ReadWriteWeb

One of the great features of the Android is its integration with Google Maps, including the turn-by-turn navigation directions. Those directions just got even better, as Google has announced that Google Maps Navigation will now automatically route you around traffic.

The app has always directed users to the fastest route. But until today, what constitutes "fastest" has been based on the distance and on expected traffic - but not on the actual road conditions.

Device convergence is happening everyday as new tech gadgets combine the functionality of previous devices into one handy solution. I first experienced this when the iPhone replaced both my previous phone and my iPod. Not having to carry both devices around all the time was a huge step forward for a music fan like myself, and now we overlook simple pleasures like these.

Another device that could soon be swallowed by the smartphone is the dedicated GPS receiver. Friday, Google announced some updates to its Android app, Car Home, which provides big-button access to car-friendly apps for your windshield-mounted Android smartphone. Are the days of the dedicated GPS numbered?

When building a website, getting the navigation right is absolutely critical. A poorly conceived approach to site navigation will confuse and frustrate users, and this isn't the way to get a lot of people using your site.

A big part of this challenge is that you don't always start with a lot of links, but more may be added as the site develops. This means that the original navigation concept may not work as well as it once did.

To help you address these issues and prevent some others from occurring, here are 6 tips for building a site with coherent navigation.

Augmented reality (AR) developers Mobilizy, makers of the Wikitude World Browser, are close to releasing their latest creation, Wikitude Drive, an app that combines AR technology with turn-by-turn driving directions. The app works by taking live video of the road captured by a smartphone mounted on the dashboard or windshield and super imposing the direction data onto it. The company announced late last week that beta testing with 2,000 volunteers had been concluded, signaling that the company may be close to publicly launching the app on the Android marketplace.

German navigation company Skobbler is bringing their turn-by-turn, OSM iPhone streetmap application to the United States. Skobbler describes itself as "an Internet community with a free mobile phone navigation system."

Skobbler has been testing the application in several states in the last few weeks and has reportedly found the OpenStreetMap data quite good. OSM is a collaborative, crowdsourced project to map the world from the ground up, using volunteers and an emphasis on open-source presentation and rendering.

While the iPhone is clearly the media darling of mobile devices in the US, there's no denying that Nokia's handsets have saturated the global market. As part of that global strategy, the company just announced free walk and drive navigation for 74 countries in 46 languages. Today's release of the third iteration of Ovi Maps is similar to Google's maps for Android in that the service offers free turn-by-turn voice guidance. Nevertheless, there's one important catch - maps are cached offline for future use. ReadWriteWeb caught up with Nokia's VP of product and location, Christof Hellmis, for a look at how the company is saving device owners precious battery life.

Wikitude Drive from Austrian-based developers Mobilizy, is, at its core, a GPS navigation app. What makes the app stand out, however, is that instead of a map, you just see a real-time view of the street ahead of you and the navigation data is shown on top of this video. Wikitude Drive is currently under development and will run on Android phones. According to Mobilizy, the app will offer all the standard GPS navigation features that drivers have become accustomed to. In addition, though, the company also plans to offer "social navigational features" that will help users, for example, find their friends' locations.

Anyone who has read the tragic true story Into the Wild will understand why Intermap's AccuTerra for iPhone is an amazing and possibly lifesaving service. While many map-based applications utilize Google maps and require a wireless connection, AccuTerra and competitor GPS Motion X let recreational adventurers view maps of U.S. national and state parks, both online and offline from their iPhones. It's not surprising AccuTerra was just awarded an Apple Design Award for best iPhone OS 3.0 Beta App.

Can you imagine a news-delivering web application so compelling that you would pay a couple of dollars per month for it? What would it look like? That's the challenge facing The Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. They're working on a project called "Information Valet," which hopes to save the failing newspaper industry by finding a way to move news journalism online while making it profitable and sustainable.