Having the connectivity of both GPRS and Wi-Fi makes it instantly more useful than many products with static points-of-interest catalogs, no matter how many million are boasted. And the same networking that goes to the net to get data can be used in reverse: sending addresses and search criteria to the device from any computer takes a few seconds and no wires.

But it's not a clean victory for Dash—for all of the steps forward, the upstart misses some elements essential to any portable navigation device. Meanwhile, Garmin, Magellan and TomTom are racing with their own connected and crowd-sourced strategies. This is the opening salvo of what will eventually be a tough, possibly deadly battle. So far, however, Dash is in great shape.
What Dash Got
There are four compelling aspects to the Dash Express which are not found, as such, in other portable navigators on the market.

• Live real-time traffic - It's the biggest and most powerful of the four keys, mainly because of how badly GPS traffic reporting has sucked in the past. Dash builds a teamwork system not unlike the original Napster—you got data I want, I got data you want, and that central server will make sure the sharing happens in a fast and orderly manner. As you drive, you not only help others out, but you add useful data to the historical record, so that the plan for your own commute or Friday getaway could grow smarter. As we've said before, once each metro area is seeded with a few hundred Dash units, the traffic reporting becomes exponentially better. The funny thing is, what we've already seen, with just a handful of units on the road, was already better than anything to date thanks to the historical data which runs in 15 minute increments, and therefore knows the difference between weekends and rush hour. If you're wondering who is working on the traffic modeling, it's a couple of eggheaded PhDs in Traffic.

• Live search - Most navis have search features, but they only query a POI database of an average of 5 million or so. Dash only has 1 Million built-in points of interest, but its better 99% of the time. That's because it uses its GPRS cellular connection to ping Yahoo Local search for stuff, delivering better information in the exact same amount of time. You can save search terms you like as favorites, alongside addresses and, yes, standard POI categories. Oh, Yahoo local searches are returned by relevance, not sorted by proximity, but most things can be resorted and gas can even be resorted by price.

• MyDash web interface including Send2Car, GeoRSS and other features - With a quick browser plug-in, you can highlight any address and right-click, selecting the option "Send To Car." You can even highlight name and address, but for now you need to leave off the phone number. Within a second or two, the address pops up on the Dash, which could be at your side, or miles away. Blam found that entering addresses on the web interface was actually more effective than typing them on the Express, since the server can do a better job of fuzzy-matching the data you type. There are plug-ins to allow you to send any text to the Dash unit by right clicking text and selecting "Send to Car."

In MyDash, you can browse "saved searches" for dynamically updating data—a POI-like request ("CVS" or "Sushi") gives you a Yahoo Local search criteria that you can send to the Express. But you can also copy GeoRSS and KML feed URLs from around the net at sites like Yelp.com and Chowhound, containing more exotic and time-dependent stuff—"Nationwide Airport Delays" and "California Surf Report." For the most part, everything we tried worked, save a Craigslist RSS of Seattle real estate. (But GeoRSS feeds are kind of tricky to find in the wild.)

• Over-the-air updates - The Express uses any open Wi-Fi network it can to pull chunks of update down as you drive around. You can teach it your SSIDs and passwords for best Wi-Fi, but it's not necessary. Dash will deliver a few different kinds of update that we'll cover below; the important thing is to think about the last time you updated your Garmin or TomTom. Your answer is most likely "never." If you have, you probably paid a lot to do it. Dash of courses charges $10 to $13 per month subscription, but promises a constantly evolving platform in return.
-Traffic data will be updated monthly, using historical data from Dash drivers. That means that the first one will be a good 'un, as the first crop of users starts putting on the mileage.
-Big map updates will come every six months or so, about the same time Tele Atlas will release to other vendors.
-The first major software updates with bug fixes and new features (see below) will come this summer, and then every three months or so.
-MyDash servers can be updated on a weekly basis, so new web features could be appearing all the time—not that they will.

Here's a video that explains it all very well, even if it does paint it rosier than we found in real life. (That's the part we get into next.)

The Test
For our testing, Brian drove from SF to Tahoe and back with hours of city driving; I did a roundtrip from New York up to Boston. When you enter a destination, Dash looks at mileage, road speed and known traffic in planning the trip, devising up to three possible routes. In my case, it never did more than two suggested routes, and usually the first was obviously the best, but it was reassuring that it had backups in mind.

Traffic currently works with a combination of historic data and real-time data. A solid red, orange, yellow or green line means that either a Dash driver is currently on that road, or the historic data has proven so accurate it's as good as realtime fact. Broken lines, commonly seen in this pre-launch period, show shakier historic data, or data from supplier Inrix that Dash hasn't verified independently. Inrix doesn't provde data for local roads, though, only highways. Any data on local roads comes from Dash alone.

Blam says:

Getting across town during rush hour is challenging even for locals. Using Dash and trusting its copious historical information about what side streets would be empty and which would be crowded, I managed to get across town to pick up a friend and back to my place to meet another darting through side streets I'd never even known of despite living in SF almost eight years. I can't stress how useful it is to have all this data, typically the kind you see on Google Maps on highways only, in my car. Even though Dash didn't reroute me automatically (It only opts to reroute you on drastic changes in arrival time), it was easy enough to follow the green lines and avoid the reds. Over time, even more local roads will be filled in with colored squigglies.

Dash uses traffic data to calculate the original route, so it doesn't automatically re-route you just because you hit a patch of congestion. Instead, it waits until your trip has been slowed by unplanned traffic. Any trip that lasts one hour or less gets delayed five unexpected minutes, and the Express offers to re-check the routes to see if there's a better way.

At one point just outside of Boston, when I had to drive through the same congested intersection several times, it was fun to see how the intersection's condition changed from moment to moment. (Sadly, I think I was the source of the data, which meant that I was unable to benefit from it. A crowdsource of one ain't much of a crowd... or source.)

Again, what's cool is that traffic data in the boonies will soon be available as historical or live meshed data as people drive through it. The Dash servers are constantly recording (without identifying) patterns.

To get a better idea of what real-time traffic looks like, check out this video of changes to New York City's traffic yesterday from about 3pm to just after 6pm. Pick a road and note how things get stickier as rush hour approaches.
Blam and I both suffered some routing issues, however. Mine was a traditional problem—a bad bit of map data (Tele Atlas) telling me to turn left when I couldn't, and haven't been able to do for years.

This is an unexpected usage model of the Dash. Sitting with it indoors, on Wi-Fi, as it updates the traffic model. When the traffic dies down, you can road trip. But Blam's situation was a bit stickier...

I'd been eyeing my Dash GPS on my desk all day, using it to tell when the drive from SF to Tahoe to drop below the 3.5 hour mark. At 11pm, on a Thursday before Easter, it was time to go. I loaded up the car, drove 20 minutes to the Bay Bridge, and jammed into some 0 MPH road flow. The Dash had reported yellow and red, earlier, but I didn't believe it so late at night (my fault). Right then, the other GPS I was using for a benchmark, a Garmin Nuvi, suddenly lit up with traffic data that the bridge was closed and rerouted me. Dash, for all its IP connectivity, had no clue, and continued to have no clue as the police redirected me to an exit. I later found out that road closure data wouldn't be on Dash until a later software update. And without that data, the Dash merely assumed I was exiting the highway of my own accord. The rest of the Dash users behind me would have no idea of the closing, either.

Competing With Other PNDs
Overall, as a portable navigation device, it was fairly responsive. I'd put its user interface somewhere between a Garmin (on the high side) and a TomTom (slightly lower down)—not counting the extra dimension of a web interface, of course. But while driving around, the Dash would occasionally turn bush-league, pulling amateur mistakes like being slow to recalculate after a missed turn.

Some of our other troubles pointed out other standard PND features that the Express is still missing:
• Scheduled road closures generally make it into any device with some kind of connectivity, be it FM or MSN Direct.
• Other navigators can string together several destinations as waypoints, where the Express has only a one-track mind.
• When heading into a turn, other navigators tend to zoom in to show key details—some newer TomToms and Navigons even specifically point out the lane issues. The Express has none of that.
• When the GPRS connectivity dies, Dash says the Express has just 1 million catalogued points-of-interest (others have 4-12m, and man, did we feel the lack of POI when the connection went down). The rest, of course, come from connectivity. But if you're out in the middle of nowhere with no service, you get the most essential stuff (gas, hotel, hospital, airport) but you don't get as many listings for luxury or tourist spots (Blam's favorite ski resort) as other PNDs.
• When redrawing maps and calculating routes, all that traffic data causes big lagtimes in zooming and setting course. This also caused delays in rerouting after missing a turn.
• Many GPS devices like Garmin's Nuvi line have language and currency translators for travellers, MP3 playback (lame), Bluetooth dialing and speakerphone, FM transmitters.
• This thing is big. And the mount looks like a crane arm. It is giant.
• UI not as clear as a Garmin's.
• The volume goes to 11, and yes, it is as loud as 11/10 should be, although sometimes overdriven a bit (crackly).
• The voice sounds like speak and spell had a daughter with Borat. I mean, a GPS shouldn't pronounce avenue, "oovenue."

Promises and Teases
Dash may be taking our laundry list of basic stuff to heart, but it's also hinting at plenty more crazy, unheard-of features in the updates to come:

• Automated correction of maps based on car flow that either wasn't there before, or has suddenly stopped - "We don't do any of that now, but that's something we think about a lot."

• Learning routes from drivers - People who know great shortcuts can eventually be traced (anonymously), and their routes can be incorporated into the Dash's own routing algorithms. "That's super important for the future."

• Real-time traffic data appearing on MyDash website, and not just on the Dash Express screen - "We're big believers in that, not just on the device but when they're sitting at their desk."

• Third-party services - There's an API for outside developers, and there was talk of some of these hitting at launch, but soon users will be able to pick through new apps and send them to their Express. "We are working with companies. We can't tell you who but our goal in this area is to make this as easy as humanly possible." Zillow, that real estate program that can detail the price of almost any house, was demoed in the past, but will not ship on the device. Driving up to a house and pricing it is amazing:

The Dash isn't perfect today, but it is great, and will be incredibly powerful in the future. Even with fewer than 20 production units in the SF bay area during testing, the traffic's historical and even Dash user updates were extremely useful. Traffic performance today is potent thanks to the historical data and its 15 minute granularity, and will undoubtedly get better by the day as more users sign on (live data is actually minute to minute.) The connectivity with Yahoo! works to give you unlimited POIs as long as your GPRS connection is there. And although the community of shared custom searches will thicken out later, programming your own is not going to be easy for your mom, ever. Ultimately, there's a certain lack of polish compared to the big Garmin and TomTom devices, in terms of UI and odd features. But the new lower price helps take away some of the pain, even when considering the subscription price of $10-$13 a month.

After a combined 1000+ miles of driving with Dash in a week, Blam and I agree. Geek to geek, we'd say go ahead and buy with confidence based on the IP features and powerful traffic features alone. And know that this thing will only get better in the future.

(Congrats, Dash, on building a great first product. But don't forget to keep improving this thing for your early adopters.)

Dash Navigation Now Shipping First Two-Way Connected GPS Device Exclusively in Amazon.com's Electronics Store

Award-winning Dash Express Now Available for $399.99 to Amazon.com Customers

SUNNYVALE, Calif., and SEATTLE, Mar. 27, 2008 - Dash NavigationTM, Inc. and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced that the highly anticipated Dash Express™, the first Internet-connected GPS device, is now shipping. Designed to deliver the most accurate traffic and destination information to consumers in their cars every day, the Dash Express is available for purchase immediately in Amazon.com's Electronics store at www.amazon.com/dash.

With two-way connectivity, Dash Express delivers traffic and destination information in exciting new ways, and offers a wide range of unique capabilities.

Key features include:

• TruTraffic™: Powered by the Dash Driver Network
Dash approaches traffic in an entirely different way - by collecting information from other people driving real commute routes, during real commute times. Each Dash Express anonymously and automatically sends its position and speed back to Dash's servers. The servers then update all of the other Dash devices in the area with current road speeds, providing the most up-to-date traffic information available. The larger the Dash Network grows, the better traffic information becomes. Even the first Dash devices in an area get great traffic data since Dash also receives traffic information from road sensors, commercial fleets and other sources through its partnership with Inrix, the premier traffic data provider in the U.S. Dash adds further value by using these initial cars to calibrate the sensor data. The Dash Driver Network provides coverage on nearly two million miles of U.S. roads, and offers the only source of traffic flow data for arterials in addition to highways. The Dash traffic model also tracks approximately ten times more road segments than any competitive products.

• Internet-connected: Live content in your car.
Unlike other GPS devices that can only access content from a static, pre-loaded database, Dash provides the most current, locally relevant information by using the power of the Internet, including Yahoo! Local search and other trusted websites. With a touch of a button, customers can find everything from the cheapest gas station (and sort by price) to the latest concerts, the best restaurants, the closest yoga studios, dog-friendly parks or even nearby apartments for rent.

• AutoUpdate: Advanced and always up to date.
With its exclusive AutoUpdate feature, Dash has the unique ability to update and improve the Dash Express without requiring customers to connect it to a computer. Dash can automatically and wirelessly update software, maps*, and historical traffic information.

• MyDash: Plan and personalize from your PC.
Using the Send2Car™ feature, customers can send any address from the Web or e-mail directly to their device in seconds. Customers can even use the MyDash website to find or create new search lists and categories, and send them right to the Dash Express.

"With more and more customers visiting Amazon to research and purchase GPS devices, our goal is to continue to offer a wide selection and exclusive access to the latest and greatest consumer technologies," said Paul Ryder, Vice President, Consumer Electronics at Amazon.com. "GPS is one of the fastest growing consumer electronics categories and we are pleased to be partnering with Dash to bring their next generation solution to our customers,"

"The synergy between Dash and Amazon make this a perfect pairing to bring this first-of-its-kind product to market," said Paul Lego, CEO of Dash Navigation. "Amazon understands and caters to our tech savvy target customers and Amazon's Electronics store is one of the first places they turn for product information and customer reviews. We can't wait to get the Dash Express into the market so that we can start providing great real-time information to consumers in their cars every day."

"Personal navigation devices have to transform into dynamic services that go beyond simple directions and provide daily relevance to consumers," said Thilo Koslowski, vice-president and automotive practice leader at Gartner. "Successful navigation offerings will leverage network-based and community-generated data insights to offer a complete navigation experience and to build the foundation for new innovative location-based services in the future."

Pricing and availability

The Dash Express is available at Amazon.com for $399.99 and qualifies for FREE Super Saver Shipping or free two-day shipping with Amazon Prime.* Dash Express comes with a FREE three-month trial period and monthly rates are available for as low as $9.99. As part of any service plan provided by Dash, customers get data usage, including all map and software updates, traffic information as part of the Dash Driver Network, access to Yahoo! Local search and unlimited access to MyDash. There are no extra cellular or WiFi charges—Dash takes care of it all.

More information about the Dash Express and Dash Navigation is available at www.dash.net.

* Some restrictions apply; see www.amazon.com for details.

About Dash Navigation, Inc.
Dash Navigation finds the smartest way for people to get from A to B, and find everything in between. The company is located in Sunnyvale, Calif. and is funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sequoia Capital, Skymoon Ventures, Crescendo Ventures, Artis Capital and ZenShin Capital Partners. For more information visit Dash Navigation at www.dash.net.

About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc., (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as books, movies, music & games, digital downloads, electronics & computers, home & garden, toys, kids & baby, grocery, apparel, shoes & jewelry, health & beauty, sports & outdoors, and tools, auto & industrial.
Amazon Web Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS), and Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, and the Joyo Amazon websites at www.joyo.cn and www.amazon.cn.

As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to the expected timing and financial or other benefits of the Audible.com transaction, competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, significant amount of indebtedness, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007, and subsequent filings.

*Some extremely large map updates may require a USB connection

**Dash purchasers will receive one month free Dash Service at initial turn-on and two additional free months Dash Service after registering at www.mydash.net. The Dash Service is available for as little as $9.99 per month.

Note: Dash Product and Dash Service subscription sold separately. Other fees and taxes, including a one-time activation fee to reactivate a deactivated Dash Product, may apply. The Dash Service and fees are subject to change, at any time as set forth in the Dash Service Agreement available at www.dash.net.

1. Each Dash Express anonymously and automatically sends its position and speed back to the Dash servers

2. Dash also receives traffic info from road sensors, commercial fleets and other sources through our partnership with Inrix [shown in dotted colored lines]

3. Dash then calibrates these sources against "ground truth" provided by the Dash devices actually driving the roads every day [shown in solid colored lines]

4. Dash then sends out updates to all of the Dash devices in the area with current road speeds

For an averaged sized metropolitan area it takes just a few hundred units for the Dash Driver Network to provide live up-to-the-minute data for most major roads during commute hours.

When the device hits the market, all those lines will go solid—green or red depending on whatever kind of hellish commuter traffic you're in for. Dash can steer you around it maybe, but it lacks the guided surface-to-surface missileage to actually make the other commuters go away. [Dash via NaviGadget]

• MyDash web interface lets you plan routes, browse through geoRSS feeds of different recommended destinations, and create Yahoo! search criteria (sushi restaurants in Boulder, CO) that you can send to the Express navigator as a search button. MyDash also offers user-generated searches and lists as well as static POS. It will soon feature third-party navigational POI lists as well, all options that you can choose to put on your system—or not. The coolest thing is, you don't have to think about these different sources of data if you don't want to, instead relying on a system-wide meta search with a variety of results.

• Send2Car is a freakin' amazing plug-in for Firefox, IE, Safari and Outlook that lets you right-click an address and, yep, send it to the Express's routes list. On Macs, you can just send any text. Have a look:

• Traffic data from three separate databases: the traffic-information provider Inrix, used by other GPS navigators; the historical data from the Dash database, which even now is being gradually beefed up by beta testers all over the country; and your own personal Dash database, which learns your local bottlenecks as you drive. The Express combines the data to make three different suggested routes for you to consider, with different time projections based on time of day and conditions.

• AutoUpdate for now means that traffic and software are automatically updated, but during my chats with Dash I've learned that at some point after launch, this service will include map updates as well, from provider Tele Atlas.

The first three months of Dash service are free The service plans break down a lot like TiVo's: If you want to tack on 24 months up front, you pay around $240. If you want to go month-to-month, it's $13. And if you want to round out the service to a full year (adding 9 months of paid service) it's an extra $100—the option intended for gift givers.

Of course, if you do plan to buy the Express for someone as a gift, you can only show them the receipt at Christmastime, since this pre-order corresponds to a delivery time of mid to late February. [Dash]

Award-winning Dash Express Now Available for Pre-Order

New GPS Leverages Two-Way Connectivity to Provide Real-time Answers to Drivers' Questions in the Car

December 17, 2007

News Facts

Dash Navigation, Inc. today announced that the Dash Express, the first Internet-connected GPS device, is now available for pre-order at the company's website (http://www.dash.net).

The Dash Express will be priced at $599.99 and will include three free months of Dash Service*.

While the Dash Express functions as a great GPS device even without the Dash Service, to take full advantage of the unique set of connected features including real-time traffic information from the Dash Driver Network, Internet Search, Send2Car and AutoUpdates, a subscription is required.

Consumers will have several options for subscribing to the Dash Service:

2 year pre-pay plan: Effectively $9.99 per month

1 year pre-pay plan: Effectively $10.99 per month

Month-to-month plan: $12.99/month
The Dash Express will begin shipping in mid-to-late February directly from www.dash.net followed by broader retail distribution in Q2 2008.

Product Features

While any GPS device can provide directions to get you from point A to B, the always-connected Dash Express gives you the information you need every day.

Superior traffic with the Dash Driver Network™: Select your route based on up-to-the-minute traffic data that is automatically and anonymously tivexchanged via the most reliable source - other Dash devices.
The Dash Express gathers traffic information from the Dash Driver Network and combines it with other sources of traffic data to provide you with the most accurate picture of what's happening on the routes you're traveling.
Only Dash provides traffic information for both freeways and local roads and side streets.
The Dash Express provides up to three routing options to your destination that are based on flow rather than incident data, and it has the ability to automatically alert you when traffic conditions change and route you around traffic problems on your route.

Find virtually anything with Yahoo! Local search: Connect to Yahoo! Local search to find unlimited points of interest—people, places, products and services.
Two-way connectivity gives Dash Express the ability to use Yahoo! Local search and other Internet search sources.
Unlike other GPS devices that come loaded with a static database of points of interest, Dash gives you access to unlimited points of interest based on your specific needs, and delivers key detailed information (i.e. gas prices, movie times) to help you chose the right destination.

Send2Car™ means no typing required: Simply highlight an address from any Internet browser or Microsoft Outlook and send it directly to your car.
You can use Send2Car yourself, or have someone else send it to your Dash device when you're already on the road.

MyDash makes it even easier to personalize your Dash Express: The MyDash portal (http://my.dash.net) enables you to customize your Dash Express.
Create your own lists and feeds or, if you prefer, import the great content created by other members of the Dash Community.
Easily send customized search buttons (i.e. LA Yoga Studios, Best Red Sox Bars in Boston, Toddler Playgrounds in New York City) straight to your device so you always have access to the places you want to go.

AutoUpdate™ means your GPS is always up to date: Dash Express is the only GPS that automatically and wirelessly updates software and traffic using two-way connectivity. You'll always have the latest features as soon as Dash releases them.

Currently, the cheapest jacket on the Express site is $148. So it could be said that this iPod pocket and fabric buttons tack on an extra $100, at most, which is really not worth it given that most jackets already have an inside pocket. Oh, and about who would wear it. How about this guy? I don't think I am cool enough to do that jacket/hoodie/vintage tee combo, but I know he is. –Travis Hudson

Express to offer iPod-ready 'Play List Jacket' [iLounge]

The rumor also says Apple's making this Airport Express act as a wireless router and print hub (it kind of is already) as well as a video streaming device. Will these features help Apple break into the living room market? Will this even be an actual product? We'll find out next week. – Jason Chen

Update: The current Airport Express is already 802.11g, apparently. I must have missed that when browsing through the site. Chalk it up to too much glue sniffing.

Apple to roll-out iTunes movies and 'one more thing' [Apple Insider via MacRumors]

- as we originally suspected, it predominantly affects users living in 220/230V-based countries (98% of the reports). - all defective APX have been manufactured by Foxconn during S2 2004 - as a result, all defective APX have a serial number starting with HS42, HS43 or HS44. - most of the defective APX have a product number either A1084 or A1088.

More info as we get it.

Issues with Airport Express Station: an Update [HardMac]