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U.S. Cellular has just announced that it will offer the LG Bliss, a phone with a 3-inch touch screen, stereo Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera, camcorder, music player, microSD card slot that supports up to 16GB flash cards, full HTML browser, e-mail, GPS, and more. The Bliss is available now for $99 after rebates and a new contract.

FORT HOOD, Texas--Soldiers and civilian contractors braved the heat here this week for the first Robotics Rodeo to view and interact with a long lineup of robot systems and to give feedback on which ones could potentially find a place in the U.S. Army's robo stable.

Despite the hundreds of military robots that show up in concept or as prototypes on company Web sites and corporate reports, humans still do the fighting on the ground and it's likely to stay that way for a while. However, there's a growing niche for "the dirty, the dull, … Read more

FORT HOOD, Texas--John Deere, a household name in the Lone Star state, is hoping the brand will carry over into the market for military unmanned runabouts.

At the Robotics Rodeo taking place this week here at this massive Army post, the company is demonstrating its R-Gator standalone, autonomous mule, which is based on its M-Gator model already in the field. Applications include reconnaissance, patrol, hauling supplies (up to 1,400 lbs.), casualty evacuation, and the "marsupial" capability--namely the ferrying and remote deployment of smaller, specialized robots. (PDF)

The unit uses John Deere's NavCom technology, GPS, and … Read more

Privacy advocates released a series of guidelines Tuesday for legislators considering regulations on behavioral advertising, calling for greater transparency and giving Web surfers more control over how the data is used.

Ten groups, including the Center for Digital Democracy and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are pushing the debate ahead of the return of Congress in September, when certain members have hinted they'd be receptive to ideas for legislation. At issue is the use of behavioral advertising techniques by large Internet companies and services that track a user's online activity across a number of different Web sites, and serve … Read more

Best known for its Roomba vacuums, iRobot also counts the U.S. Army as a top customer. And the latest Army deal is the company's single biggest.

iRobot said Tuesday it has received an order from the U.S. Army for $35.3 million for robots equipped to help soldiers safely evaluate dangerous conditions.

The order, made by the U.S. Army TACOM Contracting Center in Warren, Mich., calls for 486 iRobot PackBot 510 with FasTac Kit robots by March 31, 2010. This single order is part of an overall larger contract worth $286 million, of which $125 million … Read more

Good news, tennis junkies: The 2009 U.S. Open iPhone app is the next best thing to being courtside.

Available now from the App Store, this American Express- and IBM-sponsored freebie serves up tournament news, live scores, and schedules. It lets you view the draws on an interactive bracket and read player bios.

Alas, you can't watch live video of the actual matches, but the app does offer prerecorded videos of the players, special events, past highlights, and the like. A photo gallery is on tap as well.

You may not be able to watch the Open, but you … Read more

TomTom U.S. & Canada is the third full-feature turn-by-turn flat-fee navigation app with built-in map in the App Store that covers the entire U.S. and Canada.

Like the first two apps, Navigon and iGo My Way, the TomTom app will turn your iPhone 3G or 3GS into a decently dependable driving navigator. However, like the other two, it's far from perfect.

The TomTom app takes about 6 seconds to load on my iPhone 3GS, which is very fast (the other two apps take about 15 seconds), and displays a very easy-to-use interface with big buttons. It also offers a quick and convenient way to enter an address or to find a point of interest (POI) from its very large database of POIs.

After almost a week of use, I found that both the map and POI database are slightly outdated. It once couldn't find an address and twice showed me POIs that were no longer in business. During this recession, however, it's not exactly the app that's to blame.

Good news is, like the Navigon after itsfirst update, you can tab on a POI to dial it up, and I would highly recommend doing this before you decide to go there, just to make sure that it's still in business.

Similar to the Navigon, the TomTom can also pull addresses from the phone's contacts, which is a very convenient feature. However, while the Navigon is very good at reading contacts' addresses, the TomTom is very picky. It seems to only understand addresses that have a ZIP code. Take the ZIP code out and it will ask you to enter the address manually. This means more than 60 percent or so of the addresses in my contacts won't work. This is sort of strange as the app won't require a ZIP code when you type in addresses manually.

The TomTom takes very little time (a few seconds) to pick up a GPS signal on my iPhone 3GS and its navigation is accurate enough. Once in awhile it would probably lead you to a location that's slightly off from the actual address but that happens with every GPS navigator I've used.

Of the three apps, the TomTom has the largest selection of voices, including many languages from English to Danish, Thai, and Chinese. With English alone, you'll find 11 different accents, both male and female. Still, like the other two apps, it doesn't have text-to-speech where it can read you the name of the street that you're supposed to turn into.

The TomTom's map view, unfortunately, is not as good looking as that of the Navigon or the iGo My Way.… Read more

During my recently completed Road Trip 2009 project, one of the biggest highlights was my visit inside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex at the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station. Recognizable from the movie, "War Games," and the "Stargate" TV series, the complex was long popularly known as NORAD, or the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

But in 2008, NORAD officially moved to the nearby Peterson Air Force Base. Still, even to this day, it maintains an alternate command center at Cheyenne Mountain that it shares with U.S. Northern Command, or USNORTHCOM.

When I visited, I was … Read more

Update 1:15 p.m. PDT: Added quotes from Vertrue.

Vertrue, which operates a so-called Web loyalty program, apparently isn't as forthcoming with information as some U.S. Senators would like.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate's Commerce Committee issued a subpoena to Vertrue requiring that the privately held company turn over documents that committee investigators requested in May, including communications with business partners and credit card companies.

Companies like Norwalk, Conn.-based Vertue, along with WebLoyalty and Affinion, are marketers that make "cash-back" and coupon offers to consumers and charge those who enroll in their … Read more