This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of NAVTEQ. All opinions are 100% mine.
By David Ponce
When you read the news, there seems to be a steady stream of amusing GPS-related stories. Like the woman who recently decided to sue Google because the allegedly dangerous directions it gave her for an evening stroll eventually led to her being hit by a car. Or the couple that was stranded in the snow for three days because they followed the directions on their GPS down a snowy, undriveable path. Or even the man in the UK who was charged £2,000 for “driving without due care and attention”; he’d blindly followed his GPS’s instructions down a narrow cliffside path whereupon he’d gotten stuck in a wire fence only a few feet away from a 100ft drop.
Stories like that remind us not only of our growing reliance on GPS devices but also how important it is to know how to use them properly. Step one in that process is to have the latest maps loaded. Not only are new roads being built all the time while older ones being closed, but so are businesses and “Points of Interest” constantly changing. I recently received an SD card containing brand new North American NavTeqmaps for my Garmin Nuvi. Updating them was no harder than popping the card in, and booting the device. And while I might have a little more common sense than to drive into a pond because my GPS tells me to, it’s nice to know that I won’t drive 30 minutes to go to a nice restaurant only to find out it’s been out of business for two months. Should you have a NavTeq powered device and wish to update yours, link is below.
You can kind of consider the the Kapten Talking Pocket GPS from Kapsys to be the iPod Shuffle of GPS devices. It’s easily one of the smallest GPS navigational aids on the market, and it manages to stay so petite by foregoing an LCD display. Instead, it talks you to your destination with spoken directions. And to tell the Kapten where you want to go, you quite literally tell it where you want to go using spoken commands and voice recognition like “Restaurant: McDonald’s.”
The Kapten is also Bluetooth-equipped, allowing it to be paired with your cellphone and used to answer or make calls, and there’s a handy geo-tagging button that lets you remember a favorite location and share it online later. 3GB of on-board storage can be used for uploading additional map content (this version covers the United States only) or you can fill it with music since it also functions as a voice-controlled MP3 player, just like the iPod Shuffle. However, unlike the iPod Shuffle, the display-less Kapten doesn’t come with a budget-friendly price tag. It’s currently listed on Amazon for a whopping $475.
Move over William Daniels because TomTom has just totally trumped Mio’s Knight Rider GPS device with the announcement that they’ll be offering genuine Star Wars voices for their line of GPS units. This includes Darth Vader, C-3PO, Yoda and even Han Solo. Now I’m not sure if the voices will all be recorded from the original cast, including Harrison Ford, but the promotional video they created with Darth Vader in the recording booth certainly sounds like James Earl Jones to me.
As of today the Darth Vader voice is available for download for $12.95, while C-3PO, Yoda and Han Solo will be made available at intervals throughout the Summer.
For years people have been using radar detectors in their cars to avoid expensive speeding tickets. Those are great, but generally won’t protect you from automatic speed cameras and red light cameras. What you need is something with a database of current locations that house such cameras. For that, GPS Angel has released their new V4 Red Light Camera and Speed Camera detector.
The new GPS Angel device uses SiRF Star III GPS technology to pinpoint your location and run it against a database of known speed trap and red light camera locations. It then uses visual and audible alerts to warn you of them. You can even program it to alert you when you’re speeding through school zones, playgrounds and other high-risk areas where you can get penalized further for speeding.
Not only will a Garmin GPS navigation system make it easier to get where you’re going, but it will now help you get there using less fuel, in theory. The company’s new ecoRoute hd module plugs into your vehicle’s OBDII or ‘onboard diagnostics port’ and pairs with any of the Garmin nüvi units to provide additional information about your car’s performance including intake air temperature, coolant temperature, throttle position and engine load, intake manifold pressure, battery and charging system information, mass airflow rate, timing advance and even missions.
This information, coupled with Garmin’s ecoRoute software, should allow the GPS unit to not only show the quickest route to your destination, but also the most fuel efficient one. As an added bonus drivers will also be able to see diagnostic trouble codes via the GPS with on-screen descriptions, and even reset that pesky ‘check engine’ light. Available sometime in March for $149.99.
In the back of your mind you’ve always thought you could do a better job at announcing directions than your GPS device does, and now you can prove it thanks to Garmin who’ve released a free Windows-only application that lets you record and use your own voice with a select number of their units.
The app looks straight-forward and easy to use, and while Garmin claims it only takes about 30 minutes, expect it be a particularly boring and tedious half-hour as you record and trim the various phrases and directions required to complete the device’s vocabulary. But the potential for comedic gold here makes it seem worthwhile. So what are you waiting for? Make sure your Garmin is compatible with the software and then download it here.
At CES we came across quite a few accessories for adding GPS functionality to the iPod Touch and even the first generation iPhone, but they usually consisted of some monstrous sleeve or case that made the device inconvenient to carry around. But PosiMotion has come up with what I think is a better idea. Their G-Fi is basically a battery-powered wireless router with built-in GPS hardware that can stream navigation and position data to your device. It works with both the iPod Touch and iPhone 2G in conjunction with PosiMotion’s Navmii turn-by-turn navigation software ($32.99) and while the mini router can be used to connect any devices that support ad-hoc wifi networks for multiplayer gaming or file transfers, I’m not sure if the streamed GPS data can be used by other applications.
The built-in rechargeable battery powers the G-Fi for about 5 hours with a broadcast range of about 100 feet, and I guess the $99 price tag is a bit cheaper than upgrading to the iPhone 3G or 3GS depending on your current contract. But if you’re trying to choose between the iPod Touch with this and a dedicated GPS device, the latter is probably a cheaper solution. However, if you’re just interested in the mobile wifi router aspect, PosiMotion also sells the G-Fi VS which has a 6 hour battery since it’s not powering GPS chipsets, and a price tag of just $49.99.
Google Maps and its street view functionality is pretty slick, no question there, but a little competition never hurt anyone. So Nokia’s NAVTEQ is raising the stakes with its new fleet of LIDAR (light detection and ranging) and camera equipped vehicles which have spent the last year roaming the U.S. capturing 3D point cloud data of America’s highways and biways.
NAVTEQ True, which is what the company officially calls the new mapping collection system, is able to capture over 1.5 million 3D data points every second, from a range of about 120 meters around the vehicle. This includes items like street and speed signs, or objects as small as mile markers, but also provides data on the height of bridges or lane widths accurate to within a centimeter. What’s even cooler is that the system can be mounted to Segways, allowing the insides of buildings or malls to be mapped as well.
GPS devices have definitely come down in price over the years, but they’re still not at the point where you wouldn’t care if one was stolen from your vehicle. So the Maplock ensures that when you leave your car with a GPS unit still attached to the windshield, it will still be there when you return. A locking, adjustable clamp that fits GPS units from 3.5-inches up to 5-inches in size attaches to the device itself, while a steel cable is looped through the steering wheel essentially tethering it to your car. Now it doesn’t 100% guarantee that your GPS in unstealable, but the bright colors also serve as a deterrent telling would-be thieves to swipe the unit from the next guy’s car instead.
$49.99 available in April, though you can pre-order one from Amazon right now.
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