More takeovers expected for hard-hit satnav firms

Harro ten Wolde and Tarmo Virki AMSTERDAM/HELSINKI Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:07am EST Related News Nokia, Intel team up in phone software raceMon, Feb 15 2010Nokia says free satnav to lift services salesMon, Feb 15 2010MOBILE FAIR-Nokia says free satnav to lift services salesMon, Feb 15 2010RPT-MOBILE FAIR-WRAPUP 3-Nokia, Intel team up in phone softwareMon, Feb 15 2010 Stocks & &

AMSTERDAM/HELSINKI (Reuters) - Handset makers and operators are looking at acquisitions among the remaining independent satellite navigation firms after Nokia (NOK1V.HE) and Google (GOOG.O) shocked the industry with free offerings.

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Following several takeovers, remaining players in the satnav sector are rethinking strategies and some are set to sell out under pressure to survive, industry sources and analysts say.

Top mobile industry players -- including Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), RIM (RIM.TO) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) -- are likely to be more interested in buying assets rather than licensing the software as they need to minimize costs if they are to offer a service that is free for the consumers.

By offering free turn-by-turn navigation, Google and Nokia have raised the bar and made free navigation a standard, the basis on which others can offer their own services such as dynamic information about road conditions and traffic.

Providers of such services such as Telmap, Navigon, Waze and Automotive Navigation Data (ANDP.AS) have become potential acquisition targets.

The world"s largest cellphone maker Nokia last month followed Google in starting to offer free navigation on phones, dealing a blow to the navigation industry across the globe.

"It"s a massive disruption," said Noam Bardin, chief executive at Waze, which provides a mobile application for free turn-by-turn navigation based on live road conditions.

In 2008 Nokia and TomTom (TOM2.AS) bought out digital map makers Navteq and Tele Atlas. There has been consolidation too among companies building software on top of maps.

Last month, Dutch Nav4All became the first major victim of free cellphone navigation as it could not change map supplier from Nokia"s Navteq to TomTom"s Tele Atlas.

"The general perception now is the map is crucial. If we don"t have it, we are toast," Chief Executive Maarten Oldenhof at Dutch Automotive Navigation Data (AND) said.

Vodafone (VOD.L) bought Sweden"s Wayfinder for $30 million in 2008, after Wayfinder first acquired Finland"s Navicore. Nokia itself bought Germany"s Gate5 in 2006.

"There will be a lot of talk whether operators should follow Vodafone and look to acquire," said Tim Shepherd of industry consultancy Canalys.

FREE SERVICE

And the operators -- under pressure from Nokia and Google -- in turn have to consider offering the service for free.

Research firm Gartner has said if others follow the example of Nokia and Google it would slash up to $5 billion off the $25 billion consumer navigation market.

Consumers" rising expectations for a free turn-by-turn navigation on smartphones could lead to a new flurry of acquisitions from the likes of Samsung, RIM and Microsoft.

"In the coming two to three years providers and handset makers will try to do it themselves, but not everyone can. My expectation is that only the big ones will survive, the likes of Nokia, Apple, maybe Microsoft, but a lot has to be improved in their mobile application," said AND"s Oldenhof.

Still they need to turn to existing players as nobody has the required navigation knowledge and expertise in-house.

They will have to turn to companies who are struggling to find new income -- through bundles or location-based advertising -- under pressure to offer free services.

"We will see some bargains in this space. Companies will be for sale for fairly small amounts of money," Canalys" Tim Shepherd said.

Industry executives have already noted appetite for navigation-related services is growing since Google and Nokia made their move into the industry.

"We have some strategic discussions," said Chief Executive Oren Nissim of Telmap, a provider of real-time mobile mapping and navigation services. "I am definitely sure there will be more consolidation in the sector."

Gerhard Mayr, vice president for the global phone business of Navigon, Europe"s third biggest seller of personal navigation devices (PNDs) after TomTom and Garmin (GRMN.O), also notes more interest for his company and its services.

"We are talking to several parties in the industry," he said, declining to say whether there is any interest in the company as a whole.

(Editing by David Holmes)

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Red Arrow jets hit off Crete

Deborah Haynes, Defence Editor & , : {}

Two Red Arrows collided mid-air over Crete during a training session yesterday in the first such crash in almost 40 years. Both pilots survived, but one was taken to hospital with a dislocated shoulder and minor injuries after ejecting from his aircraft.

The bright-red Hawk jets had been taking part in pre-season training before they were due to fly to Cyprus for a full display practice, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said.

It is not known whether all nine Red Arrows in the team were present or just the two that collided.

Two Hawk aircraft from the Royal Air Force Red Arrows Aerobatic Team collided whilst undertaking pre-season training at Hellenic Air Force Base Kastelli in Crete, the spokesman said.

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Flight Lieutenant Mike Ling ejected in mid-air, while his 5 million Red Arrow crashed onto the runway. The aircraft was described as severely damaged on impact.

The second pilot, Flight Lieutenant Dave Montenegro, managed to land his plane safely with no injuries.

An inquiry will take place to establish the cause of the collision, which happened at around 1.50pm local time.

Flying at high speed and in close formation, the world-famous aerobatic team have suffered a number of crashes and collisions since they started performing displays in the 1960s.

The Red Arrows Hawk jets reach speeds of up to 550mph during their routines, which include the trademark diamond nine formation, as well as barrel rolls and loop-the-loops. The team puts on 80 to 90 shows across the world every year.

It was not clear how yesterdays collision would impact on the teams performance schedule.

The MoD spokesman said: The 2010 season training will continue as soon as possible.

The Red Arrows keep a tenth plane in reserve in the event of technical problems.

The last time two Red Arrows collided was in 1971 when four pilots were killed and two aircraft destroyed during training over RAF Kemble in Gloucestershire.

The Diamond Nine are now based at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire.

Our perspective to kids shows we need to grow up David Aaronovitch

David Aaronovitch & , : {}

Imagine this, since were so lustful of receiving the ideas from Scandinavia these days. Its the mid-1990s and a small kid goes missing. Eventually a physique is found the autopsy shows that the kid has been beaten, nude and left to die. Two boys declare to the murder.

We all know what doesnt occur next. What doesnt occur subsequent is that they go home. And afterwards a integrate of weeks after go at the back of to school, despite with sharp minders. It is improbable that, though everyone in the village knows who they are, no one names them. Or that the press knows their names, but sees fit not to tell them. Or that there is no adult trial, no petitions that they be sealed afar for life, and no malicious bereaved parent. It is unthinkable that they should be immature adults now, scarred by their youthful crime but not by the adult authorised routine or by an almighty enterprise for revenge.

Except in Norway, in the late autumn of 1994, usually a year after the Bulger murder, the unthinkable is just what happened. That Oct Silje Redergard was killed by dual six-year-olds. More than half a decade later, Terje Lund, the law enforcemetn officer heading the investigation, was interviewed by the BBC about the comparisons in in between the Redergard and Bulger cases.

Lund was repelled by what happened in Britain. I unequivocally dont similar to to listen to that you can put children, ten years old, in to custody, he said. I think the meaningless. In Norway the age of rapist shortcoming is 15.

BACKGROUNDRape victims should have dilettante adviceThe law about rape"Set boundaries, but let immature kids be children"

But Silje was not his child. Her mom was Beate Redergard, who was traumatised by the loss of her daughter. Beate was asked privately how she coped with the actuality that there had been no charge for Siljes murder. Its really difficult, she replied. I think it would have been majority simpler to put it all at the back of me if someone had been punished for the crime but I dont think the right to retaliate small children.

In another, after talk Ms Redergard combined that she thought the boys accepted what they had done, but not the consequences. If these boys would have been treated with colour with colour similar to adults and sealed up they would have lost out on so majority their learn on reality, how multitude works. They majority expected wouldnt cope with being put on the streets at the age of 18. Would they have learnt something? I dont think so.

The views of Ms Redergard and Officer Lund were radically those of the incoming childrens commissioner, Maggie Atkinson, when she spoke to The Times last week. Dr Atkinson argued that the age of shortcoming at 10 was as well low and that far as well majority importance was placed on low mark rather than on reclaiming the kid for multitude and for itself. It had been wrong, she suggested, to try Venables and Thompson in an open, adult court.

It is unfit not to contrariety Denise Fergus, Jamie Bulgers mother, with Beate Redergard when examining her response, that this lady should apologize both to her and her passed kid for her disfigured and unresponsive comments and afterwards be sacked. But Mrs Fergus represents us in this matter, differently she wouldnt ceaselessly be consulted and quoted as though she had been operative for thirty years in the area of kid offending.

That she is we, for the purposes of this discussion, was finished transparent by Baroness Butler Sloss, who presided over one of the after Venables- Thompson hearings. The Baroness did not remonstrate with Dr Atkinson on the age of shortcoming and the diagnosis of immature kids in the courts. In actuality she tended to the same opinion, that immature people can be turned. But she did not hold the open will at the impulse mount for murderers of ten years old being treated with colour with colour as if they are immature kids and not carrying to face punishment.

Thats wholly a calculation about us, and the rather a grave one. The evidence stands for treating immature kids as children, but we will not listen to it. We will put the fingers in the ears and sing lala instead, and will monster any one who tries to convince us otherwise.

And am I so damn superior? Absolutely not. I am a man in a residence of women and girls, and I wish them stable from predators, and suppose condign probity being delivered to any one who offends opposite them. So I have regularly been an intrinsic follower in the need for, and the probability of, delivering most some-more philosophy for rape and passionate assault. If usually everyone was to provide it as severely as I do, I have authorised myself to imagine, afterwards thered be a total lot some-more rapists at the back of bars.

Lala. Cant listen to you. And Ill drown out with feeling the tiny, needling, essential voice that says that there might be an irresolvable problem, because, actually, it will so mostly be his word opposite her word, and therell be no one else around, and unless we change the order about the hypothesis of guilt, afterwards theres usually so far we can go.

And afterwards along comes Baroness Stern, since the pursuit by Harriet Harman of reviewing the doing of rape cases. The baroness was sent to work a year ago among specific ministerial anxiety to low self-assurance rates, but has returned with something else. Baroness Stern feels that, in the initial place, self-assurance rates are not so really low once cases come to trial, and that to keep on observant they are is counter-productive.

Furthermore, they are never going to be majority higher underneath the stream authorised system. There will regularly be a inequality in in between rape and alternative aroused crimes.

And that equates to that we might have put as well majority importance on the rapist probity process, whilst ignoring the tangible needs of the human being whos suffered this abominable violation. At the really slightest they should be balanced. Much some-more bid should go in to plant await and counselling.

I dont wish to falsify the baroness, who obviously feels that some-more could be finished to prepare efforts to catch sequence rapists. But I feel that shes asking people similar to me to be some-more picturesque and to obey a little of the fantasies about how a undiluted probity complement should work and how the guilty will be finished to suffer.

As fantasies go, this one it seems to me is quite Anglo-Saxon. And it is far from harmless, since we expostulate ourselves insane with the stupidity of the fulfilment. Unlike the Norwegians, where, on contemplation, I find I cite Beate Redergard and Terje Lund to Denise Fergus and to me.

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Fabio Capello assured precision bottom will be ready International Football

Oliver Kay & , : {}

Fabio Capello has insisted he is happy with the swell being done on England"s World Cup precision bottom even though the South African formidable looks far from completion.

The England head manager the Royal Bafokeng Sports Campus nearby Rustenburg among concerns that he might be forced to switch camps for the contest in the summer.

The Italian"s priority was the state of the pitches as they were poor on his majority new visit, but he was assured with their condition and was assured that the rest of the comforts would be ready in time for the event.

"We are unequivocally happy since we checked everything," Capello said. "They [the facilities] have softened a lot from the last time we stayed here. The pitches will be improved for June, the road house is unequivocally good and ... the healing centre will be ready in dual months."

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Jerome Valcke, the Fifa ubiquitous secretary, progressing discharged fears over the state of the complex, that is being built from blemish to Capello"s design. "What I saw is really a place where you can stay," Valcke said. "It has all the comforts of a complicated hotel. What else do you need?"

In a feisty press discussion in Sun City, Valke was asked to insist the state of multiform of the 32 precision camps as well as Soccer City in Johannesburg, the venue for the opening diversion and the last of the tournament, that is not nonetheless complete.

If the subject is Could we host the World Cup tomorrow morning? the answer is no," Valke said. "This is normal. We have 107 days to go and we have a couple of challenges, a couple of things to do around South Africa.

At this stage, we couldnt fool around the World Cup since Soccer City isnt ready. At this stage, we couldnt fool around the opening game. Thats a fact. We have tickets still to sell. Some of the precision camps arent ready.

It seems short, 107 days, and it is short, but even if we have to stay watchful each day and each night, we will do it. Soccer City will be ready. South Africa will be ready.

Fifa insisted currently that they will win their competition opposite time to safeguard that South Africa is ready to host the World Cup in June.

In a feisty press discussion in Sun City this lunchtime, Jerome Valke, the ubiquitous cabinet member of footballs ruling body, was subjected to questions about the state of multiform of the 32 precision camps particularly Englands programmed bottom at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Campus, nearby Rustenburg and about the actuality that Soccer City in Johannesburg, the track that will host both the opening diversion and the last of the tournament, is not nonetheless complete.

If the subject is Could we host the World Cup tomorrow morning? the answer is no," Valke said. "This is normal. We have 107 days to go and we have a couple of challenges, a couple of things to do around South Africa.

At this stage, we couldnt fool around the World Cup since Soccer City isnt ready. At this stage, we couldnt fool around the opening game. Thats a fact. At this theatre we have tickets still to sell. At this theatre a little of the precision camps arent ready. This is normal.

It seems short, 107 days, and it is short, but even if we have to stay watchful each day and each night, we will do it. Soccer City will be ready. South Africa will be ready.

Safe breakwater for your cash? Germans call on Greece to sell off the islands

Roger Boyes, Berlin and John Carr, Athens & , : {}

A grouchy German politician, assimilated by a dozen others who can already smell the oleander bushes, has launched a thousand fantasies.

What should a broke chairman be doing? asked Josef Schlarmann, a comparison figure in Germanys ruling Christian Democrat Party, on the eve of a revisit by George Papandreou, the Greek Prime Minister. Selling all he owns to compensate his creditors, thats what. For the Greeks that equates to buildings and unpopulated islands.

An island of ones own lemon trees, dull beaches, ouzo in the olive timber has, interjection to the Greek mercantile crisis, turn the new siren dream. Nor is the thought wholly fanciful. There are 3,054 Greek islands and usually 87 are inhabited. And the betting is that the immeasurable infancy of the forlorn ones go to the State.

Id contend right away is a good time to begin seeking at this market, pronounced Leonidas Babanis, a tourism promoter. Dig out the tenure sum and put in an suggest seems to be the motto. Brokers report Greek islands as pretty affordable, by that they meant $2 million (1.3 million) for a 30-acre speck, and up to $300 million, that is what Athina Onassis, the granddaughter of Aristotle Onassis, wants for Skorpios. The dual intensity buyers, Bill Gates and Madonna, appear still to be mulling it over.

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Farhad Vladi, the Hamburg-based attorney who has sole close to 2,000 islands given 1975, has at slightest five Greek properties on his books. The cheapest costs €1.2 million (1 million), that does not buy most bedrooms in Chelsea. It is in the Gulf of Corinth, 1 miles from the city of Itea, and is about 2.6 acres. There is a sandy beach, hunger and olive trees and, well, thats about it.

Trinity Island is significantly some-more dear €18 million but for that you get a four-bedroom house, beach house, staff house, in isolation church and 17th-century Venetian watchtower. More importantly, uninformed H2O is pumped in from a circuitously island.

Water supply is one of the initial hurdles confronting Greek island buyers. Building offshore is dear too. Renting a boat to ride materials to your island could set you behind €30,000 a month less if you know the boat owners and wed his daughter.

Islands but construction permits are literally worthless, pronounced Mr Vladi. The key cause is place vicinity to doctors and food suppliers. Solar panels, heavenly body dishes, poor desalination and the internet have remade island living, pronounced Mr Vladi. But the costs should not be underestimated. Some 10 per cent of the investment worth of an island is expected to go on staff and maintenance, and ride to the mainland can be expensive. Many islands are forlorn given they are barren, dry outcrops of rock.

Island shopping is supportive to universe events. After 9/11 there was a unreasonable of Hollywood stars gnawing up remote islands globally where they could lay out the subsequent militant attack. Johnny Depp paid for the 45-acre Little Halls Pond Cay in the Bahamas, Leonardo DiCaprio became unapproachable owners of a 104-acre island with an airstrip in Belize and Mel Gibson took over Mago in the Fijis. Islands off New Zealand became select because, in the misfortune apprehension unfolding the floating up of chief energy stations the winds come from the South Pole.

The monetary meltdown led to a negligence of the island market, but the awaiting of removed Mediterranean specks of genuine estate entrance on the marketplace is expected to revitalise interest. Greece is nothing as well gratified by German suggestions that it should whip off acres of inhabitant heritage, but in the past it has been open to offers from the likes of Stavros Niarchos, who was authorised to buy Spetsopoula in the 1960s.

The usually state-owned islands that will really be off-limits are those in the eastern Aegean given they are piece of the countrys limit defences.

Developers deliberation a punt in the Mediterranean are suggested to step gently. Make sure that the island has a sure magic, a regretful attract and good intensity to rise as most H2O and sea activities as probable but destroying the beauty, pronounced Robert Dorrien-Smith, owners of the Island Hotel and Flying Boat Club on Tresco and the Hell Bay Hotel on Bryher in the Isles of Scilly.

Avoid at all costs it being termed only an additional Greek island in the Med.