SiRF GPS Powers Mio's Stylish Personal Navigation & Entertainment Device
biz.yahoo.com
Monday October 23, 8:00 am ET
Mio H610 Heralds a New Era for Small Consumer Products with Embedded GPS
SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Continuing its successful push into the consumer marketplace, SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: SIRF), a leading provider of GPS-enabled silicon and premium software location platforms, today confirmed its award-winning SiRFstarIII architecture is featured in an array of ever more compact DigiWalker(TM) navigation products from Mio Technology Limited, one of the leading global players in mobile communications and navigation. SiRF's GSC3f single-chip GPS receiver delivers highly accurate location information for the new Mio DigiWalker H610, a stylish, handheld digital media player and personal navigation device about the size of a business card, and is also at the heart of Mio's pocket-sized C710 and C310 portable car navigation systems.
Nearly half the size of the already compact DigiWalker C710, the tiny Mio H610 marks a milestone in the trend towards embedding GPS features into mainstream consumer products. Small enough, light enough and fashionable enough to be worn around the neck and taken everywhere, the Mio H610 combines high fashion, highly accurate GPS functionality, comprehensive point-of- interest location and a feature-rich digital media player all in a single device for people on the go while walking, biking or driving.
"With the H610, Mio has taken the classic personal media player and embedded impressive GPS navigation functionality into it, creating a new category of device that integrates navigation with people's lifestyles," said Kanwar Chadha, founder and vice president of marketing for SiRF. "The combination of navigation and entertainment in compact and stylish devices, such as the Mio H610, has the potential to significantly expand the navigation market from just in-car to usage everywhere as personal companion devices."
The recently announced Mio DigiWalker C710 provides all the functionality of the H610 in a slightly larger form factor (about the size of an index card) designed for in-car use with a larger 3.5-inch anti-glare display, and adds Bluetooth connectivity for hands-free calling with a compatible mobile phone, as well as TMC traffic reports for smarter routing. Both products contain the SiRFstarIII GPS receiver for fast, accurate navigation in challenging environments such as dense forests, deep canyons and cities with tall buildings, and both provide rich multimedia functionality -- viewing pictures as well as playing videos and music -- with their built-in personal media players.
"Mio and SiRF have forged a longstanding partnership, and these new products signal the evolution of our product line to the SiRFstarIII architecture," said Kioshi Hami, sales director of N. A., Mio Technology Ltd. "In addition to these newly released portable navigation a device, Mio is also working with SiRF on a variety of other new and exciting products in the DigiWalker family to ensure industry leading GPS performance wherever our customers go."
Winner of the PC Magazine's 2005 award for Technical Excellence, the SiRFstarIII architecture can track more than 20 GPS satellites, employs the equivalent of more than 200,000 correlators and sophisticated navigation algorithms, and is able to track signals down to -159 dBm, making real-time navigation practical in almost any environment.
The GCS3 combines a complete A-GPS digital baseband processor and RF front end in a single, compact, 7-mm x 10-mm package. It delivers unmatched time to first fix (TTFF) at the low signal levels of the original two-chip SiRFstarIII product, while occupying 20 percent less board real estate and consuming no more power than the earlier generation SiRFstarII product. |
