Digital Mapping Is Changing The Way We Drive

"Do you print out driving directions from Mapquest or Google for trips?

If so, there's a good chance the cartoonish-looking maps you pull up on your computer screen come from Tele Atlas NV, a Boston-based company trolling metro Detroit roads through June to update the maps it sells to Web companies like Mapquest, Google and Yahoo so it won't send you in the wrong direction.

Its maps also show up in navigation systems built into cars and in portable devices, and more recently in wireless phones equipped with global positioning technology.

'Navigation is here and now and the popularity is increasingly very rapidly,' said Phil Magney, principal analyst at Telematics Research Group in Minnetonka, Minn."