GPS Car Tracking Systems

Increasingly popular GPS market with personal navigation devices hasn’t been really affordable, but Navigon, the perspective growing brand, is going to change the situation and offers NAVIGON 2100 max and NAVIGON 2120 max personal GPS navigation devices in the US and Canada.

Navigon promises affordable value with top-of-the-line features, so that consumers don’t have to break the bank for exceptional quality of GPS navigation.

• New DirectHelp points a user’s location and shows links to nearby services (pharmacies, hospitals, tow truck company, roadside assistance).
• 4.3 inch widescreen is also included, as well as spoken driving directions via text-to-speech.
• Exclusive feature is Reality View to view photo-realistic 3D images of sophisticated roadsets.
• Lane Assistant to assist the user in choosing the correct upcoming turn
• Automatic Speed Warnings to post speed limit and warn while exceeding the regulation speed.
• Route Planning was found only on high-priced devices – plot your route in details
• NAVIGON 2100 max holds software with optimizations to routing and user interface.
• Navigon devices are compatible with FreshMaps service with up to 12 quality-controlled maps with a three-year period of updates.
• Lifetime Traffic to track traffic flow, incidents and alternate routes.
• ZAGAT Survey Ratings and Reviews for resorts, hotels, spas, other attractions and nightlife in more than 70 U.S. cities.

Andreas Hecht, NAVIGON’s president for the Americas, claimed that affordable products without sacrificing high-ranked features is their priority to appeal to a wide range of customers.

The NAVIGON 2100 max and NAVIGON 2120 max go with stylish black casings. Map views and a user friendly interface give high level of detail and information with millions of  loaded points of interest for quick and intuitive navigation.

The NAVIGON 2100 max is for the continental U.S. with MSRP of $299. The NAVIGON 2120 max contains maps of the continental U.S. and Canada with MSRP of $329.

For more information visit navigon.com or experiencenavigon.com.

British designers of the Ixp-Note, which is 1mm thick and features a built-in alarm clock, stated that this note card would allow the user to enter the time and date of an upcoming event by touching the note card with the finger. When time comes, the note will beep or flash.

• The user can write the event that they are afraid to forget on a glowing strip, which will be programmed to remind in time by beeping or flashing.

• Thermo-chromic ink is intergrated to change color in response to temperature .
  
• It provides low-cost electronic circuit printing technology as in musical greeting cards.
  
• No worries about battery life – it lasts up to a year.
  
• Low cost at 2 pounds each (with a pack of ten)

This mixture of touchpod and alarm was originally designed for Alzheimer’s patients, but surely it can be used all around the office or home. So it foreshadows a new memo technology that will help remember any event, every date.

Telegraph investigated that the notes will be on sale next year.

Who never heard of Apple AirPort Extreme? This post is specially catered for you! Have taken the Apple AirPort Extreme for tests, we decided to answer several questions at once:

1. Is there any sense to overpay for 802.11n support?
2. A real speed of transmission via 802.11n?
3. Is Apple AirPort Extreme qualitative and functional?

I’m going to compare functionality of AirPort Extreme with AirPort Express and a wireline network. Who owns Apple Airport Extreme? The situation: the two above-mentioned access points are connected to the net via Planet and 3Com routers. There’re around 20 computers in the net, 6-8 out of them are linked up with WiFi. The rest of them are connected with a high-speed twisted-pair cable. Quite acceptable conditions for small networks. I set up connection between these nets and the notebook Dell with WiFi Adapter Intel 4965.

I don’t see a reason to test it very profoundly. Generally, gadgets are created to be used in small offices and at home, where there’re some clients of various types and several walls and obstacles that are in the way of signals.

Apple Air Extreme

A nice white flat box made is the perfect wireless solution for home, school, and business. Traditional Apple style. There is a transmit indicator on the front panel of the Apple Air Extreme, and the important thing about the back panel, is that there’re 3 GB LAN-ports, a LAN-port for a modem, USB-port.

Previous series were supplied with 100Mbit ports, but now they are rarely met.

Designers created three built-in antennas for WiFi 802.11n support. A user can choose just one of three frequencies in the range from 5 GHz to 2.4 GHz due to a two-way radio.

Apple is famous for its style and cutting edge designing. Apple AirPort Extreme is no exclusion. Engineers of Apple supplied AirPort Extreme with the support of WPA/WPA2, WEP (40-bit, 128-bit, RADIUS), Mac filtration system, and DHCP, NAT, PPoE, VPN Passthrough, DNS Proxy, IPv6 and SNMP.

Software package for Mac OS and Windows are supplied as units. Access point is realized by means of a special program - wizard.

The wizard helps users to resolve hardware conflicts, set up data protection, and adjust network options, etc. IMHO, the application is functional and easy-to-use, and operates better than the web-interface.

Among a wide variety of settings one can choose the frequency (5 GHz or 2.4 GHz) and firmly set the type of a network (b, g, n).

In-built USB-port may be used to connect a Flash-disk or a printer. AirPort’s built-in print-server allows us to use the printer directly via the net. The most important point, however, is that Mac users shouldn’t customize the printer. The Wizard does it for them.

AirPort Utility automatically detects the networked USB-HD or flash disk, offering to define a password and access rights. The program uses the protocol Apple Bonjour (French influence?), that considerably makes the work easier and speeds it up.

Access Control

AirPort Extreme is in close proximity to the client (no more than 7 m). Let’s test it.

There’s only one client in the net. The data is transferred to the computer (the 100Mb netcard).

With the 1Gb netcard.

The system is purely experimental. Data transfer goes to the AirPort Extreme, then to router, and reaches the AirPort Express and the client with the netcard (operating according to 802.11g standard).

It goes without saying, that synthetic tests show striking results. It was found, that the 100Mb receiver transmits data better than the 1Gb one. By the way, the experiment was tested with the use of SiSoftware Sandra Professional Business XII.SP1.

And for consideration let’s see the work of AirPort Express.

An unloaded net, the 1Gb netcard.

6 clients connected to the AirPort Express, the same computer.

6 clients connected to the AirPort Express, data transmission between these 2 computers.

On the balance, it should be noted that we answered the asked questions. Is there any sense to overpay for 802.11n support? Yes, it is! At worst, you’ve got doubled performance and speed. Who owns Apple Airport Extreme, one should be very lucky!

The average transmission speed is ensured by a stable transfer of DVD-video via the net in case of connected several clients. Therefore, you can set up your own wireless home hub.

The Apple AirPort Extreme proved itself on the good side. The gadget is packed nice, looks extremely well. During the tests it hung only one time.

Everex has made available MyMiniPC, a compact desktop for providing the opportunity for MySpace and Desktop messaging, that makes it much easier for friends to get Myspace features at hand and interact on the popular social-networking site.

The desktop can be compared to Apple’s Mac Mini in size. It runs a flavor of Linux called gOS Space 2.9, which is made to get direct access to MySpace features including news, photos, videos and music.

The use of social-networking tools grows and thus users demand more intuitive access to the tools. MyMiniPC has it integrated into the desktop. Since MySpace and Facebook pay much attention to accessible programming interfaces, much development lies on tools and visualization of interface.

“The PC fires up MySpace applications and features three-dimensional special effects in the OS user interface, providing an experience MySpace users have never seen before,” said David Liu, founder and CEO of Good OS, which developed gOS for Everex.

“We’re targeting a totally dedicated MySpace user, who spends hours on MySpace talking and interacting with friends. Never in a way has [MySpace] been introduced with a desktop,” Liu said. “We envision a desktop filled with social-networking applications, that allows a user to be more productive independently but also to interact with friends.”

The gOS Space 2.9 version of Linux is available as an independent download from Good OS’ Web site for other PCs. However MySpace interface may not be compatible with other PCs as the OS was specially designed with MyMiniPC specifications in mind.  So use  MyMiniPC  for Myspace and Desktop messaging!

Specifications:

• Intel Pentium dual-core mobile processor at 1.86GHz
• 512M bytes of RAM
• 120G-byte hard drive
• DVD rewriteable drive,
• integrated Intel graphics,
• Firewire and USB ports,
• wired networking and multimedia ports (including DVI and S-Video).
• 2 pounds in weight

The desktop is priced at $499 and does not include a monitor. It is available at Everex’s site.

See PC World for details

If you do like reading, the Reader Digital Book PRS-505 from Sony is just what you need! Enjoy reading a variety of your favorite books, which are stored up digitally in one compact device.

The Reader Digital Book can house 160 eBooks or even hundreds more with optionally supplied memory cards. It has a portable size, which allows you to use it while traveling. The eBook Store from Sony gives you the opportunity to download any book titles or documents in Adobe® PDF, RTF, TXT, BBeB® and Microsoft® Word. It is also supplied with long-life battery and possesses paper-like screen technology.

If you are on the go, pick up this wonder with you to carry thousands of reading material on you wherever you are. “The Reader can handle a stack of books and other documents that people would rather not carry, yet offers a ‘book-like’ reading experience unavailable with other electronic devices,” said Steve Haber, senior vice president of Sony’s Digital Imaging and Audio Division.

“Since launching almost a year ago, we’ve confirmed that Reader owners are avid book readers and great customers of our growing selection of book titles. Publishers are responding by making more electronic titles available, and, increasingly by making them available at the same time as print versions are released.” said Lee Shirani, vice president for eBooks at Sony CONNECT.

So check out its features:

• Ultra portable
• Amazing paper-like display
• Good storage capability (160 eBooks, much more with memory cards)
• Thousands of titles at eBook Store

Specifications:

Technology

•    E Ink® “Electronic Paper”

Screen Size

•    Approx. 6″ Measured Diagonally

Resolution

•    170 Pixels Per Inch

Gray Scale

•    8-Level Grey Scale

Unsecured Text

•    BBeB Book, TXT, RTF, Adobe® PDF, Microsoft® Word (Conversion to the Reader-requires Word installed on your PC)

DRM Text

•    BBeB Book (Marlin)

Unsecured Audio

•    MP3 and AAC

Image

•    JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP

Battery Type

•    Rechargeable Lithium-Ion

Battery Life (Approx.)

•    Up to 7,500 page turns

Recharging time

•    Approx. 4 hours with USB charging from powered computer or approx. 2 hours when using optional AC wall charger

AC Power

•    Optional AC Charger requires 120 Volts 60Hz

View or buy this product at Sony’s official site