By David Ponce

You won’t care much about this if you don’t obsessively watch the best car show on the planet, UK Top Gear. Then again, if you don’t watch it, perhaps you should just curl up in a ball and not do much at all; life isn’t worth living when one lacks appreciation for this show… The rest of us however will find it interesting to know that TomTom has released a special “Top Gear Edition” of its GO LIVE GPS navigator. The most obvious features is that your directions will be voiced by the giant himself, Jeremy Clarkson. But that’s not where it ends. Other unique features include

Top Gear Points of Interest like “an exhaustive of racetracks and raceways, including the Top Gear Test Track.”

Unique Top Gear car icons.

Top Gear start up and shut down screens.

And my personal favorite, “Stig Mode”. It renders the satnav instantly silent!

It’s $270 and available for Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US.

[ TomTom Go Live Top Gear Edition ] VIA [ Xataka ]

By Evan Ackerman

Generally, a Nokia mobile application isn’t something we’d cover around here. So I think first, I should give you a full disclosure: I got a demo of Nokia’s new Ovi Maps app at a breakfast event yesterday morning that may have included bacon. I am reasonably confident that said bacon didn’t influence my opinion more than a modest amount, but I just thought I’d let you know.

Anyway, let me cut directly to the chase and say that the biggest deal with Ovi Maps, as opposed to something like Google Maps, is that Ovi Maps (which is totally free, btw) does not require a data connection for turn-by-turn voice directions. When you buy a Nokia phone that has GPS and Ovi Maps, it’ll come preloaded with a map of whatever country you’re in. From that point, you don’t need a data plan (or even a SIM card, for that matter) for the phone to provide you with driving directions, walking directions, and points of interest… It’s a great solution if you want a phone, and a GPS, but can’t otherwise justify the staggering expense of a monthly data plan.

The maps are vector based (stored as numbers, not graphics) so 74 countries worth of mapping data takes up less than 5 gigs of space, and whatever country you have loaded onto the phone is of course only a fraction of that. If you want the satellite backgrounds, Ovi Maps does that too, but you’ll have to have a data connection. Also requiring a data connection are integrated features like Lonely Planet and Michelin guides, but to reiterate, if you’re just looking for directions and points of interest, you don’t need to pay for data.

Here are some other tidbits worth pointing out:

-74 countries have turn by turn directions, 180 have road maps… Google Maps only does directions in the US

-New country maps can be downloaded to the phone through a PC free of charge, still without a data connection

-Turn by turn directions include lane assistance, and walking directions include paths through parks and will direct you through the lobby of a building if it’s faster (!), and you can turn on 3D landmarks

Currently, Ovi Maps is available on the following unsexily named Nokia phones: the N97, 5800, E52, E55, E72, 5230, 6710, 6730, and X6. The rest of Nokia’s family of GPS enabled smartphones should get Ovi Maps by March.

[ Ovi Maps ]

By Shane McGlaun

Live traffic services have been available on a variety of different portable navigation devices for a while. Using these services drivers can find where traffic jams are happening and get alternate routes to avoid the jams.

Tele Atlas has announced its new HD Traffic service that uses new methods of gathering real time traffic information for subscribers. Traffic data provided by the service uses information from GPS measurements submitted anonymously from other user’s navigation devices and mobile phones, road sensors, and journalistic data.

All of the traffic information is then combined and offered to the driver on their PND allowing them to be routed around traffic automatically. The way traffic data is collected makes for extremely accurate positioning of traffic jam info. Traffic info provided included road speed, length, and location. The HD Traffic service is available now for Tele Atlas partners.

[ Tele Atlas ]