For behind the scenes pictures, stories and special contests, follow us on Facebook!
Subscribe:

Search Results for: GPS

‘There’s No Place Like Home’ GPS Shoes Will Take You Places

By Hazel Chua on 09/24/12 • Leave a comment!

GPS Shoes

Some people say they’re willing to go wherever the road will take them, but what if they get lost somewhere along the way? Well, if they have a pair of these There’s No Place Like Home GPS shoes, then they won’t have a problem, because these soles will help any wandering souls find their way, no matter where they want to go.

The GPS shoes are UK-based designer Dominic Wilcox’s newest project, which has been embedded with a GPS system so you can just feed in where you want to go (via a custom mapping program that’s been written especially for these shoes) and the shoes will tell you which direction to go after you click the heels together. (Sound familiar?) The right shoe measures how far (or close) you are to your destination, while the left shoe points you to the direction where you’re supposed to go.

Check out more images of the GPS shoes as well as a video from Wilcox explaining the entire concept.

… Continue Reading

SPOT Connect Gives Your Smartphone Satellite Access

By David Ponce on 08/10/12 • 2 Comments

It’s all well and good that you’re the adventurous type, likely at any time to be found camping in the Amazons, spelunking in the Yucatan or trekking in the Himalayas, but bringing your phone with you on those adventures might just be more dead weight in your backpack. Cellular reception is not universal. Satellite phones are notoriously expensive, so maybe the SPOT Connect can be a good compromise.

Simply pair your smartphone with SPOT Connect, and get connected to a global satellite network that lets you send messages and GPS coordinates from virtually anywhere on the planet. Update Twitter and Facebook. Send email and text messages. Request non-emergency help from professional service providers. And in the case of a critical emergency, send an SOS message requesting emergency assistance.

You’re limited to 41 characters at a time for custom messages, and you can save a 120 character predefined message. Not a whole lot, but should be enough for quick updates. More important than letting your buddies in on which caves in Namibia offer the most guano/sq.ft. coverage is the fact that you can transmit your coordinates to the GEOS International Emergency Response Coordination Center (IERCC) in case of emergency. That right there is reason enough to spend the $169 that the device costs. Plus the $99 yearly for the subscription to the service.

It works with iPhone and Android devices.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ GearPatrol ]

Dick Tracy Phone Watch For Kids Is Also Homing Beacon

By David Ponce on 07/05/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

You want to be a good parent and like technology? Put the two together and make your own life easier. The above Mobile Phone Watch lets your kid make and receive calls, but also has a GPS module. Why? So you can know where they are at the press of a button. You can also set up a Bluetooth-based alert that will sound an alarm as soon as your kids wander off range. Also, you can set up a virtual “fence” that the kids are not supposed to exit; if they do, the watch will send you a text. Finally, there’s a panic mode button that will send the GPS coordinates to the parents along with an SOS message.

That’s a lot of functionality in a fairly cheap package: $80. The hard part will be to convince your kids to actually wear the thing.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ DVice ]

Deal Of The Day: $50 Off On Nokia Lumia 900

By David Ponce on 05/11/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

We saw this same deal back in April, and we’re happy to saw it’s still around. So what you’re looking at is a Nokia Lumia 900, Nokia’s latest flagship phone, for a cool $50 after rebate. It’s usually $100 with a contract, so yeah, you’ll still have to do that here, but at least you’re spending 50% less upfront. “Nokia Lumia 900 features a 4.3″ 480×800 AMOLED display, 4G LTE/HSDPA+ 21Mbps connectivity, 1.4GHz processor, dual-facing cameras (8MP rear, 1.3MP front), 512MB RAM, 16GB built-in storage, microUSB, Bluetooth, 802.11bgn WiFi, GPS, Windows Phone 7.5OS, and more.”

[ $50 Off On Nokia Lumia 900 ] VIA [ LogicBuy ]

Rocketfish Bluetooth Speakers Nestle Right Into Smart Cover

By David Ponce on 04/26/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

Bluetooth speakers are a dime a dozen. It’s also pretty boring tech. So why are we covering it? Well, these particular speakers from Rocketfish (Best Buy’s house brand) feature a nice triangular design that makes it possible to insert them right into your iPad’s rolled up smart cover. It’s neat because that’s how you’d have it if you were watching a film, presumably, so the speakers integrate pretty seamlessly with your Apple tablet. Connection is of course through Bluetooth, which means they will work with other devices but not quite so elegantly.

There’s no word on power output or battery life, but we do know that they are currently on special for $50, down from the regular $70.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ YankoDesign ]

Last Alert App Helps You Avoid Losing Your Phone

By David Ponce on 04/04/12 • 1 Comment

By David Ponce

It’s easy enough to find your phone when you lose it: just call it. But of course you’re the kind of dumbass that only loses his cell when the battery is out, right? Then what do you do? Well, the Last Alert application gives you three lines of defence. First, you can set an audible alarm to sound when the battery reaches a certain predetermined level. You can set up to three such alarms. Secondly, when it senses it’s about to run out of juice, it will send you an email with your last known GPS coordinates. Finally, if you have the application installed on a second iDevice, you can use the compass feature on that one to help you navigate to your temporarily misplaced cellphone.

It was a project on Kickstarter that got full funding, so the application should be ready for download this month.

[ Product page ] VIA [ Coolest Gadgets ]

Instaprint Is A Location Based Photobooth

By David Ponce on 03/06/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

Alright, so we’re still trying to get our heads properly wrapped around Instaprint. It’s supposed to be an inkless printer (relying on ZINK technology instead) that works with Instagram, the photo application popular with all the hipsters. Simply tag your picture with a predetermined hash, and the machine will print it. The idea would be to have this setup at, say, a party. And then people who take pictures with Instagram and tag them appropriately will be able to simply walk up to the Instaprint machine and collect their pics, Polaroid-style. It’s even possible to set it up to work without a hashtag; a predetermined set of GPS coordinates gives everyone within a certain area access to the printer.

It’s a neat idea, but we have a few questions. Who is this for? Obviously, you could end up having to print an enormous amount of pictures, so whoever owns this has to be prepared to pick up the tab. Other than venues like bars or clubs, who will buy this? Which brings us to the other question, that of funding. Currently on Kickstarter, the project needs to raise $500,000 to get off the ground. At $400 a pop, that’s a lot of printers. As of this writing, 53 have been pre-sold and the project is up to roughly $40k. It’s not bad, but it’s a far cry from the half million they need. We really would like to see them succeed and wish them well, but we’re just not sure there’s a market there…

[ Project Page ]

How To Brick Your Tesla

By David Ponce on 02/23/12 • 6 Comments

By David Ponce

So this story is a little shocking. It turns out that if you let your Tesla’s battery fully discharge, it becomes essentially destroyed. At that point, the car is one large brick. Nothing will work: you won’t even be able to turn the wheels so it can be towed conventionally. But it gets worse, much worse. If this happens, Tesla charges you $40,000 or so to get a new set of batteries. “Oh, but the waranty should cover it!” you’ll say. Nope, it specifically doesn’t. “Ok then, insurance will take care of it.” Wrong again. Insurance companies specifically do not cover this. Let the batteries go empty = $40,000 out of your account. “Ok, well, shoot… but maybe Tesla will let me finance that…” Wrong. Again. You pay in full, or you’ll be asked to get your expensive brick out of the dealership.

For something like this to happen isn’t that hard. Drive the car around so that it’s at, say, 50% charge and leave it at the airport for a week or so. Or park it in your own garage, but use an extension cord (as opposed to proper charging cables). Heck, you can think of a number of ways this could happen. And happen it did, to at least 5 devastated clients.

Tesla at the moment is in a bit of a predicament as it has to walk the fine line between aggressively warning its customers of the potential danger, and talking about it too much and risk spooking buyers off. And it’s even doing some potentially shady things (like remotely activating a GPS module in order to physically go plug a dying car in) to do what looks like some damage control. In official comments on the issue, representatives liken the problem to “making regular oil changes” and “maintaining a proper level of care”. Batteries, similarly, should never be allowed to fully discharge.

Well, we don’t know. Maybe this is a new class of problems that a new class of vehicles brings with it. Whatever the case, you should read the longer article at the link below. It’s pretty interesting.

[ How To Brick Your Tesla ]

[CES 2012] I’m Core Reaches For The Sky, Reeks Of Vaporware

By David Ponce on 01/13/12 • 1 Comment

By David Ponce

The “I’m” folks are at it again. “I’m” as in that’s the name of their products. First it was the I’m Watch. Now it’s an entire line of related products called I’m Circle. And what they’re proposing is quite revolutionary, if only too good to be possible. The idea is to eliminate overlapping technology in various devices by simply removing that particular tech from them and putting it in one central hub that would then act as a processing server. For example, there’s a microprocessor in your phone. There’s also one in your tablet. Why do you need two, when you could just share one?

The center of this new proposed ecosystem of tethered devices would be the I’m Core, the keychain-sized hub that would contain a quad-core processor, a GPS chip, a WiFi chip and a SIM card. Then, there are plans for a smartphone, a tablet, a flatscreen TV and what looks like a media server, all of which would connect to the I’m Core. They’d all be named something starting with “I’m”, with a stated time to market of late 2012. And I’m ready to bet good money this will never happen. Here’s why.

… Continue Reading

Copyright © 2013 OhGizmo!