GBalpha announces Ranger GPS unit for Nintendo DS
There hasn’t exactly been a rush to flood the market with Nintendo DS-based GPS mods over the years — and when we have seen them, they’ve been largely DIY affairs. Looking to fill a niche that most reasonable folks assume does not exist, GBalpha has announced the upcoming release of Ranger, its new touchscreen solution for those of you wishing to saddle your handheld with navigation duties. If you’re curious, this bad boy sports a u-blox GPS module, 32MB extended memory, Google Earth map integration, and optional Mandarin and Cantonese voice prompts. Are you stoked? What if we gave you a price and a way to order it? Well, we can’t do that for you. Sadly, large swaths of the product website are mum on those details.
[Via Max Console]
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Electric cars and other fuel-efficient vehicles certainly have plenty going for them, but all that reduction in fuel consumption also has the side effect of reducing the money earned from gas taxes, which has prompted folks like Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski to turn to some some alternative solutions to keep those funds rolling in. In the case of Oregon, Governor Kulongoski is proposing a mileage tax that would eventually replace the gas tax altogether, and make use of GPS units to determine just how far each person travels and bill them accordingly (Oregon is proposing a 1.2 cent per mile tax). To assuage privacy concerns, that information would apparently only be collected when the driver fuels up, and actual travel information supposedly wouldn’t be tracked. Obviously, that system would only work if everyone had a GPS, so the governor is proposing an increase in the standard gas tax in the interim, with drivers already equipped with a GPS unit eligible for a refund on the taxes paid. All of this also still has to pass the Oregon legislature to become law, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that the state broke with convention.