Brand Icons enhances Tele Atlas-powered navigation systems by visually representing the POIs of participating businesses as recognizable logos. Tele Atlas says that using brand icons to visually represent a given POI (i.e. the McDonald’s logo instead of the generic fork & knife icon) improves the end-user experience and provides a level of rich detail and at-a-glance visibility previously unavailable. The company plans to implement Brand Icons for food, fuel, lodging, recreation, and retail companies. So next time you’re frantically looking for the closest Starbucks, you’ll see a Starbucks icon at-a-glance on the map instead of having to search through the POI interface.

Tele Atlas also announced CityGuide – Through a partnership with Wcities, Tele Atlas now offers 370,000 additional POIs (restaurant reviews, hotels, attractions, movie theaters, etc.) in over 1800 cities throughout North America.

Finally, Tele Atlas showcased its new 3D mapping capability, 3D landmarks. 3D landmarks are rendered on top of existing Tele Atlas mapping data, and presented from the same angle you are driving towards or away from the landmark, making it easier to navigate via recognizable landmarks rather than just street names. 3D landmarks can also be zoomed-in or rotated.  No word yet on which GPS manufacturers will take advantage of 3D landmarks or how soon it will be available, but I for one would be a big fan of being able to do virtual 3D fly-throughs of a given route.