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]

Vladimir Putin Tests Russian GPS on His Own Dog

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been pushing for a Russian satellite navigation system known unfortunately as GLONASS, and yesterday the system had its first launch: a tracking collar for the PM's dog, a black labrador named Koni. According to Putin, "She's wagging her tail, she likes it." More »

Long Overdue GPS Upgrade Could Save Airlines $10 Billion a Year

Technically speaking, you have better navigational capability in your car than the entire airline industry. Why? Because they are still relying on an antiquated WWII era traffic network that often takes aircraft on zigzagging routes towards radar beacons—costing carriers billions of dollars in wasted fuel each year. To make matters worse, the plan to upgrade the system has been stuck in the planning stages for more than a decade thanks to funding issues an the complexity of such a switchover. More »

Hands-Free GPS Device for the Blind Could Make You a Superhero

The Navigation aid for the Blind headset is a GPS device, which not only works through speech recognition, but also uses obstacle detection technology that alerts the blind of any sleeping bums or other obstructions he could trip over as he is being guided to his destination. More »

Broadcom Wi-Fi Chips to Have Skyhook Wi-Fi Positioning Built-In

Broadcom already makes a boatload of the GPS chips found in mobile phones and other location-aware gadgets, and now they're adding Skyhook's Wi-Fi positioning service to most of their mobile Wi-Fi chipsets, spreading the location-based love even without GPS. This is how iPhone regular finds your location in addition to using nearby cell towers (Skyhook IDs your position by comparing to those of known hotspot SSIDs in the vicinity), so look for even more location-based services coming to more phones in the future. [CNet]

Sanyo Updates EasyStreet GPS: NVM-4370 has 7 Million Interest-Points Preloaded

It's been a while since we talked about Sanyo's GPS systems, and it's not exactly a huge name in the game, but Sanyo's kept working away and now has the NVM-4370. It's a 4.3-inch screen GPS with Bluetooth, text-to-speech, all the usual media player functions and an FM transmitter to broadcast audio through your car stereo. So far so good, but it also comes preloaded with seven million points of interest to help you when navigating, and its maps cover the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. It's also got a hookup point that accepts reversing-view cameras. Not bad for $300. [Navigadget]

Dial Directions 411 Phone Service Automatically Beams Routes to Your Dash GPS

Call up "DIR-ECT-IONS" (clever) on your way to the car and tell the friendly robot who answers where you want to go, and you can have a route beamed to your Dash GPS over the web instantly. Dial Directions already works with a few other online and mobile services, but this Dash integration is a pretty great trick. Just pair your cell number with your Dash to get started, and start entering routes without having to stoop over and tap in your directions. [Dial Directions - Thanks, Dave!]

Mio Leap K1 GPS-Cellphone Reveals Its Dual-Sided Strangeness

The two gadgets in that image aren't a separate cellphone and GPS navigator, oh no, they're something far stranger: a dual-sided gizmo dubbed the Leap K1. From Mio (recently in the news with its Knight Rider themed GPS) the device is a quad-band phone with 2-megapixel cam and Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, that also does both GPS and AGPS navigation: you simply have to flip the phone over. A Chinese site has got their hands on one and unboxed it, and you know what? It's actually an attractive piece of kit. We'll have to wait to see if its price is equally attractive, and there's no info on when it'll be released. What's your take on this, guys... weird or weirdly useful? [Mobile01 via Navigadget]

2200T Is First Entry-Level GPS with Lifetime Free Traffic Info, Says Navigon

Navigon recently popped up with a high-end GPS with free-for-life live traffic info, followed by some similar models from Garmin, and now it's got a new entry-level model with the same feature. The 2200T is in fact the first "genuine entry-level GPS navigator" with free lifetime traffic, according to Navigon. It's also got the same Reality View system with lane assistant as it's more expensive sibling, with 3D-illustrated junctions to help you traverse complex intersections, a text-to-speech function, 3.5-inch touchscreen, SiRF GRF3i+ GPS chip with InstantFix II ability and an integrated traffic data antenna. It'll cost you around $229, but for that you'll always know if there's a jam up ahead. Press release below. More »

Navigon 7200T GPS Has 3D Landmarks, Free Live Traffic Info

Navigon's upcoming 7200T GPS unit has some pretty high-end features: voice destination entry, photo-realistic 3D views of roads with lane guidance icons and 3D landmarks built-in. But its niftiest feature is free real-time traffic info updates with no subscription fees, for life. That's just got to be handy, and comes over an FM receiver from Clear Channel’s Total Traffic Network. The 3D road rendering is designed to stop you making the mistake I made last night: mistranslating a GPS display onto the complicated road interchange I was trying to cross because the two looked different. The Lane Assistant feature even tries to give you advance warning of which lane you'll need to be in before a junction. It's due in October for $449. Press release below. More »

TomTom Go 940 Live Leaked: Includes Live GPRS Traffic Data and Google Searches

A "leak" at a UK online retailer's site reveals a whole bunch of info on TomTom's Go 940 Live GPS system: it looks like the system comes with a GPRS unit to give it live traffic and fuel-price info and the ability to Google search. Yep, alongside the IQ routing and intelligent lane advice that the Go 930 and the new Pro units have is a TomTom HD Traffic unit using GPRS to garner local traffic info, weather conditions, and lets you Google for whatever info you might need on the road. That traffic info is gathered "via anonymous cellphone monitoring," but whether its these units that do the uploading, or a different system, is unclear. The unit's available on pre-order in the UK for around $800, with the Live service likely to cost $10-$15 per month, but there's no data on when it'll hit the US. [Handtec.co.uk via GPSLodge Thanks, Jay!]

Suunto X10 GPS Watch is Basically Perfect for Tomb Raiding

Suunto has just added to its range of GPS watches with the new X10, but this gizmo doesn't just do navigation and time-telling. It's also got an altimeter function, barometer, digital compass and thermometer: Exactly the sort of equipment any self-respecting real tomb raider would find darn useful. More »

Tomtom's Pro 4000 and 8000 GPS Units Come with Support Package

Tomtom has just come up with a suite of GPS systems for the "mobile workforce" dubbed the Pro series. The first units are the Pro 4000 and Pro 8000, and while the hardware is essentially unchanged from non-Pro models, there are a few tweaks. Firstly the software has a "menu lock" option, that's supposed to lower distractions and improve driving safety, the maps come with a free update that's to be used within a year, and there's a PIN lock to protect your data. Secondly the support package comes with a two-year extended warranty and a dedicated customer service line. The 8000 also has advanced IQ navigation, which plans routes using actual average drive times, and voice address-input and Bluetooth handsfree calling. The 4000 is out for $330 and the 8000 for $460. [Navigadget]

Low-End Korean GPS is Basically High-End 7-Inch Screen PMP, for $190

The normally navigation-focused guys over at Navigadget have spotted something interesting: The "low end" Easycar U7 GPS system heading for Korean drivers at the moment is basically a pretty high-end media player with a 7-inch touchscreen. As well as helping you navigate, the 0.75-inch deep gizmo plays audio and video files, has a text reader, photo-viewer and accepts digitally-broadcast TV. Check out the gallery to see it in action, and go mad when you learn it costs the equivalent of just $190. More »

Kapsys' Kapten is Screenless, Voice-Driven, Key Ring-Sized GPS

This tiny GPS system from Kapten shuns the current preoccupation for large, high-detail touchscreens... it has, in fact, no screen at all. There're a bunch of led-lit icons at the top, indicating car-, pedestrian-mode and so on, but that's it. All navigation requests and instructions are made by you talking to the Kapten and it talking to you. It's apparently aimed mainly at pedestrian users, and measuring 2.9 x 1.7 x 0.5 inches is small enough to slip onto a key ring. Somehow there's a Bluetooth chipset in there, alongside an MP3 player and FM radio, and it packs 4GB of internal memory. Sadly, the only instructions it'll utter will sound like "Tournez à droite, dans 100 metres" since it's being released in France next month for around $220, and there's no info on whether it'll move outside the land of the moody pout. [Navigadget]

Asus R710 GPS with Head-Up Display Demoed on Video

This is some video of Asus' swanky new GPS model that projects data onto your windshield, saving you from distracting yourself from the road by peering at a device screen. So will the R710 make you feel like you're flying a fighter aircraft with glitzy HUD graphics? No, not really, as it projects just some very basic info, like distance to next turn and which direction you're going in. But if it prevents accidents, and makes navigating across tricky junctions a little easier since you won't have to move your eyes from the road, seems like a great idea to me. [Navigadget]

Garmin's Nuvifone Gets Delayed 'Til 2009

Garmin has just made a announcement stating that the much-hyped Nuvifone GPS/cellphone product is going to be delayed until the "first half of 2009." Apparently "meeting some of the carrier specific requirements will take longer than anticipated," so it's going to miss its previously mentioned slot at the end of this year. Sounds like bad news for a phone that's entering an increasingly populated multi-purpose handset market. [GPSTracklog]