GPS

[wings folded]

I have just completed a car journey of over 1,000 kms with a dedicated GPS to hand, and the GPS function on my phone.
They agreed most of the time but not always.
But here is my question:
"How the buggery do they cram every tiny little road, lane or track into such tiny devices, with speed limits et al"?
And don't just answer algorithms, cos I have no clue what they are nor how they work

[Sisemen]

An army of elf cartographers working 24/7 drawing tiny, tiny maps which are then folded very very small and packed into every device before it leaves the factory.

[Slasher]

A dedicated GPS simply tells you where TF you are on the oblate spheroid, usually Lat and Long.

The GPS is one of the inputs to whatever PFM application you use for your car navigation.

[ian16th]

These 'tiny devices' have what would have immense memories just a few years ago.

I have a TomTom that is approaching antique status and it has 500MB of internal memory and an SD card slot into which I have put a 16GB card.

If my card didn't have my collection of 400 CD's ripped as MP3 files, it would be space enough for all the maps of the civilised world.

[Boac]

drawing tiny, tiny maps

- which is why getting these things wet is not a good idea - the maps all stick together.

[OFSO]

My Garmin divides the screen into two and shows a film of approaching junctions if you are on express roads. Now how do they do THAT considering it covers the entire area of Europe ? And also I installed it low down in a recess in the instrument panel - how on earth can it pick up satellites down there ? (But it does).

Magic !

[BenThere]

I marvel at it, too.

The Garmin Nuvi's mounted in my vehicles know which lane I should be in and which one I'm actually in. If I disregard the Garmin route, and sometimes I know better than Garmin does, an immediate recalculation is made. These devices are magic, and how all the road information of a great big country is crammed into the little box I have no idea. They keep getting better, too. Now they tell me if road work is in progress ahead, flooding has occurred and can guess my ETA within a few minutes on an all day trip.

Could you imaging what someone would have paid you for a device of such capability say, during WWII?

[Capetonian]

The girl inside mine has a sexy Irish accent and a sweet voice. She must be damn smart too.

[500N]

Could you imaging what someone would have paid you for a device of such capability say, during WWII?

It certainly beats finding and intersecting a beam and following that

[603DX]

I guess some of my ancestors must have been Luddites. There has to be some reason why my attitude to the use of these "cheating" devices for car travel is so antagonistic. After 55 years of driving since passing the test, I still enjoy planning my routes for longish trips not previously made using current road maps, and prefer to either jot down a few notes on main routes and a few potential alternatives, or simply use an online route planner and print off the itinerary. It's always been an integral part of the pleasure of motoring, for me. Being spoon-fed by a little electronic gizmo, of whatever degree of clever-dickiness, is anathema to me.

OK, I may occasionally get caught out by the effects of traffic incidents and similar unpredictables, although even these instances can be minimised by having the radio tuned to a station giving traffic reports. Sometimes it's "better to travel hopefully than to arrive", I've found ...

[unifoxos]

I, too, plan my route to somewhere I haven't been before using (mainly online) maps and sometimes checking where junctions are using Street View. However I still put SWMBO's TwatNav on when setting off, for various reasons - to tell me where speed cameras are, to give me earlier warning of motorway exits (I get two miles from Tom), and in case I need to detour around a traffic jam when I will let him get me back onto my original route again.

[ian16th]

WRT road maps, when I worked from Birmingham and then Leeds, covering customers in the whole of GB I used these two AA published maps.

Brum.jpg (25.79 KiB) Viewed 361 times

Leeds.jpg (23.55 KiB) Viewed 361 times

They were very good at getting you to the town that you wanted. They also gave the mileage to each significant town, which enabled one to estimate journey time. And use the mileage for expenses.

They were standard AA maps of GB, overprinted with the recommended route from the base city and available for many cities that had an AA office.

Seeing as they must be nearly 40 years old, I don't suppose that they are much use, but they have sentimental value

[500N]

God Ian, we had heaps of those AA Maps ! (or my Dad did).

[ian16th]

Why did you need heaps of them?

I only needed the one from the town/city I was based at!

[OFSO]

The girl inside mine

I found the lady inside my Garmin a bit bossy. Searching inside I found a most charming young man with a lovely helpful voice, so changed the audio to that. Such a dear boy.

If you are feeling masochistic the German lady obviously wears spiked black leather and carries a whip. The French woman is thinking of voting for Marine Le Pen.

Talking of audio systems, I was driving in the last car and thought I would amuse the friends with me, so I pushed the button and said loudly "Give me a blow job !" to which the Spanish lady living in the dashboard responded sternly "IMPOSIBILE !"

Fair enough.

[500N]

Why did you need heaps of them?
I only needed the one from the town/city I was based at!

We traveled a lot from Birmingham, throughout Staffs and surrounds Swan catching (ornithology)
and also to Norfolk, again bird catching (ornithology). Generally had a lot of people also doing it
so having a map to explain where to go etc and looking at the canals / rivers which we walked
and then got picked up at (often) some obscure road bridge.

Plus holidays all over the UK, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, Bournemouth etc.

[ian16th]

Not the 'through routes from' maps then, just the normal touring ones.

[Slasher]

I found the lady inside my Garmin a bit bossy.

Mine was a stuckup bitch with a Californian twang. I was forever yelling at her to STFU if I missed a turnoff and to go fcuk herself. Fortunately a mate not too long ago installed a Swedish porno chick for me (his own invention) and things became a lot more civiler and nicer!

[Pinky the pilot]

Is it really true that there is a GPS Nav system for Autos that has Billy Connelly as the voice?

"Ya (expletive deleted) stupid (expletive deleted) boy Jimmy; Ya just missed the (expletive deleted) turn off to......"etc etc

[ian16th]

TomTom have a selection of voices recorded by actors/celebs.

These can be purchased as an add on.

I have a TomTom and I pay an annual license for the 'safety camera's' (speed traps). If the device warns me of one new camera and I avoid the fine, it pays the annual license.

One year their billing system couldn't handle the transaction and they told me to buy one of the Celeb Voices and would change the transaction to the map updates.

This I did and I bought the voice of John Cleese.

Unfortunately the vocabulary of his recorded words and phrases are something a lot less than the computer generated voices. So I have settled on 'Kate' as my in car girlfriend.

She speaks something resembling 'UK English' and has some entertaining pronunciations of some of the local street names.