Hasta La Gadget!

Magellan is surging with Google-ignoring optimism onto the iPhone with a new application and car-kit. Like the TomTom before it, the price of the application is high – $80 – but unlike the TomTom, the dash-mounted car kit (another $130) works with both the iPhone and the iPod Touch (TomTom will sell you a different box depending on your iDevice).

The Magellan has all the abilities you would expect from a GPS device — turn-by-turn, spoken street names and music control when hooked up to your car stereo — along with a noise canceling speakerphone and access to your iPhone’s contacts for quick address lookup. It looks like a solid application, and the choice between this and TomTom’s offering will come down to preference rather than quality.

Still, if Google’s turn-by-turn satnav application ever makes the jump from Android to iPhone, these for-pay options are likely to quickly wither. Until then, we guess it makes sense to try and squeeze as much money as you can out of your customers to pad the retirement fund.

Navigator Product page [Magellan]

See Also:

• TomTom for iPhone Boosts GPS, Adds Turn-By-Turn Directions …
• TomTom GPS Kit for iPod Touch
• Pricey GPS App TomTom Arrives for iPhone

If early sales reports are anything to go by, Activision’s DJ Hero franchise won’t be hosting too many impromptu Christmas tree raves this holiday season. Many gamers have been shunning the idea of yet another plasticy peripheral cluttering up their otherwise fastidiously neat abodes, but, for those with storage space to spare and would-be turntablist friends, the controller is now available separately for $70. That’s just $40 less than the package with the game and still a bit of an ask if it wants to match the popularity of its faux-stringed predecessors. The best things in music never go mainstream, yeah?

DJ Hero controller goes rogue, now available separately originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer loves it some Google. And unless Google’s trying to stamp out your revenue stream, who doesn’t? Now Acer chairman, JT Wang, says that he expects to be first to market with an official Chrome OS netbook — sometime in the second half of 2010 according to DigiTimes‘ sources. In fact, JT says that Acer’s been working on a Chrome OS device since mid-2009. This despite admittedly weaker than expected demand for its dual-boot Android netbook, the Aspire One AOD250. Guess even the Google halo isn’t enough to shoehorn its smartphone OS into a market dominating position on cheap ultra-portables. It’s worth pointing out that DigiTimes‘ moles aren’t saying anything new with the launch time-frame since Google’s target for its gold Chrome OS build has been 2H of 2010 ever since the lightweight OS was announced. Not that the timing matters too much since we’ll likely be seeing plenty of Chromium OS netbooks flooding the grey market long before the second half of 2010.

Acer to launch first Chrome OS netbook, Android-based Aspire One sales disappoint originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In one year alone we’ve seen robots shaking things up in such far-flung fields as fashion and interpretive dance. That said, our concerns are generally more prosaic — that’s why we’re most excited by the industrial strength autonomous sweepers developed by the likes of Fuji Heavy Industries, Sumitomo, and Subaru. Like last year’s model, their latest sweeps the floor, picks up the trash, is able to operate modded elevators, and comes equipped with laser sensors for avoiding obstacles and may even be outfitted with a camera. In addition, this new guy has slimmed down to about half the size (better for slipping into tight corners) and sports a twenty-four volt battery that gets about 2.5 hours per charge. The best news, however, is that it’s finally for sale! It should hit the streets of Japan by the end of next year for a price somewhere in the $35,000 to $46,000 range. We’ll take two. [Warning: PDF source link]

Elevator operating robot janitor goes on sale in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you enjoy the decimation of an industry as much as Google does then you’re going to love the latest rumor sourced from DigiTimes‘ manufacturing moles. According to the Taiwanese rumor rag, personal navigation device R&D teams at the manufacturing powerhouses of Foxconn (aka, Hon Hai) and Wistron have been shifted to other devices in the face of “declining PND orders.” Seems logical as GPS-equipped smartphones snuff out their dedicated forebears with the same converged precision that turned wrist watches into items of fashion. The strange part of this DigiTimes rumor is that said manufacturers have shifted those PND teams to focus on e-book readers and (are you ready?) MIDs. Man, if the world’s largest manufacturer of consumer electronics sees MIDs as a more economically viable option than personal navigators, well, maybe things are more dire for TomTom and Garmin than originally feared.

Manufacturers redirecting R&D on declining GPS device orders? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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