gps

It's war out there on the open highway. And we're not talking about road rage, either. The true enemy's most feared weapon of choice (to some people, we hear) is the radar gun.

Highway patrol officers still get a good laugh at those puny radar detectors people pathetically tried to use in the '80s. But there's a new toy in town, and it's called the Inforad GPS V3. Available in Europe, as reported by Shiny Shiny, this gadget starts flashing and beeping like a banshee whenever your car approaches a speed camera.

There's just … Read more

Jaguar is the first auto manufacturer to offer its customers internet tracking of their cars. Sourcing the technology from MicroTRAKgps (a company that may one day be known more for testing the envelope of English language capitalization than for GPS technology) Jaguar will offer "JaguarWatch" as a dealer-installed accessory. It uses a combination of GPS and GSM cellular technology.

Jag owners go to a personal portal to find their car, setup alerts for keyless movement, browse its speed and location history or set a "GeoFence" which will alert them when the car leaves or enters certain … Read more

The 2007 Nissan Altima takes a step toward live traffic data for the masses as the least expensive car to offer XM NavTraffic from the factory. It's the first Nissan to offer NavTraffic though its cousin, the 2007 Infiniti G35, offers the system as well.

NavTraffic gathers traffic data from a hodgepodge of sources that vary by metro area, and the information is then beamed via XM satellite down to your car for display on its navigation screen. The quality of the info varies by market.

It's not free: First, you need to option your Altima with GPS … Read more

We have nothing against the Ferrari laptop and certainly nothing against the Dino. But of all the latest Ferrari-related announcements, this one just doesn't seem to live up to the legendary name above its face, at least in its appearance.

Granted, the Traffic Assist Pro (couldn't they come up with a better name?) is packed with features, including a state-of-the-art GPS system, 400-MHz processor, MP3-grade speakers and a touch-sensitive screen that Newlaunches says can support 65,536 colors. Perhaps most impressive of all to us, it can keep a list of speed radars in its internal database.

Still, … Read more

It happens to us all the time too: Jet over to Paris or Milan for a shopping weekend, and you have no idea where to start. Well fear not, for help is on the way.

Mio, maker of pocket PC and GPS devices, has a new personal travel assistant that comes preinstalled with "vital shopping data" such as size conversions and foreign measurements, as well as an MP3 player, games and the necessary satellite guidance to satisfy all your designer needs. The Mio H610, which has a 2.7-inch touch screen, also has three interchangeable covers and sells … Read more

There are several very interesting location-recording Web sites right now, like Platial, 43 Places, Wayfaring and Flagr. They all record locations and let you tell a story about them. EveryTrail, a new site in early development, adds a wrinkle: It will record your path between waypoints, not just the stops you make.

Why would you want this? To record a favorite hike or bike ride, perhaps. This site lets you share your route with others, for those trips where the point is the traveling.

EveryTrail requires that you have a way to record your movements, of course. You'll need … Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif.--While it sounds like a traveling magic show, Mobile Augmented Reality is actually the future of how we'll access information on our wireless phones.

Though researchers around the world have been developing the technology for a decade, Nokia gave us a peek at its foray into the field Thursday when it opened its Nokia Research Center (NRC) in Palo Alto, Calif. And yes, it is a little bit magical.

Combining mobile cameras, GPS, orientation sensors and wireless devices, mobile augmented reality lets a device capture an image of a location, like San Francisco's Union Square, … Read more

Pioneer is using this week's SEMA show in Las Vegas to launch the AVIC D3, its latest in-dash DVD-based navigation/entertainment system. The D3 improves on the D2 by incorporating some of the features of Pioneer's flagship AVIC Z-1 hard-drive-based system and by adding some extra features of its own. Upgrades to the D2 include an increased range of multimedia options, such as video-playback capabilities (both regular DVD and DivX compressed video formats supported), as well as the ability to play streamed audio via the A2DP Bluetooth profile. With optional add-ons, the unit will also play iPods and … Read more

The new Lowrance iWay 600c is one bad mamma jamma of a GPS device. Yeah, it offers all the navigation basics, such as turn-by-turn, text- and voice-guided directions and points of interest, but it can also overlay satellite imagery onto the maps. Plus, it has a large, 5-inch, 640x480-pixel resolution touch screen; a 30GB internal hard drive; marine mode; and an MP3 player. Rad, huh? Well wait, here's some bad news. The satellite imagery is available only in select U.S. and Canadian metropolitan cities, so if you live in say, Beaconsfield, Iowa, chances are you won't be … Read more