapster but they suspiciously had most of the locations shortly thereafter.  It is not clear how they accumulated the locations in their database nor do we know how many they have. 

It has been wildly reported how many downloads they have for their application but no one ever seemed to know how many users they have on a regular basis to keep the data fresh.  The application has apparently received 9M downloads and is free.  Its very common for iPhone application to have many downloads but a non-existent user base.   However, Trapster likely has many hundreds of thousands of users who share data and its impressive how they have scaled this capability as a small company.  

Its not clear if Trapster ever generated any subscription or advertising revenue from it but we don't think so. Trapster raised an angel round of less that one million dollars a few years ago and is based in San Diego.  We are not sure if they ever raised any more money than $1M or a VC round.  However, we would like to congratulate them for raising the awareness about the application and accumulating so many users.  

As a disclaimer, we publish an open database of fixed red light camera and speed camera locations and don't do a lot to prevent companies and people from copying it.  However, we are the largest database and most accurate database of red light cameras do date and no other companies have accepted our challenge to do a database comparison.  We do have a number of companies who license our database and are ethical about paying us for data they use.  

Its great to see the company get acquired as there are several companies developing applications in Europe that are interesting in coming to the US.  Europe has 40,000+ photo enforced cameras and its a much larger and more mature business over there.  The US currently has only about 6,000 cameras but its growing at a rate of about 20% per year. 

Best Buy & Amazon Radar Detectors on Sale

While shopping today we discovered the following devices on display at Best Buy.  The store was located in California so its not surprising that the aisle was empty since its virtually impossible to get a speeding ticket on the congested roads.  However, we were wondering if any of these devices had GPS inside and were able to warn you if you were getting close to any red light cameras?

The Passport 9500ix is the only device that uses satellites for GPS navigation to pinpoint your exact location and compares it to the detector's on-board database of red light and speed camera locations.  An alert goes off as you approach a intersection with an audible and visual alert.  There is no information on how the company has acquired its database of locations and no information on how to update it.  If they truely want to have industry incredibility about the number of locations I would recommend they disclose the number of red light cameras in their database.  I can guarantee you they don't have all 7,000 location that we have in our red light camera database.  

The devices that were on the wall are also on sale at Amazon and here are their links:Search Amazon.com for radar detectorSearch Amazon.com for radar detector Solo S2, Passport 9500ix, Passport 8500 X50, Beltronics V8, Beltronics V6

  

Portable Navigation Device sales are apparently weak this holiday season according to the analysts. Are PND devices losing consumer interest faster than expected because of other GPS devices?  Retail strength appeared biased towards mobile phones, tablets, TVs and gaming.  iPhone and Android devices were strong and Blackberry and Nokia (Navteq) remained weak.   PND devices may be losing interest more quickly than analysts expected and the price cuts are deep expecting subscription sales to make up the difference. However, very few of them have any differentiated content strategy to sell the data.

Wedbush analysts were watching retail traffic at Best Buy where the auto/GPS section was relatively desolate looking and it took time and effort to locate store personnel.  Displacement from smartphones and in-dash navigation systems continue: Garmin nüvi 255WT and TomTom XL350TM both 4.3” devices priced at $99.99 (TomTom also includes life time maps update).  The lowest priced PNDs were the Garmin nüvi 205 3.5” for $79 and the TomTom Ease US 3.5” for $59, both at Walmart. Follow up checks showed Garmin’s priced just under $100 with competitive products priced at $79.99. At one big box retailer, we calculated allocated shelf space for PNDs as follows: TomTom 32%, Magellan 32%, Garmin 20%, Insignia 12%, and Mitac 4%. However, they saw some separate standalone displays for Garmin and to a lesser extent, TomTom. While they believe TomTom will once again garner share gains on Black Friday, and believe both Garmin and TomTom will suffer from a declining PND market. Wedbush notes that Garmin did receive additional shelf space in the Outdoor/Fitness section, though they also saw Polar making a bigger push into GPS watches with a more sleek design.  Here are the latest PNDs available on Amazon.com.

       

Google Maps users deserve red light cameras and speed cameras as a layer for navigation. We have a database of 7,000 cameras we have been accumulating for the last 10 years. We have tried numerous times to reach out to Google and provide this data to them for use on Google Maps without any success.When we first started collecting the data 10 years ago there were only a few hundred cameras in use across the US. Now there are about 7,000 intersections and locations that are under photo enforcement surveillance.  Contrast that to Europe that has 50,000 cameras and most of them are speed cameras. The majority of the cameras in the US are red light cameras and not speed cameras like the Europe.

Every time we talk to large companies who want to use the data  in the US they seem worried about the legality of using the data. They ask questions like:  Is it legal to use this information? What happens if a driver gets into an accident after using the information while driving?   I am not sure I understand their concerns considering people are not trying to evade the law by using the data.  Drivers simply want to know where these locations are to avoid fender bender collisions.  People drive erratically around photo enforced locations and the residual effect are typically small accidents instead of t-bones.

Anyhow, a new user interface for Google Maps layers is being tested. The new UI enlarges the buttons that let you switch views between content layers. Now you can quickly switch between custom maps, driving directions, local search results and Google Maps layers. Google Maps also shows the weather for the current location. Its very useful and its about time they start putting some content on the map that helps people drive safely.

Still No TomTom Red Light Camera US POI Database Available

Here is an email I received from TomTom today posing the following question:  Is there a US photo enforced locations database is available on your navigation devices?  The answer was NO.  Read below. 

"Thank you for taking the time to contact TomTom Customer Support. My name is Amanda and we are always happy to help. I understand that you would like to know if US photo enforced locations database is available for developers. We understand your concern, please be assured I will do my best to answer your query. I would like to inform you that, US photo enforced locations database is currently unavailable for US developers. I regret for the inconvenience caused. We value your suggestions for improvements to our products and services. Suggestions are gathered and organized to understand the areas our customers are most interested in enhancing. Our Product Managers review all feedback to determine future enhancements and products. Many of our current products and updates offer features based on customer suggestions. We certainly value our esteemed customers like you."

The fact that no US photo enforced database is available is amazing considering PhotoEnforced.com started to receive interest from TomTom back in 2005 about licensing our database.  TomTom is known for trying to do everything themselves and that results in garbage in and garbage out.  The photo enforcement notification business is big for TomTom in Europe and probably a multiple million dollar business for them.  Why haven't they been able to get it going in the US with their mapping partner TeleAtlas?

Related Stories:
Garmin Red Light Camera Database is Crap
TomTom Red Light Camera Database is Crap

I am continually amazed how companies who sell radar detectors and our red light camera database competitors claim to have a more comprehensive database than we do.  PhotoEnforced.com was the first US company to start sourcing this data back in 2000 and our next competitor did not come onto the market until 2005.  How do they do it?  Well, they copied our free database online and started adding to it and selling it as their own proprietary database.  Simply ask the next time you want to license Trinity's database when they got started collecting the data and how they did it.  You probably won't get a straight answer because they will never admit that they stole information from PhotoEnforced.com.  Photoenforced.com has 7,000 - 8,000 locations in our database as of today and its growing everyday.  We also have removed hundreds of locations from our database that are inactive or not accurate.  What other competitor can claim they have a comparable database that is free?

I have asked several of these companies including to do a public "bake off" comparing the number of locations in their database.  Still no one wants to compete with crowdsourcing or user generated content because our competitors say they get too many false positives.   Here is what Trinity claims on their web site. Trinity is more accurate and complete than other databases because our team gathers more data than anyone else, to give you the most detailed alerts on the market.  In addition to the camera locations themselves, we plot:

• the camera type
• directional vectors
• speed limits (where applicable)
• ticket directions
• “no ticket” directions

When it comes to camera location data, accuracy is key. One of the reasons why Cheetah detectors are better than others, is that our proprietary database is 100% verified by Cheetah’s professional database team, which monitors all media and internet channels as well as communicating directly with police departments, city traffic engineers, city records, Municipal Codes of Ordinances, traffic bureaus, state transportation agencies, our own network of trusted camera spotters and field survey teams.

Why doesn't Trinity publish the of locations in the database?

Here is a response from Trinity on their Facebook page. Comparing number of locations won't give an accurate measure of the quality of the Trinity 2.0 database compared to other databases. For example, some other companies actively promote they have camera numbers into the millions, which would lead to extensive numbers of false alerts. We take great care to verify our camera locations are accurate and update regularly.

PhotoEnforced.com Response

Photoenforced.com started collecting the 10 years ago and have cameras in 1200 markets. Its impossible to gather the data without crowdsourcing. I agree that verification is important but that is why we have 2000+ people per day coming to PhotoEnforced.com and using the database. Not even Google or Navteq with all its resources can verify locations. Its a false claim and your database will always be behind the curve.

Here is some new technology that allows cellphones to be used as navigation devices in cars, putting more pressure on the makers of in-car satnav systems. German car industry group Consumer Electronics for Automotive (CE4A) unveiled a standard for the technology, which is being pushed by Nokia, the world's largest cellphone maker.

The personal navigation device (PND) industry, led by TomTom and Garmin, has been hit badly by competition from Google Maps navigation-enabled smartphones. When the new "terminal mode" standard is included in cars -- likely starting next year -- it enables consumers to plug a wire to their smartphones in the car and without any additional setup issues to use navigation or other features of their phones directly from a screen built into the car.

Consumer adoption will however take time, industry players and analysts say. "Immediate impact of this is limited, but if you get a credible, good enough experience from the phone navigation in the car -- it removes the need to have any PND," said Tim Shepherd, analyst with research firm Canalys. Navteq, the world's largest digital mapping firm, said it was seeing interest in the new technology across the industry. "We have seen a lot of interest in terminal mode from system vendors and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers)," Navteq's Chief Executive Larry Kaplan told Reuters in a recent interview.

 NAVTEQ would rather drive test and send expensive bodies out to verify. Example given: What if you looked at a map and it had a hotel listed 3 times. They dont get it and fear changing their old school ways. This cost structure is inneficiant as filters like PhotoEnforced.com get better for curating data. Nokia is the largest consumer based phone company yet the company has no intension of leveraging this footprint to capture data. Wow, this is a major management oversight and may soon be the demise of a Nokia and Navteq divorce. There just isnt any synergy or cross platform collaboration.

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NAVTEQ wants to become a media company but has no intentions of selling directly to consumers. I scratch my head hearing the contradiction? I was at the Navteq Connections Conference today and heard some contradictions in strategy and customer focus. As long as they continue to have a developer centric approach they will continue to fall behind.  Developers need a platform that has wide adoption like Android.  I am not sure that just a platform encourages developers to use it without some unique content.

Google Maps realizes its about unique content and Navteq is far from a media company.  Media companies are all about unique content creation similar to what it had Traffic.com.   However, it seems to want to morph this organization into an ad network. What's missing to become a media company? Content and eyeball creation.  Navteq needs to take a more aggressive stance in the online publishing world if they truly want to become a media company.  They should be buying companies like PhotoEnforced.com and GasBuddy.com and provide proprietary content for its customers. Navteq seems content trying to court the large automotive car companies like Ford who are 5 years behind in the content business from smart phones.

You let a friend borrow your car. A few weeks later you get a ticket in the mail with a picture of the car running a red light. You know you were not driving the car, but now you're stuck with a ticket and have to prove your innocence.  Lawyers say such a hypothetical situation is not only unfair, but illegal.

Red light cameras have become popular because they supposedly reduce accidents at intersections while generating revenue for cash-strapped municipalities.

But now ticket recipients and their lawyers are pushing back.

Dennis Salvagio, a criminal defense attorney from Orlando, Fla., said the traffic cameras and the way cities use them to issue tickets are illegal because they force citizens to prove their innocence, rather than forcing cities to prove drivers' guilt.

"It was unconstitutional from the get-go," Salvagio told ABCNews.com. "I think everybody should fight it."

The West Palm Beach, Fla. law firm of Schuler, Halvorson & Weisser has filed 27 class action lawsuits against Florida municipalities, charging that they have operated the cameras without legal authority. The first ruling came in Orlando, where the city may be forced to refund over $4 million collected from over 50,000 tickets issued since the city started the program in September 2008.

In Houston, another attorney, Paul Kubosh, organized a group called Citizens Against Red Light Cameras, which has gathered over 30,000 signatures on a petition that would put the cameras up for a vote before the community.

"All I want is a vote. Just a vote!" Kubosh told ABCNews.com.

Against Red Light Cameras? 'I Scratch My Head'

Though citizens are upset about the cameras and the fines that come with them, Vicki King, assistant chief of information systems command for the Houston Police Department, cannot understand why people don't want cameras that may reduce the "horrific" car crashes that result from drivers running red lights.

"I scratch my head when I hear opponents of red light cameras," King told ABCNews.com. "I've had more nightmares from motor vehicle crashes than I ever did from homicide.

"I don't know why people aren't screaming at us to do more," she said.

Lawyers like Salvagio and David Kramer, one of the lawyers working on behalf of plaintiffs in the Florida class action suits, say they only want to make sure the government is following the law. Although Kramer and his firm are fighting the cameras in court, he said they are neither for nor against the cameras on safety grounds.

"Our goal is to make sure that the government operates within their authority," Kramer told ABCNews.com.

Orange County Circuit Court Judge Frederick Lauten ruled against the city of Orlando before the case went to trial, instead issuing a summary judgment. In his decision, Lauten wrote that the city did not have the right to operate the cameras because by law, only the state has the power to allow the cameras. Prior to July 1, state law did not allow the cameras.

He added that the city did not establish who had the burden of proof when it came to the red light violations, which is the problem that leads Salvagio to call the cameras unconstitutional.

"You should never have to come forward and say, 'I didn't do it,'" Salvagio said. "Under the rules, you have to come forward and say what defense you have."

That amounts to shifting the burden of proof, which is illegal, Salvagio said. He described the legal problems inherent with the camera laws as something one learns in "law school 101." The only reason more people don't fight these fines, he said, is that it is easier to pay the fine rather than to hire a lawyer and go to court.

Lawyers for the city of Orlando could not be reached for comment.

Tickets From Red Light Cameras Make Millions for Cities

Citizens also complain that cameras are used only as a way to make money and do not accomplish their intended purpose of making intersections safer.

"Especially in the last two years, governments just looking for any ways to generate revenue," said Jeff Cohn, founder of photoenforced.com, a site that tracks the location of red light cameras.

"They're writing tickets like no tomorrow," Kubosh said, and pointed to a Rice University study that found that accidents did not decline at Houston intersections with the cameras. A Federal Highway Administration study showed that while right angle or "T-bone" crashes declined, rear-end, or "fender-bender" crashes actually increased in intersections with the cameras.

Either way, Assistant Chief King said the cameras are worth it.

"If I had to choose between someone being involved in a T-bone crash, which has a very high injury rate and a very high mortality rate, and someone getting bumped from the rear ... I'll take that every day of the week and twice on Sunday," King said.

Houston has collected more than $45 million in fines since it first installed the red light cameras in 2006. King said the money from the tickets pays for the cameras, and the remaining funds are split between trauma centers and traffic programs.

King said the only goal is safety and wishes they could install more cameras in Houston. While growth of the cameras continued for many years, that growth may have ceased.

Cohn, of photoenforced.com, which maps the locations of red light cameras, estimated that there were more than 5,000 red-light cameras in 1,300 cities across the United States and Canada. Cohn thought that number may go down.

"I'm starting to see a trend now where cities are removing cameras," said Cohn, adding he is neither for nor against the cameras.

Cohn said the reason for the decline is that municipalities often find the cameras are ineffective from a cost standpoint, but questions of legality may be an increasing factor.

According to thenewspaper.com, an online journal on the politics of driving, 15 states have banned the use of red light cameras. They also wrote that red light cameras have never passed a vote before the general public.

Article By John Wetenhall from ABC News

NAVTEQ, the global provider of maps, traffic and location data enabling navigation, location-based services and mobile advertising around the world, has released results of a new survey that shows 78% of consumers welcome ads on their connected mobile devices when those ads are intelligent enough to know where the end user is and can go on to guide them to nearby retailers and offers, and when the ads offset the cost of other high-value content.  This announcement also supports the business case of rival Google Places which might soon be providing free wireless location based advertising applications and services.

Conducted by Marketing Research Services Inc. (MRSI), the survey showed that 78% of consumers are receptive to receiving location-intelligent LocationPoint ads to offset the cost of value-based content such as NAVTEQ Traffic, a six percent increase over the results of MRSI's first round of research on the subject published in November 2009. The new round of research yielded strong indications that again underscore the power of LocationPoint in converting passers-by to paying customers. Other findings show:

• At least 42% of respondents that were exposed to a brand recalled seeing that brand (aided and unaided)
• Thirty-one percent of respondents who reported seeing an ad on their device clicked on that ad for information to nearby locations
• In a significant measure of impact, up to 31% of consumers seeing a specific ad went on to visit a store location; of those respondents who visited a location after seeing an ad, 53% said they did so directly because of the ad
• Nine percent of respondents who visited a location because of seeing an ad reported it was a first-time visit to that location
• Most desired ads were considered attractions/points of interest that provided a special offer or coupon, e.g. gas/fuel and restaurant offers

The MRSI-commissioned research surveyed 782 respondents 18 and older experienced with using ad-enabled personal navigation devices.

Launched 18 months ago, LocationPoint harnesses NAVTEQ's unrivalled location content and capabilities to pinpoint where consumers are, deliver ads and calls to action within a certain distance of advertised points of purchase, and guide them to the doorstep of an advertised retailer. Built-in calls to action including "click to map" and "click to navigate" bolster consumer engagement with ads, drive traffic to advertised locations and make the service unique.

"The survey indicates consumers are receptive and responsive to ads when those ads are contextually relevant. It shows strong, stable consumer acceptance of LocationPoint -- and even suggests consumer acceptance grows with continued exposure," said Christopher Rothey, vice president, advertising, NAVTEQ. "LocationPoint's unique location intelligence is what drives that level of acceptance and make the ads measurably impactful."

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We Want Real Time Traffic + Photo Enforced Locations 

Traffic has been a hot topic lately with people debating which traffic providers.  Real time traffic data services are destined to be one of the biggest advances in GPS systems for the consumer. While GPS devices strive to provide the fastest route from point A to B, they generally do so by considering the most optimistic road conditions. This route should be the quickest assuming there are no traffic delays.  Live traffic reporting services aim to change that. But which traffic services are the best in the U.S. and what type of data is available, and how well does it work?

When a debate comes up over which traffic data provider is “better” the discussion almost always ends up  at which map has more colored roads. Their seems to be a pressure to paint more colors on more roads which is appealing to the traffic providers as it makes them look like they have more coverage in more places. To some extent that is true but if I am driving and traffic is flowing nicely.  I suppose I don't have to use the navigation or application on my phone and I can turn it off.  What if the traffic data providers starting thinking out of the box and provide other point of interest data to drivers like red light camera and speed camera information.  You might be even more motivated to constantly use a traffic app at all times even when traffic is ok.  Also, I really only care about where I am now and what else might be around me like red light cameras or speed cameras if traffic is flowing.

Sensors & Fleet Data
Traffic data suppliers, like traffic.com (owned by Navteq), INRIX (independent), TrafficCast.com collect data from road sensors, local departments of transportation, data collected from operators of large fleets of vehicles, and other manual sources such as traffic helicopters and listening to police scanners.  Traffic.com is rumored to be making a concerted effort to monetize its traffic applications through advertising as it is no longer independent and owned my a mobile phone company Navteq / Nokia. INRIX remains commercially focused on OEM car manufacturers and is rumored to be an IPO candidate in 2010.

Cell Phone Data
Other traffic data suppliers like Airsage (independent) collect information to by tracking congestion on roadways via your cellphone. This data is tracked "anonymously" through partnerships with companies like Verizon. Some criticize this method as being inaccurate especially in areas where there are lots of pedestrians on the street walking.  Google happens to be the largest customer of Airsage at the present time.

Visual and Voice Data
Some companies like Westwood One & Clear Channel use other drivers, helicopters and visual traffic cameras to broadcast on the radio to their listeners about problem areas around the city.  This method is very labor intensive and requires lots of people.  However, these methods are usually funded by advertising sales teams who sell radio air time.

The Garmin Nüvi for navigation must be a holiday retail success story because we are getting lots of emails from customers asking for our red light camera database. We do not currently license the database directly to consumers because we do not have the infrastructure necessary to deal with customer service.  We prefer to license our database to vendors like Garmin who can add our database as a feature.  After my brief review it appears based on the product that traffic is an additional service option that can be added on as well as a number of Points of Interest as seen below.  There are many other points of interest like banks, restaurants, shopping, parking, gas, entertainment but nothing to help you driver more safely.  Safe driving is a hot topic this year and we have a database that can help Garmin  customers.

We met with Garmin management and they seemed content sourcing red light camera data from an unamed company in Europe that provides no sources for its database.  As long as Garmin's executive seem is satisfied with being behind the curve and not having a complete dataset that is what their customers will get.  Please retweet and post a comment this post if you would like to see our red light content added to the Garmin platform. I don't think management is going to change their data provider unless consumers protest.

See related story:
TomTom Red Light Camera Database is Crap

One of the most common requests I get everyday is how do I get your red light camera database on to my phone for navigation?  Google users are smart, sophisticated and ahead of the curve when it comes to adoption new features and are demanding a red light camera / speed camera warning feature layer.  Here is an picture of how Photo Enforced Google Maps could be used on the Android phone for navigation:

Based on our test today it is fairly obvious that Google Maps still cannot handle thousands of data points very well and the tiles still need to be clustered or optimized on the server.  This is why it is important for our data to be accessed as a layer published by Google and won't be successful published by individual users at this time.  Here were the steps we took to upload Photo Enforced data to Google Maps unsuccessfully.

1st)  We tried to Create a Google Map on Google by uploading our database / KML file of our 5,000+ US fixed red light camera and speed camera locations.  We followed directions by adding map data from our KML file to the map.  This data seemed to get ingested fine but didn't give us any confirmation on the number of successful points and was limited how to display it.

2nd) I downloaded the My Maps Editor in the Android Market for my Android and it seem to find the file I uploaded to Google Maps successfully.  However, when I tried to load it onto the map it kept loacing for about 30 minutes and I was never able to use it.

3rd) I then tried to access the uploaded data on my Android phone from the Google Maps navigation on My Maps and that was unsuccessful as well.  The current navigation features on my Android phone include: Traffic, Satellite, Latitude & Wikipedia.  It also has a button below these layers for Clear Map and More Layers.   When you click on More Layers it gives you options My Maps, Wikipedia (again) and Transit Lines.  I would love to see a Traffic Cameras, Red Light Cameras and eventually Speed Cameras layer.

If anyone can help correct the problem we would appreciate your assistance.

We are also pleased to announce that we have executed an agreement with a major manufacturer of mobile phones and mobile navigation products to include the AURA (TM) database in their North American and European navigation products that will be released early next year." said Jim Bazet, Cobra's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

"This is a significant step in our plan to make AURA the preeminent provider of photo-enforcement alerts globally and is expected to contribute to revenues and earnings in the second half of 2010. Moreover, PPL generated an increase in sales due to the strength of their new product introductions - mobile navigation products tailored to the needs of the professional driver and the recreational vehicle owner. Cobra has recently launched in the U.S. a mobile navigation product for the professional driver that utilizes this successful PPL platform. We are aggressively pursuing new opportunities and expect a substantial improvement in fourth quarter results."

Cobra Electronics (Ticker: COBR) Reports Third Quarter Results | Reuters: 

How much due diligence did the "licensee" (Navteq owned by Nokia Ticker: NOK) do on where Cobra acquired the AURA database information and how they plan to keep the information fresh?

See related articles:

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Red Light & Speed Cameras POI Database

Google announces turn-by-turn GPS navigation today for the Android. It’s currently in beta testing, and will be available for FREE on phones using Google’s Android 2.0 operating system. The GPS navigation includes a tons of unique features (many of these are part of the features you’d see planning a route using Google Maps through a regular web browser).

Google just forced the traditional GPS navigation companies to rethink their business models releasing what may be a far superior product for free. It is not a standalone navigation app. Rather it taps into a lot of the resources Google makes available on the Web, including Google Maps, Streetview, voice recognition, and sophisticated search. Google is happy to give its navigation app away for free because it leverages many existing technologies it has already built for the Web, and it encourages more people to use Web-capable phones and do local searches on them. Its strategy is to give the software away for free, and make money on the search ads.

GPS navigation apps are among the most expensive, and most lucrative, of all mobile apps. However, these paid navigation apps (Navigon, TomTom, CoPilot, MapQuest, GoKivo and Sygic Mobile) are at an immediate disadvantage.  Maybe the race will become which company starts licensing the most useful third party data to differentiate themselves?  The big question is when does Google Maps start incorporating points of interest features from users?  PhotoEnforced.com is an example of a map data source where the advertising business model is completely aligned with Google Maps.

Google could very well make it available to other phones as well, and that is what has investors worried. The new Google Maps Navigation app will be included on Motorola's upcoming Android phone, the Motorola Droid, and will provide turn-by-turn directions based on up-to-date maps and business listings from Google Maps. The Google Maps Navigation software will also be made available to other Android devices running the newly unveiled Android 2.0 software.

Shares in GPS manufacturers Garmin and TomTom fell today following the annoucement from Google that upcoming Android handsets will include free navigation software.  Following the announcement shares of Garmin fell 17.2% to $31.88 and TomTom shares fell more than 20% to €8.11.