Have you ever been driving along, blindly following the directions of your GPS, only to find yourself on a road that leads nowhere, or just plain lost? That’s happened on a few occasions, but I’ve always been able to get myself back on course again. However, if you or someone you know doesn’t want to hassle with either the complications of programing a GPS or are afraid that one will lead you astray, you might check out this cool Paper GPS Notepad.
It seems almost silly to use something like this with navigations systems becoming such commonplace, but I think it would still prove useful. If you’ve ever had to jot down directions in a hurry and then try to follow them later, it can be a real pain. Granted, I would have probably found this more useful a couple of years ago, it’s still a good product. I especially like the checkboxes in the corner notating whether or not you got lost. You can pick up a pad of 60 for just $6.50.
If you’ve ever watched Star Wars (please tell me everyone here has) you’ll remember that the location of the rebel base was outed when Vader and Tarken decided to put a homing beacon aboard the Millennium Falcon. Well if you’re ever paranoid that someone might be tracking you in a similar fashion, you might want to pick up one of these GPS Tracker Defense devices.
This is quite simply a GPS jammer. You need only to plug it into your car’s cigarette lighter and every GPS device within a 5-meter radius will be disabled. This of course means you won’t be able to use your own GPS to guide you to your location, but that’s the price you pay for paranoia. Well, that and around $300.
It vaguely amazes me that mail is able to find its way from point a to point b, when it has to pass through points c through z to do so. For all I know, a tribe of pixies lives inside each mailbox and magically teleports my mail where I want it to go, over a period of 7-10 business days. If I was the curious type, I could get myself a Micro GPS Mail Logger, which is a letter sized (and bendable!) gadget that will record its position, along with timestamps, to a MicroSD card for you to peruse. For, um, about $700.
I’d be willing to pay that price, perhaps, if I was mailing something extremely valuable (say, my pet snake) and wanted to know where the package was at all times. Unfortunately, you don’t get any of the info until the GPS Mail Logger arrives at its destination and you download it. And, of course, GPS doesn’t work anywhere not under the clear blue sky… You can pretty much bet that when they lose your mail, it’s not going to be anywhere were GPS can find it.
My advice: just get a tracking number and keep your fingers crossed.
How many times have you had a dog run away? Usually if you live in the country it isn’t a big deal (except during hunting season) however, in the city your pet can be in a lot of danger from all of the traffic. If you’re concerned about losing track of them, you might be interested in the PetsCell.
This cool device straps around your K9’s neck and can do a multitude of things. First it will track your dog’s location at specific intervals (from every minute to every hour or more) and let you know when they have left a specific area. If they do go outside of your designated perimeter, you will be notified via email and SMS. The GPS tracking of your pet is also stepped up to once per minute until they are back home safe and sound.
You can also use the web interface to track where your dog goes throughout the day, that way you can get to know their habits. You can even export these tracks to Google Earth for a better look. One more excellent feature is the inclusion of Skype compatibility. Why would you need to call your pet? Sure, it would be funny to see their reaction, but that’s not why it’s there. If your dog is taken in by someone, they can call you to let you know where they are. There is also a smaller model that does not include this.
There is no word yet on pricing, though they do hope to ship it out sometime in the fall of this year. Expect to pay a price for both the collar itself and a monthly fee for service.
I’m sure these days a built-in GPS unit is an option for even the smallest of Cessna or Piper aircraft. But if your plane was taking to the skies well before GPS technology was available to the average consumer, you can retrofit it with this new Garmin unit specifically designed for flying. The GPSMAP 495 is actually a slightly more affordable version of Garmin’s GPSMAP 496 since it lacks the pre-loaded City Navigator NT database and real-time XM weather data. So basically if you also wanted to use the unit for navigating in a car or boat you’d have to manually load the city map or marine chart data for your location.
But it does include all the features you’ll need for flying like SafeTaxi airport diagrams, the AOPA airport directory, enhanced terrain warning, Smart Airspace and a database of private airports and heliports. The 495 also updates the map data and instruments at 5 Hz which is a significantly faster update rate providing an almost real-time presentation of the aircraft’s analog indicators. I have to assume all these features are a great thing to have since I never completed or even started flight school. (But I can fly through hoops in PilotWings on the SNES like you wouldn’t believe.)
The GPSMAP 495 will be available sometime in April for $1,595.
While they lack some of the fancier features of integrated GPS units, I like the fact that standalone GPS devices are not limited to only being used while you’re driving in your car. However it looks like Eclipse has taken the ‘best of both worlds’ approach with their AVN2210p mkII stereo/navigation system. It has a factory-fit in-dash appearance when installed, which I’ll admit looks a lot better than a suction cup mount stuck to the windshield. But the best part is the TomTom GPS navigation unit that can actually be removed like a stereo faceplate, allowing you to use it outside your vehicle.
Of course Eclipse didn’t stop there. The AVN2210p mkII has all the features you’d expect in a modern stereo including support for MP3s, WMAs, iPod integration including full remote control, hands-free bluetooth calling options, an optional satellite radio tuner and even a USB port for connecting flash drives full of music. Also, using the term ‘mkII’ for the second generation of anything is considerably cooler than just saying ‘version 2′ so extra points there as well.
You can find the Eclipse AVN2210p mkII on Amazon for $599.99.
Immersive Media is the company responsible for Street View on Google Maps. The above video experience is the same idea (a 360 degree panorama of imagery), except in seamless full motion video. You can pan and zoom in every direction besides straight down while the video plays, and enjoy 4 channel directional sound. There are a bunch more demos on the Immersive Media website, but I liked the Humpback video the best, because it’s as if you’re actually standing in the boat, looking around, trying to spot the whales.
The camera system is shaped like a dodecahedron, made up of 11 cameras and 4 mics. It records 2400×1200 pixels at 30 frames per second, and you can easily embed GPS data directly into the video, up to 3 hours of which is recorded onto hot-swappable HDs. The entire system weighs in at only 25 pounds, so it’s actually something you can walk around with. If you want to know how much it is, you’ll have to ask. Immersive Media is currently mounting their system on vehicles and doing Street View-ish tours in a few North American cities, perhaps in the hope that Google will get interested.
Personally, I’d like to see it combined with the VR portion of the HARV system that I wrote about today over on BotJunkie… Talk about an immersive experience!
I’m not really a paranoid person. I grew up in the country, so I rarely lock my car these days (unless I have my bag of gadgets with me). I’m lucky if I remember to lock up the house when I leave. That said, I’m hardly concerned about someone driving off in my car. However, if you’re the type that think everyone is out to get behind the wheel of their vehicle, you might like this GPS tracking system from Intellitrac.
The X1 has a multitude of features, which can be used in various ways. It has real-time GPS/GSM tracking that will let you find your car in as little time as possible. Other features like mileage logging and wiretapping (you can actually listen to what’s going on in the car) make me think that some parents might enjoy using this to keep track of their teenage drivers. It even features a 3-day backup battery (just in case).
They haven’t found a distributer just yet, so we won’t get any juicy information on pricing or availability just yet.
CNET recently awarded the 2008 Cadillac CTS as the ‘Tech Car of the Year’ in its 2007 Car Tech Awards. And if you had told me this before I attended the NAIAS this year, I would have thought it to be an odd choice. Even though the CTS looks nothing like the Cadillac of yesteryear, I still wouldn’t have considered the brand to be a leader when it came to the in-car technologies that interest me most.
But I’m happy to admit I was wrong. While at the show I was able to get a private demo of the Cadillac CTS’ stereo and navigation system from Randy Schwarz who’s the Vehicle Line Executive of Global Luxury RWD at GM. When you get into the car one of the dominating features is the center stack where all of the ‘goodies’ are laid out. At the top is a small LCD display that actually rises to reveal a larger, touch screen version which is easily the best way to navigate the stereo or GPS system.
The stand-out feature of the CTS is the included 40GB hard drive. Using a built in USB jack you can copy MP3s from a flash drive onto the drive, allowing you to port your MP3 collection (or at least a small chunk of it) to the vehicle. Alternately you can simply insert an audio CD and let the stereo automatically rip it to the drive. Track information is then provided by Gracenote (formerly CDDB) saving you the hassle of having to enter it by hand. Of course hard drive based stereo systems are nothing new, but the CTS’ ability to record up to 60 minutes of XM or live radio is. Basically it works like a TIVO for radio, allowing you to pause or record any station and play it back later. While this feature probably isn’t that useful for building a music collection, it’s ideal if you’re a sports fan or talk radio junkie.
If you’re interested, after the jump I also take a look at the navigation features of the CTS’ including the integrated traffic system.
Geotagging pictures has become popular of late. Basically the idea is to tag your photos with information regarding the location that they were taken. This seems to be used a lot by people that do a large amount of traveling, and wish to remember exactly where each picture was taken. If you’re one of those people, but doesn’t want to hassle with going through all of your pics and manually adding tags (and trying to remember where each was taken) this little gadget might be of interest.
This little gizmo is basically a GPS receiver and card reader bundled into one. It keeps track of everywhere you’ve traveled via the GPS signal and logs exactly what time you were at each location. All you have to do is carry it with you when you’re out snapping pics. When you’re done at the end of the day, just pop in your SD card (or use it with a USB card reader if you don’t use an SD card) and it will automatically assign a geotag based on the time each photo was taken.
I’m sure that there will be a market for this device when it hits stores in the next couple of weeks. It’ll set you back $99, which seems pretty reasonable for all the hassle it will save you.
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By Andrew Liszewski
The camera system is shaped like a 
By Andrew Liszewski
