NaviGadget

In accordance with EU’s Gallileo global positioning system first satellite was sent to space from Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz rocket.

With greater accuracy for civilian uses than the American network, it will allow enhanced services such as tracing emergency calls to within a yard of their origin and helping tourists find an ATM in a strange city using a chip inserted into a cellular telephone, the officials said.

Many Europeans see political significance in the project, too: The world’s only civilian-controlled system will give Europe and its partner nations self-sufficiency from the United States, which has warned it could diminish or cut off GPS satellite coverage to countries considered enemies in times of national emergency…

This was recently on the news. The device, currently being tested in Canada, if approved will force drivers to slow down by disabling the accelerator (lower car insurance premiums?). If you think you have speeding problems and you can’t wait for the Canadian government to finish testing you can get a commercial version (pictured above) that is made available by Otto for $289.99 CDN. Of course other questions remain; such as, can you hack this device and connect it to your PDA to get a free navigation system out of the deal?

You gotta a watch this video on CNN while it is available. Apparently a company called NavTones is working with some celebrities to create customizable voices for navigation systems. So far they have Mr. T and the actors Burt Reynolds and Dennis Hopper available. Some CNN people had a chance to test them out on a TomTom GPS device and they thought “Burt Reynolds made the best navigator. For the most part, he didn’t complain and his chipper-sounding insults were at least given with a smile in his voice. I could leave him on duty full time.”

Sony has announced a new range of satellite navigation devices that it hopes will sure-up its poor results in the GPS and car stereo market during 2005.

The new range, titled nav-u, will offer a 3.5 inch touch screen display with an extra-wide 80 degree viewing angle in a unit that looks like a cross between the TomTom Go and a miniature Wega television than a GPS unit.
I have a feeling this gadget will use proprietary sony memory sticks. Anyhow, we got the story from here.

Here is another funky gadget from our Taiwanese friends! We don’t have much info on the GPS features of this devices but we know it’ll have an either 20gb or 30gb hard drive and a 4.0″ Wide TFT LCD, 16M full color display. After searching the internet for a little bit we also realized this gizmo is not very easy to find. You can read more about it here. And if you know anything about how much it costs or where it can be purchased, do let us know. Oh, did we mention it is by pqi?

Just in time for the holiday season (maybe a little late) Lowrance came out with two iFinders. Both of them pack a lot features. iFINDER Expedition C (the one with color screen) has a 16 channel GPS + WAAS receiver as well as a backlit screen. And get this: It can play MP3 audio files from an MMC/SD card!!! The other one – iFINDER Explorer – has a slightly bigger grayscale screen and also has a MMC/SD digital media memory card slot for mapping and recording capabilities (no MP3’s). iFinders range from $69 to $357 on Amazon.

OK mac users, here is another chance for us to pay for software. This one lets you connect most of the GPS devices to your macintosh for a real-time display of GPS information on a moving map. Of course it has bunch of other features. One of the coolest new features is that it lets you view your current position on Google Maps. Garmin and Magellan users get extra functionality too. They can transfer Waypoints, Routes, Tracklogs, and GPS satellite Almanacs, etc. Garmin users also get USB support. It will cost $50 for OS X version.

What’s new: Color maps and turn-by-turn voice directions for $400. However, the StreetPilot i3 depends on a jog wheel and two buttons to handle all input, making data entry less convenient than it is with a touch-screen-based device. Also, the software offers relatively few options (such as different voices), and the GPS itself was slightly less accurate than that of the other products we tested. Still, this 3-by-2.7-by-2.2-inch, 5.3-ounce TV-shaped unit gets the job done, and it’s the least expensive color-screen navigation device of its type we’ve seen.

What’s new: Online mapping giant MapQuest stamps its brand on TomTom’s GO 300 compact in-car GPS. Like the Palm and Garmin products, the $699 MapQuest Personal Navigation Device stores its maps and data on an SD Card. TomTom’s voice directions (available in over 30 languages and in 50 voices) are easy to hear over radios and road noise, and the bright touch screen is almost as wide and tall as the 4.5-by-3.6-inch device itself. The MapQuest GPS may be almost twice the size of the Garmin StreetPilot i3 (shown below, not to scale), but it’s easier to use; and, at just 11 ounces (without the 12-volt power cord), it’s easy to tote.

What’s new: Use Bluetooth-enabled Treo and Tungsten handhelds as handy navigation devices by adding a compact Bluetooth GPS receiver and TomTom’s fine software and maps (stored, typically, on an SD Card). The Bluetooth GPS-to-PDA communication can cause a lag, but at $250 this kit is a great way to make the most of computing power you may already own–and the clever automatic charging kit includes lines to both the GPS receiver and the PDA, so it helps keep your handheld charged.