Interesting Items...

MikeSh said:
My concern with buying a 'lifetime' data unit from the likes of TT is that their definition of life could be quite different from mine; possibly only 2 or 3 years.
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TomTom said:
* Lifetime means the useful life of the device, i.e. the period of time TomTom supports your device with updates, services, content or accessories. A device will have reached the end of its life when none of these are available any more.
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Bearing in mind that they continued map updates for the updated GO series (2005 release) for something like 11 years after they were superseded by new models (claiming there was no longer sufficient internal memory to accommodate increasingly complex maps, which seems entirely reasonable), I find TomTom refreshingly trustworthy in that respect.

However, as I had to pay a subscription for my GO 500 maps but now map updates and traffic are free-for-life (to compete with other satnav suppliers), I am concerned how solid the business model is now. I have a little box on my phone called Voice Bridge, which connects my phone line to my smartphone (via WiFi at home, and via Internet while out and about). The Internet service requires a server somewhere, which costs money to run, but its use is free for the one-off cost of the original purchase... so what is going to sustain this (rhet.)?
 
Black Hole said:
claiming there was no longer sufficient internal memory to accommodate increasingly complex maps, which seems entirely reasonable
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A poor excuse given that they were tight on memory in the first place and you can use an SD card to overcome the manufacturer caused memory problem on some anyway.
Black Hole said:
I find TomTom refreshingly trustworthy in that respect.
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I think that you will find that you are in a minority if you read other forums. There are a lot of p***** off people especially as they have dumbed down the facilities that they used to have, but have no longer.
 
Trev said:
A poor excuse given that they were tight on memory in the first place and you can use an SD card to overcome the manufacturer caused memory problem on some anyway.
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I don't see how you make that out. The SD card is like having a disk drive - you need working memory to load the data into. If the data set becomes too large for the working store you then need to implement paging schemes, which will require a major overhaul of the operating firmware, which may not have sufficient storage... You are too harsh.

Trev said:
I think that you will find that you are in a minority if you read other forums. There are a lot of p***** off people especially as they have dumbed down the facilities that they used to have, but have no longer.
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But are these p***** off people adequately knowledgeable about the technical issues to have a proper appreciation of them? I'm not very happy about a number of things on the new unit compared with my old one, on the other hand there are a number of advantages. I could just continue to use the old one if I wanted (with frozen maps of course). The firmware on the old unit went through a considerable period of development, and I'm hoping the same will be the case again - it seems to be a solid platform, and I am providing feedback.
 
Black Hole said:
I don't see how you make that out.
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I It just works like what I said, regardless of your theory, as do Garmin SatNavs. If they 'page ibn' bits of the map, then so be it. I don't need to understand how it works, just that it does.
Peeps have put the whole TT lot on an SD card when the internal memory has failed.
You obviously haven't had a look at the list of useful stuff that TT have removed.
How do you get on with traffic when you travel a long way? Do you go up the A1, M1 or M6 going norty. OK M6. So it's blocked about 100 miles from you. The TT will not tell you about that as it has a traffic horizon of about 40-60 miles. The traffic used to cover the whole route. Just for one.
Here's one example HERE. And here's a nice short list of stuff HERE
 
Trev said:
So it's blocked about 100 miles from you. The TT will not tell you about that as it has a traffic horizon of about 40-60 miles.
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That's a very tricky one. How clever is the traffic system? The Google one is very dynamic as I believe it takes all the users speed and locations to identify jams, and it has usual data to predict regular jams ... but I doubt if it knows the cause of a specific jam. I don't know where TT, Garmin, etc, get their info.
So if a road is blocked an hour or two into your journey, should the system route you away, or wait for a while to see if the jam clears, which it probably will in most cases? (How many times have you seen motorway signs warning of problems and then gone through to the 'End' sign without even seeing a vehicle on the hard shoulder?)
 
TT will not warn you as they recon if it's that far away, it will be gone. But this does not account for long term roadworks that clog up traffic. Garmin and Sygic give you the full story on your whole route. TT is OK unless a roadwoks/accident etc.m, would cause you to take an entirely different route such as what I said above, with a choice of a couple of different major routes.
 
MikeSh said:
(How many times have you seen motorway signs warning of problems and then gone through to the 'End' sign without even seeing a vehicle on the hard shoulder?)
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Today on the M4: speed restrictions, left arrows over lane 3, lane 3 closing warnings, then.... End.

Out of curiosity I switched the TomTom to 2D mode and zoomed out - sure enough, all the red delay warnings were with a circle with my location at the centre.
 
It obviously moves a plot along better in a movie or TV series if the computer commands are spoken rather than watching somebody type and click or use telepathy, but the concept seems absurd to me in most practical situations: any noisy environment; anywhere not everyone in the vicinity is collaborating on the same immediate problem; anywhere there is non-computer vocal interaction that could be picked up and misinterpreted.

Dictation is now a reasonably viable technology, but how often do you come across it being used to create documents? Can you imagine a busy office with everyone in their work pods dictating to their computers? How often do you find team working as structured and single-minded as, say, the bridge of the Voyager? Don't people in public talking into their phones for all to hear seem silly to you? They do to me.

Alright, I'll grant that two or three people sitting in front of a TV and choosing what to watch could reasonably use voice control as an alternative to passing the handset around, and I'll accept that voice control is a possibility when there's only you and the computer, but in any other situation, would you really want to be heard saying "OK Google, show me porn"?

That's the point of a keyboard/mouse interface and a smallish screen - even if not embarrassing, the interaction is private. And don't you like a bit of peace and quiet, even if you are alone?
 
Remember how noisy typing pools were? Funnily enough, in call centres, there are loads of people all talking at once, into headsets.
 
There are, but nobody in a call centre is trying to create original thought.

Perhaps you've noticed that even on the bridge of the Voyager, there are a few command personnel that use the voice interface (one at a time), but everyone else pushes buttons.
 
Black Hole said:
There are, but nobody in a call centre is trying to create original thought.

Perhaps you've noticed that even on the bridge of the Voyager, there are a few command personnel that use the voice interface (one at a time), but everyone else pushes buttons.
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Seven of nine can push my buttons anytime she wants. I might even respond to a few voice commands too!

:)
 
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