31–40 of 212 posts
May be it was easier to market only for rich people who wish to show off then? Since the fall of Vertu no tech companies seem to address specifically this segment. Or may be people just were more optimistic about tech?
The name is perfect. "Etak" refers to a system of navigation used by Micronesian and Polynesian seafarers to navigate from island to island in the vast Pacific Ocean. Much like this device, it operates by "augmented dead reckoning" (as it says in TFA). The etak system of navigation involves navigating by stars and ocean swells to get the heading, but a key issue when navigating by dead reckoning over long distances i…
Felt the article was heavy on ad copy and graphics.
>Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. Or so said Steve Jobs when he announced iPhone in 2007. Interestingly, one of Etak co-founders was Nolan Bushnell, and he was Atari co-founder that hired Steve Jobs (or specifically Allan Alcorn) in his only full-time job prior to Apple, pardon the pun.
I'd pay for a CRT Waze skin and the option to turn off turn-by-turn navigation.
One thing I notice about the 80s is that people were much more willing to pay top dollar for first, very limited versions of products. $4000 in todays money is almost the same as Apple Vision Pro, for a product that has very limited usability. May be it was easier to market only for rich people who wish to show off then? Since the fall of Vertu no tech companies seem to address specifically this segment. Or may be pe…
Later on they talk about "heads up" map digitizing, did this mean the map rotated as the operator digitized the street? Seems quite unwieldy (and how did the poor PC rotate raster graphics?)
The name is perfect. "Etak" refers to a system of navigation used by Micronesian and Polynesian seafarers to navigate from island to island in the vast Pacific Ocean. Much like this device, it operates by "augmented dead reckoning" (as it says in TFA). The etak system of navigation involves navigating by stars and ocean swells to get the heading, but a key issue when navigating by dead reckoning over long distances i…
"The prototype driver navigation system was unveiled in Hildesheim on June 21, 1983, and it proved groundbreaking: EVA was the first ever experimental autonomous navigation system."
https://www.bosch.com/stories/eva-first-navigation-system-fr...
(no map, but display and address to address with route finding)
>Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. Or so said Steve Jobs when he announced iPhone in 2007. Interestingly, one of Etak co-founders was Nolan Bushnell, and he was Atari co-founder that hired Steve Jobs (or specifically Allan Alcorn) in his only full-time job prior to Apple, pardon the pun.
The tech behind mapblast also powered the first version of Yahoo Maps, which was a pretty big deal at the time (this was before Google Maps eventually came in and overshadowed everyone else in that market).
I was in my early 20s and working for one of my first tech startups at the time but Vicinity was primarily made up of graybeards who had previously worked for Etak (who was the primary map data provider for the online mapping system we made, so they had a lot of experience with it) and many of those people were also ex-Atari prior to Etak.
The name is perfect. "Etak" refers to a system of navigation used by Micronesian and Polynesian seafarers to navigate from island to island in the vast Pacific Ocean. Much like this device, it operates by "augmented dead reckoning" (as it says in TFA). The etak system of navigation involves navigating by stars and ocean swells to get the heading, but a key issue when navigating by dead reckoning over long distances i…
This sounds very romantic, but they were mostly at drift. Most very using rafts without any form of propulsion. "Navigation" across wast distances was one way road with no return ticket. They had to do it for overpopulation, not for some explorative spirit.