{"id":3878,"date":"2011-01-09T19:47:55","date_gmt":"2011-01-09T19:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=3878"},"modified":"2011-01-09T19:47:55","modified_gmt":"2011-01-09T19:47:55","slug":"gps_follies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=3878","title":{"rendered":"GPS Follies"},"content":{"rendered":"

GPS Follies
\n“Ha, Ha, Ha, GPS, GPS!” – a senior Florentine citizen standing outside my rented car’s window, pointing at our TomTom<\/a> GPS.
\nWe followed the TomTom’s instructions from Fiesole through Florence to our evening destination: Central Bologna. However, the TomTom directed us to a dead end: impassable train tracks were straight ahead and we had no nearby alternatives.
\nAfter providing the elderly man his GPS humor, I completed a U-Turn and drove east toward an intersection. The TomTom protested, but later “recalculated” the route and we were on our way to Bologna, via the Autostrada.
\nWe had a few more odd navigation moments, one in Lyon and another in Parma. All in all, the TomTom performed well. TomTom sells a GPS receiver that contains both North American and European maps<\/a>.
\n** A side note. I used the maps app on my iPhone to augment the TomTom (European iPhone data plans are quite expensive for visiting Americans). Xcom Global<\/a> provides a useful alternative for on-the go connectivity: unlimited use mifi devices. I highly recommend Xcom.
\nJean-Louis Gassee’s recent GPS experiences<\/a> inspired this note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GPS Follies
\n“Ha, Ha, Ha, GPS, GPS!” – a senior Florentine citizen standing outside my rented car’s window, pointing at our TomTom<\/a> GPS.
\nWe followed the TomTom’s instructions from Fiesole through Florence to our evening destination: Central Bologna. However, the TomTom directed us to a dead end: impassable train tracks were straight ahead and we had no nearby alternatives.
\nAfter providing the elderly man his GPS humor, I completed a U-Turn and drove east toward an intersection. The TomTom protested, but later “recalculated” the route and we were on our way to Bologna, via the Autostrada.
\nWe had a few more odd navigation moments, one in Lyon and another in Parma. All in all, the TomTom performed well. TomTom sells a GPS receiver that contains both North American and European maps<\/a>.
\n** A side note. I used the maps app on my iPhone to augment the TomTom (European iPhone data plans are quite expensive for visiting Americans). Xcom Global<\/a> provides a useful alternative for on-the go connectivity: unlimited use mifi devices. I highly recommend Xcom.
\nJean-Louis Gassee’s recent GPS experiences<\/a> inspired this note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,11,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}