Microsoft Pulling The Plug On MSN Direct In 2012

While it's probably not the first casualty of the Google GPS navigation bombshell, the fact remains—Microsoft is pulling the plug on their MSN Direct service on January 1st, 2012. More »

Is Google Secretly Working On A Free Mobile Navigation App?

There's a lot of speculation about Google working on and preparing to release a mobile navigation app. For free. The logic's there and the pieces fit, but we still lack solid proof. More »

RC Girls Would Be a Nerd's Dream Come True

At the Kajimoto Laboratory, engineers have developed a helmet that can be used to guide the visually impaired by tugging their ears. It seems that this guy dreams of a day when it could be used to tug something else. More »

Gokivo Drops Monthly Rate to $5/Month

Possibly in response to the amazingly low price of Fullpower's MotionX GPS (stay tuned for full review), Networks In Motion has reduced the monthly rate of its Gokivo iPhone app to $4.99. [iTunes Link]

Apple Buys Their Very Own Maps Company (See Ya, Google Maps?)

The Apple/Google divorce continues to come into focus: Apple quietly bought Placebase, a mapping service company, back in July. Apple doesn't buy companies it's not going to use. Meaning, Apple's getting into making their own maps. Peace out, Google. More »

Garmin Nuvifone G60 Is Finally Happening: On AT&T Oct. 4 for $299

Took long enough: The near-vaporware Garmin nuvifone G60 GPS-cum-fone is actually coming out, and it's gonna be on AT&T come Oct. 4 for $300, with an extra $5/month for navigation services. I'm sure it will fail miserably. [Yahoo]

Navigon for iPhone Sucker-Punches TomTom With Text-to-Speech, iPod Controls

There are plenty of serviceable turn-by-turn nav apps for the iPhone, but the best of the bunch—TomTom and Navigon—have been locked in a dead heat. With Navigon's latest free update, the choice has gotten a little clearer. More »

APSI C100's Removeable Touchscreen Actually Makes Me Excited about a GPS

Personal navigation device design is usually as boring as late night infomercials, but not APSI's C100. The half GPS half PMP comes with a cradle which you can slide the touchscreen device in and out of. More »

TomTom For iPhone Gallery

Would You Pay $200 For TomTom's iPhone Car Kit?

We've been waiting for the supposed Summer launch of TomTom's turn-by-turn iPhone app and car kit ever since we saw it at WWDC. Now one UK retailer looks to be taking pre-orders for £113.85 (about $195). More »

TeleNav Turn-By-Turn Navigation Lands on the MyTouch 3G

It'd be weird if this didn't happen, but here you go anyway: TeleNav's turn-by-turn GPS Navigator app, of G1 and iPhone fame, is coming to the MyTouch 3G. Just like last time around, it's $10/mo after a 30-day free trial More »

Pull-Navi System Gives Directions and Dumbo-Like Ears

I used to be excited about iPhone turn-by-turn navigation, but the Pull-Navi system (straight from Tokyo University of Electro-Communications' crazy folks) is way better. It comes with a stylish helmet and will yank on ears until they look like Dumbo's. More »

Garmin Neverfone Nuvifone G60 Ships Next Week To Someone, Somewhere

Garmin, which has been fairly frank about how totally, like, hard it is to make a new smartphone, has finally announced they'll be shipping the Nuvifone S60 to Taiwan on the 27th. It only took the—wait, 19 months? More »

The World's Smallest, Potentially Seediest GPS, GSM and RF Tracker

It looks like a nondescript battery, but this is actually the world's smallest GPS, GSM and RF tracking device. More »

GBalpha's Ranger Brings GPS Navigation To The Nintendo DS

GBalpha has developed the first serious touchscreen GPS navigation system for the Nintendo DS. It features a U-Blox 5 chip, 32MB of extended memory and Google Earth integration. More »

Range Rover 2010's 12-inch Dual View Touchscreen Satisfies Two People at Once

The 510 HP 2010 Range Rover will have a dual view touchscreen, meaning the driver and passenger sees two different images based on their respective angles. More »

Apple Patent Outlines Smarter and Safer...In-Car Navigation Interface?

Here's one from left field: you know how your car's navigation console locks itself when in motion, whether or not there's a passenger to safely operate it? Apple, of all people, wants to fix that.

iPhone's First Turn-by-Turn Navigation App XROAD G-Map Yanked from App Store

XROAD's G-Map, the iPhone's well-reviewed first turn-by-turn navigation app, has been pulled from the App Store. UPDATE: It's because they were naughty and violated the App Store's terms.

iPhone's First Turn-by-Turn Navigation App Reviewed: Outstanding, Not Perfect

Kicking Tires takes the iPhone's first turn-by-turn GPS navigation app, XROADS G-Map for a spin, and while it's got some issues, it's an "outstanding value" for $40. More »

Mio Creates 'Kosher' GPS Unit, For The Most Orthodox of Geeks

And it is certain that if ever you turn away from the Lord your Mio, and go after the Garmin, I bear witness to you today that destruction will overtake you. —Deuteronomy 8:19(ish) More »

My Tracks For Android Logs Your Day via GPS, Uploads To Google Maps

In the second big GPS-on-Android related tidbit today, Google released My Tracks, a cool app for logging a route of any kind via GPS and saving it to Google Maps. More »

SiRF, King of GPS Chips, Acquired By Multifunction Chip Maker CSR: Is Standalone GPS Dying?

CSR Who? CSR specializes in Bluetooth and multiple connection options on a single chip. Maybe this makes sense because connected, location-aware phones like the Android and iPhone and Nuvifone are killing the standalone GPS. More »

Turn-By-Turn Voice Navigation Comes to Jailbroken iPhones

Six months after the App Store was launched, the iPhone app gray market lives on: turn-by-turn navigation has come to jailbroken iPhones in the form of xGPS. UPDATED More »

TomTom Go 740 Live: Their Connected GPS

TomTom's Go 740 Live GPS is their first to have a cellular connection built-in, used to download traffic weather and friend finder information. More »

First Turn-By-Turn Navigation App Comes to Android, Hates America

AndNav2 is Android's first
turn-by-turn navigation app, marking one of the first instances where Android's wide-open apps policy has put it at an advantage over the iPhone. At least, in Europe. UPDATED 10:38 EST

Since the software is based on the OpenStreetMap mapping data, the app will be more useful in some areas than others, as the map information is, at least in part, crowdsourced like Wikipedia. The app itself, though, is polished. The search and directions functions will be familiar to anyone who has used a satnav unit (or even Google Maps) before, and the turn-by-turn functionality seems solid. More »

Medion's New GPSs Are Really Secure, Need Your Fingerprints to Navigate

Medion's new GoPal GPS units have an unusual extra feature intended as a deterrant for thieves: fingerprint scanners. The GoPal X5535, P5235 and P5435 all have a tiny scanner and will only work when they recognize one of five stored prints, making them useless if stolen. They've all got 5-inch screens, though the P5235 has voice control, the P5435 has Bluetooth and the X5535 has a gyrometer so it can compensate for brief losses of GPS signal by detecting car movements—all three get live traffic updates with Traffic Message Channel. Pretty neat, though leaving your GPS in your car is likely to tempt some thieves to break in, no matter how secure the device itself is. Out in Europe at the moment, no pricing info is available. [Electronista]

Porsche P'9522 Cellphone Lacks 3G, Has GPS For Navigating Your Porsche

Porsche has kicked out cellphones before: but none so capable as the upcoming P'9522. It's a butch but sweetly-minimal design flip phone, with a rotating screen, and it's just got its FCC pass so it should be on the way here soon. Among its many features, it sadly lacks 3G connectivity, but the rest—including on-board GPS—almost make up for that. More »

Sagem Orga Crams AGPS System Aboard SIM Card For Non-GPS Phones

Sagem Orga, in partnership with BlueSky is targeting the array of cellphones (and presumably mobile-internet enabled PCs and such) that currently don't have GPS with this new invention: a SIM card with AGPS aboard. Clever stuff indeed, packing all the chips for a "highly accurate GPS receiver", wiring and antenna into a thumbnail-sized space. We've got to wonder how good its satellite fixes will be with such a small device though, and since it looks like every gadget that comes out has GPS aboard nowadays, adding GPS to a device via its SIM card might just be a temporary stopgap option. But it'll undeniably have lots of applications when it hits the market. [BGR]

Navigon's 8100T GPS Has 3D Terrain-View Maps

Navigon's just announced a new high-end GPS unit, the 8100T, that actually displays the right terrain in its map representations. Dubbed Panorama View 3D, the system uses NASA-derived height data to accurately recreate the inclinations of the road as it crosses terrain ahead of you. The unit's also got a 4.8-inch screen, includes free traffic data updates for life, voice recognition for destination entry and the company's Reality View junction lane-assistance tech. It's due out this month for $599. Press release below. More »

Navigon's New 5100 Max, 2090S GPS Units Get 2 Years of Free Map Updates

Navigon's just popped out a pair of new GPS units: the 5100 max and 2090S. Both these navigation aids are coming with a FreshMaps package in the purchase price—that means eight free map updates over a two-year period, and no excuse for getting lost because the roads have been re-designed since you last updated your GPS maps (like I never do, since it costs me). The big 5100 max has a 4.3-inch widescreen and has free real-time Traffic Updates for life, while the smaller 2090s has a conventional 3.5-inch display and more basic functionality. Both however use Navigon's Lane Assistant Pro and Reality View technology for better lane awareness at junctions, and the units are exclusively on sale at Radioshack for $200 and $300. Press release below. More »

Designer Lingerie Has Embedded GPS-Uplink for Lady Location

This could be a tongue-in cheek bit of high-tech flirtery: Brazilian designer Lucia Lorio’s "Find Me If You Can" lingerie line has embedded GPS-uplinking units that a partner can remotely track. So you could play a titillating game on your man by flitting around near his location, and then zipping far away. Or you could see it as a sensible safety device in...uh...high kidnap-rate areas. For sure, it's not a good way to find out if your missus is doing the funky bedspring with someone behind your back: that unit is too clunky for stealthy stalking and the wearer can switch it off. Still, it's unusual. And costly: $800 to $1100. [TheAge via GizmoWatch]

Dealzmodo: Dash Express Just $200 in Amazon One-Day Sale

Dash express got a "permanent" price drop to $300 just back in June, but for today only an Amazon Gold Box deal means it'll have $100 shaved off that. Yup: it's just $200. That price has been available for Trafficgauge.com subscribers previously, but not on Amazon. Freakishly good deal, given that we labeled the GPS unit a fantastic traffic terminator. [Amazon]