Hasta La Gadget!

We know that iOS 6 will bless iPhone users with some in-house-made mapping, but that hasn’t stopped Telenav from bettering its own Scout navigation offering for Apple’s favorite handsets. Scout now does offline navigation by letting users download maps of the west, central or eastern United States over WiFi only. Plus, Scout now takes voice commands, so on your next road trip you can tell it to find the nearest Whataburger whether you have cell signal or not. Interested parties can head on over to the App Store to get their download on, but you’ll pay for the privilege — offline navigation costs $9.99 a year or $2.99 a month, though the free, data-dependant version of Scout for iPhone still includes speech recognition. Still not sold? Perhaps the video after the break will persuade you.

Continue reading Telenav’s Scout gives iOS users offline navigation in exchange for ten bucks

Filed under: GPS, Software

Telenav’s Scout gives iOS users offline navigation in exchange for ten bucks originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Aug 2012 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google has expanded its Maps traffic coverage before, but rarely on a grand scale. The search giant isn’t standing on tradition this time: it just flipped on live traffic data for at least the major roads in over 130 cities. Most of the coverage centers around smaller cities in the US, although Google is tipping its hat to Latin America with first-time support for Bogota, San Jose (in Costa Rica) and Panama City. Coverage has also been improved in a dozen other countries worldwide. While the widened reach still won’t ease the burden of anyone already caught in a traffic jam, any democratization of smarter driving directions is good in our book.

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS

Google Maps adds live traffic for over 130 cities, boosts existing coverage originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Aug 2012 18:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Interior technology is increasingly the main battlefield for automotive giants. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that Chrysler is bringing in some bigger guns for its Uconnect service through a team-up with Sprint. The carrier will integrate its cellular data into a Uconnect Access system where the source of pride is precisely how little Chrysler drivers will need to touch it: the two want voice commands that cut down the amount of involvement needed to plot a new course, change the music input or send a text message. Smartphones also get much more of a say in the matter this time around, providing remote control to open and ready the car before owners even set a foot inside. WiFi hotspot support carries on as well. Just be aware that you’ll have to go big or go home to get an early taste of the new Uconnect — it’s available only in the 2013 model years of the Ram 1500 and SRT Viper for now, neither of which is especially gentle on the pocketbook.

Update: It looks like the 2013 Dodge Dart R/T will also get the Uconnect goodies, which Sprint’s press release neglected to mention. [Thanks, Nathan]

Continue reading Chrysler taps Sprint for new Uconnect in-car data, wants always-on internet that’s hands-off (video)

Filed under: Transportation, Wireless, Networking

Chrysler taps Sprint for new Uconnect in-car data, wants always-on internet that’s hands-off (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 23:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Geotagging. It’s not exactly a long, lost art, but it’s certainly not something most folks bother to do after a trip. Avid travelers, hikers and the general outdoorsy crowd have been embracing the feature for years, though, and it’s actually seeping into the mainstream without most individuals even noticing. How so? Smartphones. Given the proliferation of iPhones, Android handsets and Windows Phone devices making their way onto the market — coupled with the explosive use of geo-minded social networks like Path, Instagram and Foursquare — an entire generation is now growing up in a geotagged world. Phone users have it easy; so long as there’s a data connection and an embedded GPS module (commonplace in modern mobile devices), there lies the ability to upload a photo with a patch of metadata embedded. Snap a shot at a national park, upload it, and just like that, viewers and friends from around the world now have an idea as to what a specific place on the Earth looks like.

Solmeta N3 geotagging module review

Columbia’s GPS Pal app for Android and iOS

Casio Exilim EX-H20G (with Hybrid GPS) review

For travel hounds like myself, that’s insanely powerful. I’m the kind of person that’ll spend hours lost in Google Earth, spinning the globe around and discovering all-new (to me, at least) locales thanks to the magic of geotagging. It’s sort of the photographic equivalent to putting a face to a name. By stamping latitude, longitude, altitude and a specific time to any given JPEG, you’re able to not only show the world what you saw, but exactly when and where you saw it. It’s a magical combination, and with GPS modules finding their way into point-and-shoot cameras — not to mention external dongles like Solmeta’s magnificent N3 (our review here) — there’s plenty of opportunity to start adding location data to your photos. For more on the “Why would I want to?” and “How would I best display ’em?” inquiries, let’s meet up after the break.

Continue reading Embracing geotagging: how to journal your trips (and contribute to Google Earth) with snapshots

Filed under: Digital Cameras, GPS

Embracing geotagging: how to journal your trips (and contribute to Google Earth) with snapshots originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 12:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’ve sung praises about it for years, but it seems like only now the industry is getting on the same train of thought. It could be my unnatural adoration of travel, or just an entirely healthy fear of getting lost, but offline navigation has long since been a top priority for me when choosing a mobile device. Or, more importantly, a mobile operating system. For the longest while, iOS forced my hand to Android due to Google Maps Navigation being available only on the latter, and while even that wasn’t offline, it still far surpassed any other routing app in terms of system integration, map updates and general silkiness.

Even dating back to our 2010 mobile GPS shootout, Nokia has been a player. At that time, it was the outfit’s Ovi Maps leading the pack, offering the only legitimate offline solution amongst a legion of ho-hum alternatives that required bits of data to keep you on track. But frankly, there wasn’t a Symbian device in Nokia’s stable that could show up my Nexus One in terms of overall utility, so begrudgingly, I pushed it aside. Eventually, Google came around and added caching to routes, which effectively downloaded all routing guidance along your path as soon as you plugged in a destination. The killer, however, was that it wouldn’t take too kindly to veering far from that path should you ever drop signal. Close, but no cigar.

Fast forward to today, and we’ve got Google Maps already working in offline mode for Android 2.2+ devices. Furthermore, the company’s Brian McClendon confessed to us at its June 2012 ‘Maps’ event that it’s “committed” to bringing all of the app’s features to iOS (and potentially other platforms). But in my haste to find something in the here and now, I recently turned to the Lumia 900 for guidance. Literally. Back in late March, the Lumia-exclusive Nokia Drive application gained full offline access, and I sought to use the handset exclusively to navigate a 1,900-mile trek through some of America’s most remote locales. How’d it go? Join us after the break to find out.

Continue reading Nokia Drive offline navigation review: taking the Lumia 900 for an off-the-grid spin

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Software

Nokia Drive offline navigation review: taking the Lumia 900 for an off-the-grid spin originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 11:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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