January 30, 2008
Is your street in the wrong place on your personal navigation device (PND) or maybe not there at all? Did you see a McDonald's restaurant that's located on the wrong side of the road? Users of TomTom's PNDs can now make changes to the street network database from their in-vehicle PND and upload changes to TomTom via the Internet. Editor-in-chief Joe Francica interviews Tim Flight, editor of GPS Review, who has been performing an independent analysis on TomTom's MapShare program to see how soon updates are making it into the hands of consumers.
The podcast will provide insightful information about how data is updated, captured and reported to TomTom and whether TomTom is sharing this information with Tele Atlas, who provides the company with digital street centerline information.
The podcast was recorded on January 22, 2008 and runs for 14 minutes.
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| Great podcast. One question: When Tim says data updates are turned around in 12 hours - which option is that? It's not data TomTom has QC'd is it? It's perhaps what "many votes" have suggested? Or just "any user" has suggested? |
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| Hi Peter, Here is how I ran the test. I identified one road segment which doesn't exist that the map showed does exist. I marked that road segment as being closed in both directions. I also identified a POI which was shown on the correct street number, but on the wrong street. I used MapShare to move the POI to the correct location. Before submitting the change I asked a few other TomTom users to verify that the road segment did exist in their map and that the POI was in the wrong location. None of them made any changes, just verified the current condition of their map. I then submitted both of those changes to MapShare. I then asked those users to periodically check to see if there were MapShare changes available, to download any updates, and then check to see if either of the two changes I made were now visible on their map. In the case of both of the corrections I made, other users reported seeing the change within about 12 hours. It is certainly possible other users made those same two corrections at the same time I did, but that is highly unlikely. The account I used to make the changes under doesn't contain any information that an alert TomTom employee would recognize as me, so it wouldn't have gotten any expedited treatment nor would it have fallen under any of the "trusted" change types. |
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| Ok, I did some homework and will ask a better question. Which download option(s) did your pals use to get updates? Change I made myself? Changes verified by TomTom Changes to POIs I subcribed to? Changes from trusted sources? Changes reported by many? Changes reported by some? See graphic: http://www.clubtomtom.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/MapShare8.jpg Peter |
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| For the test I described you would likely need 'changes reported by some' set. I have typically checked all of those types. |
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