News

The year is coming to an end and we are all going to enjoy a summer holiday, but that doesn't mean that the fun is going to stop. For anyone that wishes to make contact with us, we will be closed from 21 December until 7 January. During that time we will continue trialling new technologies and testing our data from an end user's perspective.

I (Luigi) will be trialling some new features such as the Buddy Locator on the new TomTom One XL which they kindly loaned me for a few weeks. It communicates via Bluetooth to a mobile phone and allows your 'buddies' to see where you are, using their own One XL. This is a great feature for groups of people wanting to catch up while they are travelling around the country. I'll also try out the Map Share service which allows you to make map alterations to the map data on your device including adding or changing Points of Interest in their categories. Another feature that will be interesting is the ability to download weather forecasts, of course for Auckland anyone can predict it accurately. Today it has rained, the sun has been out, it has been windy, now it has stopped, later it will rain again. But seriously, being away and being able to see a weather forecast on your car navigation unit is pretty cool.

The new year is full of very  exciting new developments which I can't tell you about yet. What I can tell you is that Car Navigation and Fleet Management are going to enjoy rapid growth in New Zealand, following on from the record months we have enjoyed in the 2nd half of this year. Location Based services on web sites, mobile phones and SmartPhones are going to go from concept to reality and we will start seeing social networking and proximity based marketing evolve into every day life. Of course GeoSmart will be the preferred content provider and partner.

For now, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and look forward to locating you in 2008.