Tom Tom GO Personal Navigator Source Code Released

Fofer writes "TomTom, makers of personal navigation software for PDA's and cell phones, also have a standalone device called the TomTom GO. Early reviews are excellent, with its sleek design and unique 3-D interface. Unlike other standalone GPS units, this one runs on Linux. It uses an SD card (optionally prefilled with the entire U.S. map) and 11 voices to choose from. More available here for free (in OGG format, no less!). There is also Mac support provided by a 3rd party. The big news is that this week, TomTom finally released the kernel they used, source code, patches, etc. of the device under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This is one sweet looking device and I can't wait to get my hands on one and start tinkering. Hmm... Ogg/MP3 jukebox anyone?"

Comments

foreign o the US contingent

[JanneM]

I know, this may be foreign to the US contingent of the /. crowd, but where is the handheld version?

At least I pretty much never use GPS in a vehicle; even when I want to get to a specific address (not an easy feat in Japan), I would use maps to get to the general area, then get to the actual point (like a geocache or an address) on foot.

so what exactly do we get???

[advocate_one]

lots of code for the kernel, modules, busybox etc. but what I want to know is, do we actually get the source code to the application itself?

Re:so what exactly do we get???

[doctormetal]

I like open source software, and I am all for someone developing an open source GPS-program, but these people need to make money.

It could be a combination. the GPS software for free, but charge for the card material.

Not sure at $900, it's such a great value?

[King_TJ]

At first this excited me because I thought "Hey, cool! A small, stand-alone GPS solution that could be mounted in people's cars and not cost a fortune!" But then I saw the $900 suggested retail price. I'm currently using a Garmin Streetpilot in my car, and we paid somewhere around $850 for it, over a year ago. It comes with a surprisingly usable "pillow mount"; (Basically like a black, nylon beanbag with a stalk sticking out of the top, center of it to snap the Garmin unit onto it. You can just plop it down on your dashboard and it stays put. No messy tape or velcro needed.) It also uses SD flash memory with a USB port for attaching to a PC to download new map data into it and do firmware upgrades to the unit itself. The speaker for the voice synthesizer is integrated into the lighter plug adapter, which usually ends up putting it in a better place for the driver to hear it clearly, and can get plenty loud too.

This might be cool if you really do need the GPS to be "hand held", but if you're downloading *street maps* into it, the obviously use I'd see would be for driving with it. Therefore, I think it needs to be priced more like $400-500 at most, so people will considering cutting holes in their dash and installing it to look like original factory equipment....

already got one?

[Doc Ruby]

I've already got a (Treo 600) smartphone, with an AGPS receiver for E911, a fast (~100Kbps) Internet connection, and PalmOS for which it's easy to write apps. Where's the app that integrates them into my single device that I already take everywhere? I want to add GPS to my contact list, the images I take, my SMS "Where are you?" messages...

Would be nice if ported to Zaurus or Familiar

[MCRocker]

If it already runs under Linux, it might not be too hard for them to port it to a Zaurus. However, with Sharp's limited distribution in the US and Europe, I doubt they'd even try. It's too bad because I be the same app could run without recompiling on OpenZaurus or even an iPAQ running Familiar.

Of course, this isn't the only handheld option. The TomTom folks also have PDA editions for more popular devices.