GPS

If you're far from the grid and your smartphone battery is running out, you'd better have a backup if there are no other phones around. This recharger gives you power with a flick of the wrist.

Voltmaker is an award-winning, patented design and Indiegogo campaign for a USB charger that can give you emergency power by spinning the dynamo. The 6-inch, 10-ounce device can also be recharged on a standard outlet.

If your phone is dead and you're hiking in the woods, spinning Voltmaker for two minutes will generate enough power for a phone call lasting several minutes, according to the campaign. … Read more

No doubt, Google executives will spend plenty of time at the annual Google I/O conference that begins Wednesday in San Francisco talking about Google Glass, and all the opportunities for developers to create programs for the geeky eyewear.

But outside the conference hall, a Google partner plans to unveil a pair of sunglasses that comes with its own heads-up display. Even though Google invited the company, Recon Instruments, to demonstrate the glasses at its premier developer event of the year, the specs have nothing to do with Google Glass.

Instead, Recon is launching Jet, heads-up display glasses using its … Read more

This may not be TomTom's first foray into the GPS sport watch business (that distinction came with the Nike+ SportWatch), but the announcement of the TomTom Runner and Multi-Sport are proof that the GPS hardware provider is getting serious about the fitness tech segment.

The Runner and Multi-Sport are based on identical core hardware but feature different software, wristbands, and accessories. The core unit uses a large, high-contrast, monochrome LCD display covered with Gorilla glass, so it should be up to being knocked around a bit. TomTom tells us that the display is not e-ink, but has been … Read more

You've got the quality locks, you've seen the how-to-lock videos, and you're very careful about where to leave your bicycle. But is that enough?

Not according to the backers of BikeSpike, a GPS tracking device being promoted on Kickstarter.

If a thief makes off with your ride, the BikeSpike will show its map location on your mobile device or home computer. Police can be given access to the data to help recovery. … Read more

OK, let's just say you decide to walk the length of Europe and Asia and bring all your social-media peeps along for the journey. What devices would you bring with you to keep in touch and document your epic stroll?

These aren't questions most of us will ever be faced with, but Michael Lee Johnson is thinking very hard about the answers right now as he prepares to embark on a half-decade long sojourn by foot from Beijing to London later this year.

A developer from England who has also worked in social media (he had a moment of notoriety when Facebook nixed the 1-cent ad he purchased to promote his Google+ account), marketing and a few startups, Johnson tells me he's treating his trip as a sort of startup of its own.

In fact, the idea for a major overland trip was originally conceived as a marketing stunt for a startup. The startup is no more, but Johnson's dream of sharing the near-entirety of an epic personal journey lives on.… Read more

If I were Wayne Dobson, I'd move house. I'd move a few blocks away from his Las Vegas home. Or I'd leave Las Vegas altogether.

Dobson, you see, suffers constantly by virtue exclusively of where he lives.

Angry Sprint customers turn up at his door and demand he gives them their cell phones back.

He doesn't have their cell phone. He doesn't have anyone's cell phone. He doesn't even own a cell phone.

As the Las Vegas Review-Journal painfully portrays it, 59-year-old Dobson is at his wit's end.

However, he's also … Read more

Irritated by your car's built-in GPS? You're not alone.

More car owners are less happy with their factory-installed navigation systems than in the past, says a report out today from J.P. Power and Associates.

A survey of drivers conducted late last year found satisfaction with their navigation systems down 13 points from the prior year. The level of satisfaction was down in all of the six factors measured, but ease of use was the biggest complaint, dropping in score by 25 points.

The other five factors included in the study were routing, navigation display screen, the speed … Read more

LAS VEGAS--No need go into freak-out mode next time your favorite animal goes astray. Tracker Technologies is offering a handy locator solution with its MSP340 pet tracker.

We've seen other trackers before, such as Tagg, but this collar-based tracker, also known as the tbpt Tracker, works with an Android app that the company is showing off at CES 2013.

You attach the waterproof GPS/GSM collar to your pooch, and then forget about it.

If Rover bolts from the yard, activate the free app to figure out where he is.

Using the map function on the app, you can … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Locator devices that let parents keep track of their kids are nothing new. Evado Filip decided to do things a little differently with the VivoPlay, a watch geared for the 5- to 12-year-old crowd.

Many parents don't want to cough up a real cell phone for their little dears until they get pretty close to being teenagers. The VivoPlay includes GSM, so parents and kids can get in touch when necessary, but it's not a full-blown cell phone with all the related texting and possible cyberbullying issues. This feature elevates the watch from a location device to a communication device.… Read more