SiRF Technology announced that its SiRFstarIIe/LP global positioning system technology powers the new Earthmate(R) GPS with Bluetooth from DeLorme, a leading digital mapping and GPS innovator. With SiRF’s location technology, Earthmate helps people to quickly and easily determine where they are, and how to get to where they want to go, from a laptop or personal digital assistant (PDA). Earthmate GPS with Bluetooth, shipping now, is a versatile GPS receiver that provides sophisticated location and navigation capabilities to PDAs and mobile computers. It comes with DeLorme’s Street Atlas USA(R) 2003 software to provide accurate mapping and in-vehicle navigation.
The underlying SiRFstarIIe/LP high-performance, low-power GPS chipset ensures accurate location information, and a quick position fix, even when the sky is obstructed by foliage canopies or tall buildings. The Bluetooth wireless connection is well-suited for use with GPS in vehicles, eliminating cables conventionally used to connect the GPS receivers to laptop or handheld computers. Earthmate is typically placed on a vehicle dashboard, where it acquires the satellite signal and calculates the vehicle’s position, velocity and heading, which are then wirelessly transmitted to a Bluetooth-compliant display device anywhere in the vehicle.
The SiRFstarIIe/LP, introduced in 2002, has been deployed extensively in consumer devices such as Earthmate, as well as cell phones and computer accessories, because it offers high performance, dramatic power efficiency for longer battery life, quick time to first fixes, and comprehensive design tools for faster integration of GPS into consumer devices. SiRFstarIIe/LP’s Adaptive TricklePower feature is an advanced power management technology that intelligently modulates power consumption depending on signal strength, allowing an optimised blend of performance and power savings.
