gps

Plant bugs on bad guys, then track them with your Garmin Astro

Yeah, yeah, we get the Jetsons reference. (Aren't there enough of those these days?) The $650 Garmin Astro, as featured on Gizmodo, is meant to track hunting dogs by following the movements of small wireless devices that can attach to their collars. The Giz guys, however, suggest that it could be used to keep tabs on kids or live-action Pac-Man players. Here at Crave, we think there are way more uses for this little handheld navigator. Namely, it could be used to fight crime. Imagine the kinds of reconnaissance you could do with a GPS device that not only … Read more

Pharos announces GPS Phone

Well, here's something new. We've seen smart phone manufacturers integrate GPS into their devices (such as the HP iPaq hw6945 Mobile Messenger), but we haven't really seen GPS companies produce any nav-savvy phones--until now. Today, navigation specialist Pharos announced its Pharos GPS Phone, a Windows Mobile-based smart phone that comes preloaded with maps of the United States and Canada and an integrated SiRFStarIII GPS receiver. The palm-size device supports voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions, multidestination trips, automatic rerouting, and other standard navigation features. In addition, you get a free three-month subscription to Pharos's Smart Navigator Web-based location services, … Read more

GPS footwear to keep you on track

Shoe phones are so passe. If Maxwell Smart were around today, he'd most certainly have some GPS footwear instead.

A company called Quantum Satellite Technology plans to market a pair of shoes with built-in satellite transmitters and "panic buttons" that can immediately signal the location of the footwear, according to The Raw Feed. Let's hope that they can't be hacked to penetrate the "Cone of Silence."

Follow the GPS, please

Two weekends ago, I went to my cousin's graduation, and afterwards we were supposed to have dinner at a restaurant that, supposedly, has great food. Unfortunately, we didn't get to find out how great the food was because my uncle couldn't find the place! We drove around for what felt like hours until we were so starving that we just pulled into the first decent-looking restaurant we could find. I suggested to my cousin that he should get a GPS system for his dad. The Lowrance iWay 500c got a pretty high rating from our editors, but … Read more

Real-time traffic phone released in Korea

Officer, I swear, I wasn't talking on my cell phone while driving; I was looking at the map...on my cell phone...while driving.

Samsung Electronics has released the SPH-B5800, a cell phone that offers real-time traffic maps as well as info on where to find places to eat. Technical Resource likes the fact that people can compare routes and decide which road is the one less traveled by.

The Samsung SPH-B5800 is available in Korea for about $600.

Instead of using GPS, the phone works by TPEG, a transportation broadcast service offered in Korea over its new Digital Media Broadcasting (… Read more

Safety Trip Plan: If I'm not back by 9 p.m., call the cops

In response to the Webware Challenge to make cell phones into better lifelines, many (hundreds) of people added comments and wrote to me personally to say the main solution to finding people who are lost or stranded should be better cellular phone coverage, cell phones with emergency satellite radios, or dedicated emergency locator beacons. I support all of these ideas, but as I said in a previous post, I still think we could use a "fail-safe" notification system that alerts friends, families, or authorities when a person goes missing. If a person is unable to make a call … Read more

i-Kids lets lost children hit panic button

It's a simple fact of life: Good ideas often miss something obvious that would make them great ideas. One example is GPS devices for locating lost or missing children.

Many of the tracking technologies we've seen are basically one-way systems--you stick a sensor onto a backpack or clothes, then the parent tracks it with a main unit. But why not make it work the other way around as well?

The "i-Kids" safety system promises to do just that, giving your child a device that allows them to touch a single button that alerts you to … Read more

The cell phone lifeline challenge: Reader feedback

There have been a few dozen good responses to the post I wrote about new technologies or services that could help find people who get into trouble while traveling. See A Webware challenge: Make cell phones better lifelines.

It begins with notification. You don't send out rescue parties until you know someone is lost, and my initial proposal simply allows the alarm to be raised earlier. Several people rightly commented that it would be difficult to create a "flight plan" system that people would actually use. But I will not dismiss this idea just yet; some of … Read more

The world's thinnest GPS device

Technology's anorexic trend in has claimed another victim, this one a GPS device. Taiwan's Power Digital Card claims that its "Guide Dog" is the world's thinnest navigation kit, according to Navigadget. Even if it's not, this dog still hunts. Its roster of impressive features includes a 4-inch display, built-in antenna, 3D gaming, Web browsing, e-mail and a "parking sensor," whatever that is. We can't verify all these claims, but they already had us with the 4-inch screen.

ViaMichelin shows North America some GPS love

Like many Japanese and European parties that Americans have arrived woefully late to, (see also: soccer; 3G networks; Law, Jude), the personal navigation device is just now going mainstream.

Though it's obviously not the only to do so, ViaMichelin released its first personal navigation device for the North American market this week after ignoring us for six years in favor of our apparently more direction-challenged European counterparts.

Using SiRFstarIII GPS receiver technology and NAVTEQ digital map data, the X-930 model can give voice and text directions for driving in the car and walking down the street.

Weighing in at … Read more