Opentom should have more 'hackers'
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| henke54 Aug 17, 2009 10:42 AM EDT |
Quoting:i have a tomtom , and the funny thing with TT is that although they (TT) use linux in their gps apparatus , you cannot update it with linux , you have to have a PC with winblowz to update it ... once i emailed them, and they emailed me back with an answer that "it was not possible to update with a linux comp" ... ;-Phttp://lxer.com/module/forums/t/28585/ Opentom should have more 'hackers' : http://www.opentom.org/Main_Page |
| jacog Aug 17, 2009 11:57 AM EDT |
I think often what drives some FOSS software development is the subversive nature of some of it. Being told "no" and then punking out against it. |
| techiem2 Aug 17, 2009 4:17 PM EDT |
What I don't get is why these manufacturers make their devices so hard to update in the first place.
I guess it's to make you use their software. My Cowon iAudio X5 just acts as a mass storage device. To upgrade the firmware, just drop the new files into a certain directory on it and reboot it. Done. Why can't other device makers (like GPS devices...) do the same thing? Need to upgrade the firmware? Drop the new on into a dir. Need to upgrade the maps? Drop the new file into a dir. Of course, then you wouldn't be tied to their special software using their special super secret protocols to update things... Device control and information gathering of course is a different issue. |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 17, 2009 6:34 PM EDT |
According to OpenStreetMap, one of TomTom's most closely guarded secret is the file format of it's maps. Since you can get to those files easily already (just pop the SD card in a card reader) it should not be such a big issue. |
| jdixon Aug 17, 2009 7:32 PM EDT |
> ...one of TomTom's most closely guarded secret is the file format of it's maps. There are only two major map providers: Navteq and TeleAtlas. Since I believe TomTom owns TeleAtlas now, I'd think it's safe to assume that's the one they use. So they obfuscate their maps now? I wonder if they still provide the maps to other manufacturers. |
| Sander_Marechal Aug 18, 2009 3:38 AM EDT |
I don't think they are obfuscating them. If I understand correctly, they are encoding and storing them in such a way that makes it possible to quickly search and calculate routes even on low-powered devices. Don't forget that they're trying to juggle a multi-gigabyte dataset on a 266-400 Mhz processor and 32 MB of RAM. |
| jdixon Aug 18, 2009 6:24 AM EDT |
> ...they are encoding and storing them in such a way that makes it possible to quickly search and calculate routes even on low-powered devices. OK, that makes more sense. And I can even buy that being a closely guarded trade secret. Thanks for elucidating, Sander. |
| hkwint Aug 18, 2009 8:18 AM EDT |
Quoting: I wonder if they still provide the maps to other manufacturers. At least entire Google Maps uses maps from TeleAtlas; I estimate after TomTom Google is the biggest consumer of TeleAtlas. Lately I found an 'error' in Google Maps, and the way to 'fix' this is tell TeleAtlas (TomTom, that is) about it. Something like filing a bug report, but the community can only file it and look at the status, not at the actual process within TomTom (/TeleAtlas) itself. |
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