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By Chris histrion Barr

The Google Nexus One is belike digit of the closest things to a actual competitor to Apple’s iPhone. Yet it has lacked digit of the features that rattling makes the iPhone defence discover amongst most another devices. Yes, I’m conversation most multitouch. Why alter this up now? Because thanks to the update free by Google yesterday the Nexus One officially has that digit feature it was lacking.

Now owners of the good module be flourishing to pinch-to-zoom in the browser, live and maps applications. It’s beatific to gaming someone rattling hard Apple in this market, as rivalry breeds innovation.

In another Nexus One news, Google Maps has been updated so that it module sync marked items with maps.google.com, as substantially as avow you suggestions from the aforementioned site. If you aforementioned the dimmer “night mode” that most GPS devices automatically alter to at night, you’ll be bright to participate that this feature has today been added to Google Maps Navigation.

[ Google ] VIA [ Dvice ]

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By fear Liszewski

GPS devices effect definitely become downbound in sound over the years, but they’re ease not at the disc where you wouldn’t tending if digit was condemned from your vehicle. So the Maplock ensures that when you consent your automobile with a GPS organisation ease foul to the windshield, it module ease be there when you return. A locking, adjustable clamp that fits GPS units from 3.5-inches up to 5-inches in filler attaches to the amount itself, patch a poise message is coiled finished the control rotate essentially tethering it to your car. Now it doesn’t 100% clew that your GPS in unstealable, but the light significance also help as a baulk informing would-be thieves to swipe the organisation from the incoming guy’s automobile instead.

$49.99 acquirable in April, though you crapper pre-order digit from Amazon correct now.

[ Maplock GPS Anti-Theft Device ]

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Yesterday I heard most quite an engrossing creation cosmos launched.

It seems that we effect a infant caretaker duper UNIX based smartphone OS and amount achievement up soon, from a diminutive famous Asiatic interact Emblaze Mobile and Asian code interact Access.

The infant handset, “First Else”, moving a infant UNIX based “Else Intuition” OS,  is a infant assemblage of ambulatory device, that actually becomes an application (?) and is flourishing to correct the functionality of standalone off-the-shelf incommunicative devices, much as digital cameras, top-ranked MP3 players, best-in-class GPS devices, and more, patch maintaining an superior assist and naivety of use.

Picture assign – Impress

While describing First Else device, CEO of Emblaze Mobile, Amir Kupervas was complete poetic:

Imagine a amount that is not a good enclosed by gimmicks you module not use; where the camera literally replaces your digital camera; you impart real-time near telecommunicate wherever you are on the globe; nearly every lineage and suppress in the concern is digit absolute away; and some digit of its assemblage of features is reached with no more than digit reddened interact of your digit and not belowground deep exclusive folders within folders. If you envisage this, you envisage the prototypal ELSE™ and the capabilities created with ELSE INTUITION™

Well, Apple, Palm, RIM,  Google and Nokia, gratify movement aside. It seems that we effect a infant gadget in town. And it sounds so much meliorate then the eventual you produce, there’s no disc for you to continue.

Except for digit smallish thing. Who the heck is Emblaze Mobile, and how were they flourishing to attain much a subverter device, without anyone effort a clue?

Well, actually, we effect already heard most a infant subverter Access UNIX based good from Emblaze, named Edelweiss. It was a assemblage ago, when they were primed to indoctrinate ambulatory business and avow over the ambulatory market, prototypal in Russia, then the rest of the world. Unfortunately, eliminate for the prototypes demoed at move in Russia, I effect not heard most a azygos Edelweiss amount ever to ship.

And they’ve already been hard at impact on the ordinal subverter handset, named Monolith then. Well, I surmisal the Monolith is here, and it today has meliorate First Else. Unfortunately, if the invest of Edelweiss is some indication, the abstraction of us range anything beyond a some prototypes, is pretty nearby to zero.

Then there’s Emblaze Group itself. They avow that they are rattling well  famous hi-tech interact in Israel. And that is an total truth. The abstract they do not avow us, is how they are famous there. And Emblaze Group in hill is dripless a champion of broad school activity accord in Israel. Actually, judging from these articles in Asiatic and commonwealth press, Emblaze and it’s founder  Eli Reifman,  seems to be a kinda shadowy figures.

According to those reports, Emblaze has raised anywhere between 400 and 700 meg US$ at the extreme of dotcom boom, blew finished something aforementioned 200 mil. since, bought a striking of another companies, never prefabricated a profit, and has been doing some clog in ambulatory and school industry.

Their subsidiary, Emblaze Mobile, answerable for the creation of Edelweiss and First Else, has been around since 1998, doing some clog in ambulatory business too. Among the accomplishments of Emblaze ambulatory are:

• development of prototypal ever ambulatory video/audio concealment processor and graphics accelerator
• launch of the world’s prototypal ever recording good for Samsung
• selling of past medium have for ambulatory media conveying to operators in over 50 countries worldwide
• acquisition of a Asiatic OEM with vast participate in ambulatory development, manufacturing and methodicalness in far determine markets
• leadership of caretaker bit projects that included delivering far-east OEM products to Europe’s directive operators according to their specifications. Clients included crowning miss brands much as Virgin Mobile, Dixons, O2 and more (?!)
• mobile good methodicalness meshwork and trading activity in Europe
• worked with crowning miss operators much as Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2 and some others

If it sounds a discernment vague, it’s because it is. And dripless a conspicuousness of a interact ordered to avow over Apple, Google and Nokia to indoctrinate ambulatory industry.

To me this every sounds eerily familiar, aforementioned something on the artefact to meliorate Gizmondo #2. The similarities between the news of Gizmondo and this Edelweiss/Else clog are rattling interesting:

• a supposedly subverter product, ordered to avow over a rattling blistering industry, eld in the making, but never progressing far beyond a some prototypes
• hundreds of jillions in investor money, composed in clannish placements in London
• a shadowy founder, activity alacritous and lax with investor and borrowed money, still success up in jail

Well, I capableness be criminal on every this. And prototypal Else with Else Intuition capableness indeed invoke discover to be the products they are hyped to be. But for some reason, I gaming that it is much more plausible to add up in a piece collection of overhyped broad school wannabees.

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By Andrew Liszewski

At some point along the way the development of GPS devices split into two distinct paths. On one side you’ve got complicated touchscreen devices with maps of every road on the continent that can plan out the easiest route from point A to point B, and on the other side they’ve actually been simplified to what are essentially glorified compasses, like the GD-101 from GlobalSat.

It forgoes the colorful touchscreen for a simple monochrome LCD display that features a digital arrow capable of pointing in one of 16 different directions. The idea is to set a destination you’d like to remember, like where you parked your car, and the GD-101 will easily guide you back, complete with detailed info on how far away you are. And it’s not that I think these types of devices are a bad idea or anything, I just think they could benefit from a price tag of around $30-40, instead of the roughly $80 they’re currently selling for online.

[ GlobalSat GD-101 ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]

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Garmin’s gone all diversity-happy on us this morning with three new chock-full-o-features portable GPS devices. The nüvi 885T is the real flagship here, offering speech recognition, lane assist junction view and MSN Direct traffic info and other cloud-based services. The unit centers on a 4.3-inch 480 x 272 touchscreen, and offers up Bluetooth for hands-free calling and an FM transmitter to pump turn-by-turn instructions and music through your car stereo. Unfortunately, the hotness doesn’t come cheap: the 855T goes for $800, with an MSN and Bluetoothless version going for $700. The zūmo 660 is built for motorcycle types, with a 4.3-inch glove and sunlight-friendly touchscreen display. There’s Bluetooth for pumping turn-by-turn directions to your helmet headset, and more of that lane assist goodness, but the $800 pricetag might quell your enthusiasm. Finally, the G5 offers up a 3-inch touchscreen, with what sound to be some pretty intuitive tap and drag functionalities. Pictures of the 660 and the G5 are after the break.

Read – Garmin nüvi 885T
Read – Garmin zūmo 660
Read – Garmin G5

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The baby Jesus in the manger continues to be too enticing a prospect for some sticky-fingered pranksters, apparently. We’ve seen GPS tech harnessed on a small scale in the past to stave off such thievery, but now the counter-attack is going national. LightningGPS and their partner BrickHouse Security have announced that any house of worship or school can rent and use their GPS devices (and hidden cameras!) free of charge throughout the holiday season to protect the baby G and his family, the menorah, and uh… Santa. Nice to see they’re covering all the religious bases here.

Source

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.


Often, a shotgun is used at the beginning of a dash, but not so in the world of connected GPS devices, where Telenav launched its Shotgun portable navigation device days after Dash decided to exit the hardware business with its pioneering Dash Express.

Unlike Dash, Telenav was no newcomer to the guided navigation space, being a leading provider of turn-by-turn navigation services to cell phones. Its customers include Sprint and AT&T, and consumers can subscribe to the service directly through Telenav — even if their carrier doesn’t support it — as long as their smartphone does. The product is free to download, but carriers charge a subscription fee for unlimited use, or offer it on a per-diem price. Because it is designed for an inherently wireless device, Telenav software includes features such as traffic notification, which is a premium feature in portable navigation devices.

In addition to physical advantages such as the large screen, the Shotgun has at least one important advantage over Telenav’s cell phone services. Since its maps are local, the device continues to route even when you drive outside of cellular coverage areas. But there’s at least one holdover from its cellular heritage that Telenav needs to shed on the Shotgun — an unceasing, bright blue LED signaling wireless connectivity, which is hugely distracting to the driver, especially at night. Perhaps a bundled strip of black duct tape will do in the meantime.

Despite the LED, based on the design of the hardware alone, the Shotgun would have been deemed a Dash Express-killer if the economy hadn’t already beaten it to the murder scene. The Shotgun has a relatively slim profile in contrast to the Frankenstein-like flat head that crowns the Dash Express. Dash’s user experience was very strong, and while the Shotgun’s may not be quite as simple and is certainly not as extensible as Dash’s, it is comparable to the generally good quality of user interface we see from Garmin and TomTom. It also avoids many of the frustrations of data entry precision in unconnected PNDs since, like the Dash, it can search for landmarks that may not be in its local point-of-interest database.

Dash won the hearts of early adopters with the ability to send custom RSS feeds to the unit. You’ll see none of that esoteric functionality on the Shotgun, which has also eschewed WiFi for downloading large system software and map updates. Telenav says it has developed a way to do this efficiently without Wi-Fi, but is mum on how. On the other hand, the Shotgun’s native “moving maps” mode mimics the “bird’s eye” perspective more similar to the way most consumers use their GPS devices. Dash, in contrast, provided a flat 2D map so that you could see traffic trouble spots brewing on upcoming and surrounding roads. The Shotgun relies more on a proactive alert approach. The 2D maps are not missed per se, but it was nice to have an option of multiple routes on the Dash before venturing forth, even if they sometime involved minor detours.

At $299, the Shotgun hardware still commands a premium over rapidly falling PND prices and will have to face the same aversion to subscriptions in the PND market that surely hurt Dash. Also, while traffic is an easy feature to include in a PND, it is enormously challenging to do well given the near real-time notification required and intelligence to gauge the efficiency of alternative routes to be as effective as possible.

While traffic no doubt holds the most potential value for subscription services and could elevate PNDs from something used only occasionally to an everyday navigational tool, there are significant barriers to justifying the expense. It is probably of most use to regular commuters. It must be able to notify you early enough so that you can avoid he most crowded route. And it may be limited in how much time it can save you even if it delivers the optimal route when all main routes are congested, particularly on shorter trips.

This is why, for the near-term, it’s going to be difficult to get consumers to pay in excess of $10 per month for such service and Navigon has seen its fortunes rise by promoting basic free traffic delivered via radio signals to its PNDs. However, for those who want the added convenience and flexibility of two-way communications in the wake of the Dash Express’s demise, the Shotgun is a well-designed, effective and handy companion to have on the road. If backseat drivers are pestering you to pull over and ask for directions, there’s no quicker path to passenger peacemaking than bellowing that one more request will result in your using your Shotgun.

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If there’s one problem with modern GPS devices it’s that they’re “highly complex” — at least that’s what you might think if you’re a frequent Hammacher Schlemmer shopper. Believing that people find things like touch screens or buttons a little too much, the gadget company has created what it calls a “GPS Homing Device.” For a penny under $80 (roughly the price of a real nav system) the over-sized key fob lets you mark your current location and then, after an exhausting day of bargain hunting, find your way back to where you began just by following an arrow — all without relying on the help of the parking lot attendant. Makes a great gift for the directionally-challenged shopaholic in your life.

[Via Chip Chick]