Microsoft says the new service provides dynamic local information such as weather condition and traffic updates, movies listings, and gas prices. The MSN Direct service is delivered through Microsoft's DirectBand Network, described as a "cost-effective and power-efficient" system for wide-area wireless data delivery covering more than 70 percent of the U.S. population. The network transmits content every two minutes.
The SPOT group says it is working with other device manufacturers such as
Pharos Science & Applications, another maker of GPS-equipped devices, and
Centrality Communications, a supplier of GPS-oriented SoCs (system-on-chip processors), to integrate the MSN Direct services into their devices.
SPOT arrives on HD RadioIn related news, Microsoft announced a collaboration with Clear Channel Radio to build a nationwide data delivery service using HD Radio technology, bringing personalized and localized content to a variety of HD Radio receivers. This initiative will give consumer electronics companies and automotive manufacturers the opportunity to offer MSN Direct content in HD digital radio format on their devices in 2008, according to Microsoft.
SPOT has come a long way since it was
first introduced in watches a little over three years ago. Among other devices, the technology has been incorporated into
weather stations from Oregon Scientific and a
coffee maker recently introduced by Mellita.
Over the past year or so, the SPOT group has recast SPOT's client-side embedded software technologies as a low-end software product that targets highly resource-constrained embedded devices. The result is what Microsoft calls the "
.NET Micro Framework."
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