Many an Android device might soon have access to Google’s free map application, Navigation, but for those of you that can’t hold out until early November there is always the Garmin nüvifone G60 GPS Phone for AT&T. During the initial launch AT&T was asking as much as $300 for the handset. Now Amazon has it for a mere $99.99 (2 year contract required), which begs the question: is the Nuvifone G60 not selling well and how long will the GPS maker stay in the game? After all, the company just lost (the grammar police got me!) $1.2 billion from their market cap after Google announced their own FREE GPS app.
Wow, just wow. Not even 24 hours has gone by and the Google Maps with turn-by-turn directions for Android devices rumor has become official. As suspected this will be a free app and will be available when Android 2.0 launches sometime next month.
The feature set is robust to say the least and will easily rival, if not eclipse previous GPS applications and even some stand alone GPS devices. My favorite is that ability to view ’street view’ before the turn such that you can view landmarks before you change direction. Much like most stand alone GPS devices, Google Maps Navigation offers voice guidance, turn-by-turn directions, 3D view and the ability to search by point of interest instead of just address. And they’ve also added Google Voice Search. There a few vids of the app after the ‘leap’, so be sure to check those out.
Right now the app is advert free, but given Google’s model I’d expect them to start plugging those in as we move closer to a nonbeta version. So for instance, you’re taking a trip to San Francisco from LA. You might see ads for food stops, gas stations and such. More local routes might show you coffee shops or stores that relate to your previous search history, and so forth.
Today rumors emerged that Google is in the process of developing their very own navigation app for smartphones running the Android OS. It’s not clear if the application would be more robust than the iPhone’s current Google Map application and offer turn-by-turn directions, but given that they own the Android OS, and can essentially do whatever they want, it’s more likely than not.
Providing greater credence to the rumor is that Google just discontinued their relationship with Tele Atlas earlier this October, which charged Google for use of their map info – Google has a contract with them until 2013 to work on International maps. The break away from the map service provider indicates that Google has amassed enough map data over the years to go at it alone and in all likelihood offer an ad supported free version. …Continue reading: Gadget Rumor: Google Maps With Turn-By-Turn Navigation Might Be Heading To Android Devices
Today I’m going to introduce you to a truly awesome gadget that you can’t possibly get your hands on before Christmas unless you know somebody or can shell out epic bribes.
We’re talking about the eDGe, and this little beauty is worth the $490 you’d shell out for it for one very good reason: it’s a netbook and an e-reader. All at once. That’s right, it’s BOTH.
It’s WiFi enabled and looks vaguely like a Nintendo DS that you hold constantly upright, like an actual book. It runs on Google’s Android system, joining a growing family of same, and can serve all the functions of both a netbook (send email, instant messages, surf the web, run apps, write notes and so on) and an ereader (it’s got a 9.7 inch E-ink e-paper display on one side and a 10.1 inch LCD screen on the other, just so you know what side gets what)
Their creator, Virginia’s Entourage Systems, has started taking preorders for the devices, so you can sign up for them now.
Sweet Mary! Google is offering free WiFi on all Virgin America trips from November 10th to January 15th. If there is/was ever a way to get me to buy a ticket via email solicitation this has to be it.
Okay all you gadget crazed shoppers. I was just doing a search on Google about the new Sanyo Eneloop batteries when something odd popped up: a bar code. At first glance I thought this might be part of Google’s new shopping experience. It turns out that they’re simply celebrating the invention of the bar code and that it some how spells out Google. But this does bring up an interesting idea? What if Google started providing bar codes for product related searches? Once you find the product you’re looking for you could just print out, or better yet fire the page up on your phone and present it at the retailer of your choice to expedite your search. Sounds smart to me.
Cell phone buffs, listen up, because the long awaited arrival of the Samsung Behold II in the United States is coming on the order of soon.
The Behold II, which uses Google’s Android operating system along with Samsung’s own Touchwiz interface offers a 3.2 inch AMOLED touchscreen, a five megapixel camera, GPS and Bluetooth, plus a host of built-in Google services and a 3-D cube menu interface which is reportedly cooler than the other side of the pillow.
A lot more cell phones are working Android these days, and Google’s becoming almost ubiquitous in the cell phone arena. It’s a wonder not every cell phone includes this by now, and leaves me wondering just how long until the Justice Department wants a crack at Google.
Sometimes you want nothing more out of life than to be able to step through your computer monitor and go live on that magnificent stretch of beach pictured on your desktop. Google has sensed your plight, o cubicle dwellers, and offered up something to make it worse: a Google gadget called My Daily Hawaii.
My Daily Hawaii not only shows incredible beaches, but also offers up Hawaii trivia, history, travel tips and more. If you actually answer the Hawaii trivia right, though, you win a “super cute puppy picture prize”, which actually makes some sense.
Admittedly, if you live in, say, a cold Northern climate, you may well consider My Daily Hawaii to be a huge dose of masochistic glee, but for those of us who just like to look at a sunny beach as a quick pick-me-up in the cold black depths of winter, then this is a great piece for us.
Hewlett Packard’s just recently introduced a new software gadget designed to help you get a little more green with your daily computing and offers the Power To Change gadget, part of a whole lineup of said energy saving widgets from HP, Google and Microsoft, among others.
This gadget syncs up with various Windows power management features to shut down monitors and turn off unused computers completely throughout the day. HP will let you download that gadget for free, as well a host of other companies offering a similar gadget.
This is actually a really good idea. There’s more than a little potential for waste involved with computers, so helping users find a fast and easy way to save a little extra juice. Once you save a little extra juice one day, saving it every day can really add up to stomething big, which just might be the way to help everybody go a little greener.
There’s been a crap load of talk about Google Wave in recent, especially since they just invited 100,000 lucky folks to join the beta. But if you’re like me, you’ve probably paid little to no attention since the product seems far from going public and is probably just another complicated tool that is designed to simplify our lives. Well, not quite. At the core of Google Wave is good old fashioned email (ha!, who would’ve thought email would’ve been ‘old fashioned’?). But Google Wave is different. Hit the video below, but in short Google Wave offers a very succinct way of managing email communication between multiple parties and then some. There’s no public beta so I really can’t tell you more.
