Anyhow, the GPSmile 55 comes with the familiar 4.3” touch screen, which is a must-have for any GPS system. Other details on the connectivity options include bluetooth so you can get the “hands-free” calling system, and on the memory choices you can use a SD card to expand the storage capacity.

Windows CE 5.0 is the operative system being used on the Holux GPSmile 55, which goes along with the Samsung CPU running at 400Mhz (code-name S3C2440A). The battery life seems too good to be true, 10 hours using a 2600mHa battery. Last but not least, TMC traffic information is also available. Rumors mention a release date on early 2008.

ASUS R3
In other related GPS news, Asus has recently presented the R3 which is a UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) with GPS capabilities. Sadly there isn’t many information besides the 4.8” screen that gives a 1024*600 resolution, a built-in webcam, and a fingerprint reader for the most cautious ones.

Navi Clip
All the way from Japan, more exactly from a company named IO DATA, comes a USB that also features GPS. It only weighs 18 grams and is pretty small, measuring 53×24×11mm. The IO DATA Navi Clip has a price tag of approximately $200 and will become available next week.

Source: Coolest Gadgets

Exclusive to ProLink Solutions, SmartCart enables golf facilities with ProLink’s ProStar GPS system to detect when a cart has ventured off course grounds or into restricted areas on the course itself. Should a cart enter a prohibited area, the ProLink screen first warns the driver to leave immediately while signaling clubhouse personnel of the violation. If the driver does not comply, the cart automatically shuts off and can’t be re-started by the driver.

With SmartCart, an invisible boundary is created around the course property, preventing golf cart theft. Inside the perimeter, the course operator can choose which parts of the course to restrict at any given time, such as environmentally sensitive areas, water hazards, fairways on cart-path-only days, ground-under-repair, out-of-bounds or sections where maintenance is being performed. This keeps golfers from entering potentially dangerous areas while protecting vulnerable wildlife, flora and turf.

SmartCart is the latest innovation introduced by ProLink, which recently unveiled a ticker scrolling up-to-the-minute sports scores across the bottom of its screens. ProLink also features ScoreCast, the most widely used tournament scoring software in the golf industry. In 2006, ProLink introduced real-time, remote capabilities to its ProStar and GameStar units that set the industry standard for service and reliability.

“The SmartCart feature helps courses protect one of their most valuable assets, their cart fleets, while potentially reducing accidents and enhancing course maintenance practices,” said Lawrence D. Bain, CEO of ProLink Solutions. “The system is easy to implement, monitor and adjust as needed, giving course operators ultimate control over where carts can and can’t go. The introduction of SmartCart reinforces ProLink’s position as the industry leader in innovative, customer-based solutions and services and will be of great value to our golf course partners.”

Source: CNN Money

This project isn’t for the novice as it requires a good amount of skill to complete. In the end you’ll have a device that will receive SMS messages that will return a set of GPS positions.

The project isn’t cheap either, it will set you back around $280. The most expensive part is the GM862-PS module that will run you $183. If you just happen to have one of those lying around, then it’ll be a fairly cheap project for you.

Source: Slashgear

The latest GPS devices from Garmin and from Mio Technology–the Nuvi 680 and the DigiWalker C520, respectively–both provide detailed maps, but that’s only the beginning of their capabilities. Both products attempt to be all-in-one travel companions, each unit offering an SD Card slot for viewing images and video on its 4.3-inch touch screen, as well as for playing music files while you navigate or view your location on a map.

Garmin’s high-end, $675 Nuvi 680 adds the ability to stream directions and other audio through your car’s FM stereo. Mio’s $350 DigiWalker C520 lacks many of the Nuvi 680’s extras, but it’s a capable navigator with some nice touches of its own, at a much lower price.

In addition to the features you’d expect from a GPS device–clear on-screen and voiced navigation directions (including the mostly accurate pronunciation of street names), high-quality 3D maps, and a points-of-interest database–the Nuvi 680 offers a basic media player for viewing image and video files and for playing audio, including books downloaded from Audible.com. The device’s Travel Kit also contains a language guide that pronounces words and phrases in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, translated to and from English (you can download other languages and guides for an additional fee).

You also get one free year of the MSN Direct service, which provides traffic and weather information, gas prices, and movie times via a receiver built into the Nuvi 680’s 12-volt power adapter. After the first year you can pay a one-time fee of $130, or $50 a year. The traffic information is available inlimited areas, and even in those regions you may not be covered.

For example, I selected the northernmost section of the San Francisco region only to find that I was about 10 miles outside the coverage area. It wasn’t until I drove into the area that the MSN Direct information could download to the GPS. The initial download can take several hours, according to both Garmin and MSN, but I began receiving reports on traffic conditions along my route after only about an hour. When you encounter traffic the Nuvi 680 offers to route you around it, but I wouldn’t have saved much time with the alternates it suggested. Still, this feature could come in handy.

Another nice extra is the Nuvi 680’s Garmin Lock security feature, which lets you designate a four-digit PIN as well as a security location (such as your home). You must either enter the code or be at the security location to unlock the device.

On several occasions the Nuvi 680 delivered directions too late for me to follow them, while the Mio was more timely. This disparity occurred on both surface streets and the highway, while I used both products simultaneously.

All the most important features of the Nuvi 680 are available in Mio’s less-expensive DigiWalker C520, though without much of the polish. The one major exception is the ability to stream the device’s audio through your car’s FM radio. Even without this function, however, the C520 measures up fairly well, pronouncing street names as it directs you (although you have to change the default voice to get this option). The device’s 3D maps and trip information are easy to see on its wide screen, but the display isn’t as bright as that of the Nuvi 680, nor are the maps and other on-screen options as easy to spot. Each unit comes in a slim and light package measuring slightly under 5 by 3 by 1 inches, and weighing about 6.5 ounces.

Both products use the SiRF Star III GPS transceiver for fast and accurate positioning, although the Nuvi 680 generally suggested faster routes than the C520 did. The Mio GPS was also much less inclined than the Garmin product to give up on its first route suggestion and offer a true alternate. For example, both devices directed me into the teeth of morning commute traffic, and both recalculated quickly when I ignored their advice and took faster surface streets. But while the Garmin’s first recalculated route was my preferred alternate, the Mio instructed me to turn right at every subsequent intersection for about a half mile in an attempt to return me to the route it had selected originally.

You can sync your Bluetooth headset or phone with either device, but each supports a limited variety of phones. I was able to sync a Motorola Razr V3 with the Nuvi 680 only after I reset the phone’s “Find me” option. Repeated attempts to link the phone to the C520 caused the GPS to freeze, requiring a restart. I wasn’t able to complete the sync on the C520, even though the Razr is listed as a supported phone on Mio’s Web site.

The Mio DigiWalker C520 packs a lot of GPS features in a small, affordable box, but it lacks the polish and the range of features of the more expensive Garmin Nuvi 680. Many people will find such extras as the Garmin Lock security feature, the ability to stream sound through their car stereo, and the free year of traffic, weather, gas price, and other travel information well worth the Nuvi 680’s higher cost.

Source: Washington Post

But those prejudices have to change fast as there’s a new passenger in the car who won’t flinch at the threat of being dumped off at a street corner – the Global Positioning System, or GPS, unit. Developed by the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1970s, GPS devices can pinpoint a person’s location to within several metres by using more than 24 satellites that orbit approximately 18,000 kilometres above Earth. That’s why these gadgets are the newest must-have among outdoor enthusiasts and the directionally challenged.

Can’t figure out which way is north or south? No problem. If you’re like my sister who gets lost in Wal-Mart, a GPS unit is your new best friend. Type in an address and it’ll give you step-by-step directions as you’re on the road.

Like the time I was driving with a friend in Los Angeles. She had a portable unit suctioned on the dashboard and we were inching our way in the carpool lane on an exhaust-filled freeway near the Los Angeles International Airport. Only the GPS didn’t know we were in that lane.

As we approached an exit, the robotic she-voice became increasingly insistent with commands to “Turn right, turn right now!” My friend frantically started navigating her way through four lanes of traffic to make an off-ramp that was mere metres away. A shouting match ensued between me and the GPS. Fortunately, I won.

But my friend is not the only one relying on technology instead of eyesight. In December, a British ambulance crew transferring a patient to a London-area hospital relied on their GPS – and drove more than 300 kilometres in the wrong direction. According to a United Press International article, the drivers were told “to study their geography and learn to think for themselves.” What a revolutionary idea.

As with all technology that becomes available to the country’s pencil pushers, GPS units are popping up everywhere as stores slash price tags. The NPD Group, a market research firm in New York, reports about 106,000 units were sold in Canada in 2006, raking in $52.4 million. The firm says that’s a 923 per cent increase in volume and a 453 per cent dollar increase from 2005.

With numbers like that, marketers are salivating. Dunkin’ Brands was the first to litter the pristine digital roadway by signing an agreement with GPS manufacturer TomTom. Through this collaboration, users can pinpoint Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins locations in the United States by downloading the logos onto their units.

As if we’re not already having trouble watching our burgeoning waistlines. Now your uninvited passengers include virtual doughnuts and ice cream cones.

GPS technology also changes the rules for The Amazing Race and Survivor. Future shows could revolve around parachuting contestants into unfamiliar cities – without their trusty GPS units. Allowed only a dog-eared, coffee-stained paper map, the “Extreme Me Generation” would trod a circular path and collapse from exhaustion, unable to tell east from west and streets from avenues.

Before T.S. Eliot died in 1965, an age eerily devoid of our indispensable laptops, cellphones and iPods, the famed poet lamented, “Where is all the knowledge we lost with information?” Mr. Eliot, we still can’t answer that question.

Source: The Star

Now you can get your hands on this compact navigation device for $378.50 on Amazon.com
The Garmin Nuvi has 700MB storage, screen with QVGA resolution, SD card slot and features like GPS navigator, MP3/audiobook player, photo viewer, and world travel clock.

This Garmin GPS is preloaded with City Navigator NT V.8 with maps of U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico.

Measurements are 3.87 x 2.91 x 0.87 inches (W x H x D).

Source: I4U

The good news is that the driver wasn’t completely daft: She didn’t actually drive along the train tracks as if it was a road. Rather, she came to a metal gate market with a red circle, got out of her car, opened the gate, drove forward onto the tracks, then got out to open another gate blocking the way, only then noticing the locomotive bearing down on her.

Every GPS system includes countless warnings about using the device responsibly, something to the effect of checking for real road conditions and using common sense when following the instructions of a GPS device. Remember that GPSes are not infallible: They make the best guess about how to get from point A to point B the same way you would if you were looking at a map of a foreign area. And GPS maps can often be two to five years out of date, especially when displaying points of interest like restaurants and gas stations.

Source: Yahoo! Tech

LG Electronics is entering the consumer market for navigation devices in the United States with the LN740, LN735 and LN730. The LN740, available for about $450, comes with a 90-day free trial of live traffic information through Traffic.com, as well as a four-inch screen; the 735 ($350), and the 730 ($300) have 3.5-inch displays.

LG packs in just about all the accessories needed, including a car charger, an AC adapter, a car mount and an antenna for those places where satellite reception is poor. All units come loaded with mapping software from Navteq.

The devices play MP3 files and display photos loaded via an SD memory card slot.

While the units are primarily for car navigation, you can get the major tourist destination in a pedestrian setting.

Source: The New York Times

LG first introduced its Portable Navigator line, consisting of the LN740, LN735 and LN730 GPS receivers, back at CES 2007, and they are all now available at Circuit City and other major electronic retailers. The higher-end device is the LN740, which features a 4-inch display, access to traffic information, a day and a night mode for clear viewing in varying light, turn-by-turn navigation and preloaded maps of the U.S. and Canada. The LN740 also includes a points-of-interest database with restaurants and hotels. The GPS navigator will also play music files and display photos.

LG’s mid-range receiver, the LN735, has a slightly smaller display at 3.5 inches. Like the LN740, the LN735 includes preloaded maps of the U.S. and Canada, and offers turn-by-turn directions and a points-of-interest database. The LN735 also includes both 2D and 3D map formats, and can display photos and play music through its speaker output.

The last GPS unit in the line is the LN730, which is also the entry-level model. Like its big brothers, the LN730 includes maps of the States and our neighbors to the north, along with a points-of-interest database and music and image playback functions. The LN730 sports a 3.5-inch screen, which can display 2D and 3D maps in either day or night modes. However, the navigator seems to lack spoken directions.

The LG LN740, LN735 and LN730 are available immediately and cost $450, $350 and $300, respectively.

Source: InfoSync

It looks like the company’s now gotten things in order, however, making the new and improved device official and providing some details about it. Among the additions this time around is a new Cardo scala-rider Bluetooth headset that’ll relay directions straight to your helmet, as well as a new RAM mount that should let you use the unit with just about any motorcycle. You’ll also now be able to bring the RIDER’s GPS guidance along with you in your car, although you’ll have to drop more than $100 extra for that convenience. Look for this one to hit Europe by the end of May in both Western Europe-wide and U.K/Irelend-specific models for between £300 and £400 (approx. $590- $790).

Source: Engadget