Internet giant Google unveiled a free navigation system for mobile phones Wednesday in a move seen as a potential challenge to the makers of standalone GPS navigation devices.US telecom carrier Verizon Wireless and US handset maker Motorola announced simultaneously that a smartphone going on sale in the United States next week, the Droid, would be the first to feature Google Maps Navigation.
The Droid, which will cost 200 dollars and is being touted as a challenger to Apple’s iPhone and the Blackberry from Research in Motion, is powered by Android 2.0 software, Google’s next-generation mobile phone operating system.
Google Maps Navigation, which will only work on smartphones running Android 2.0, includes many of the features of a traditional GPS device such as 3D map views and turn-by-turn voice guidance.
Google’s Internet-connected system allows navigation using voice search in English, provides live traffic updates, includes satellite imagery from Google Maps and features "street view" — real ground-level pictures of destinations.
Google Maps Navigation also allows users to conduct a search along their route for gas stations or restaurants, for example. Industry analysts said the free Google feature could pose a threat to the personal navigation devices for drivers made by companies such as Garmin of the United States and TomTom of the Netherlands.
Shares in Garmin plunged by 16.23 percent in New York, however, to 31.65 dollars while TomTom was down 20 percent in Amsterdam. Verizon and Motorola said the Droid, which features a touchscreen, a slide-out Qwerty keyboard, a five-megapixel camera and DVD-quality video capture and playback, will go on sale in the United States on November 6.
Verizon is the latest US telecom carrier or manufacturer to adopt Android software in a bid to mount a challenge to the market-leading Blackberry and iPhone.
Motorola released another Android-powered device, the Cliq, in September and is pinning hopes of a turnaround in its flagging fortunes on smartphones using Google’s operating system.