Well, live … slowly going live. The project I’ve been working on for the past months, the server side of TomTom HOME, is now available to the public. At the moment, only people who have bought one of the new TomTom devices (the GO510, GO710 and GO910) can upgrade their TomTom HOME to the new version 1.1, which contains all kinds of new server-side features such as automated updating of their device content (such as the TomTom application, Points Of Interest etc etc), a shop to buy new content, and free traffic alerts (useful when you’re at work and want to be alerted of the current traffic information on your way home!).

Soon, TomTom HOME will also become available to the general public, and users with older TomTom devices (such as the GO300, GO500 and GO700, the ONE and the RIDER) will also be able to use it to update the content of their device. Even people without a TomTom can use it, for instance to get the traffic alerts I talked about earlier.

It has been hard work for me. Of course, I’ve not done this alone, but it’s the first time that I’ve worked on a project this big, with a schedule this tight. And there are some complicated things happening on the server-side, I can tell you that! The result is something I am really proud of though. And we’re going to enhance it even more!

I’d tell you to give it a try, but of course, you can’t at this point. I’ll probably warn you on this weblog when the software becomes publicly available for download, so you can play around.