GPS

Shoe phones are so passe. If Maxwell Smart were around today, he'd most certainly have some GPS footwear instead.

A company called Quantum Satellite Technology plans to market a pair of shoes with built-in satellite transmitters and "panic buttons" that can immediately signal the location of the footwear, according to The Raw Feed. Let's hope that they can't be hacked to penetrate the "Cone of Silence."

Soon you'll never have to leave your car while on business out of town. Starting in March, Avis will make any one of its rentals a potential Wi-Fi hot spot using a service from a San Francisco-based start-up called Autonet Mobile.

For $10.95 a day, according to The Raw Feed, customers can rent a portable "In-Car-Router" that provides wireless high-speed Net access. The main challenge will be dropped signals, which have bedeviled other mobile access products, but Autonet told the International Herald Tribune that it has overcome that problem with a new "wireless router" … Read more

Thin isn't all it's cracked up to be, despite what Kirstie Alley might say, especially when it comes to phones. Nevertheless, Samsung claims to have come up with the slimmest slider phone of its kind, the "Ultra Edition SGH-Z720," which measures a wispy 0.54 inches thick and weighs just 2.8 ounces.

The phone's design is still wide enough to include a 2.1-inch screen, a 3-megapixel auto-focus camera and a second camera for video telephony, according to Fareastgizmos. Notable software features include preinstalled Google mobile search and Gmail, as well as support for … Read more

Yachting can be such a trying leisure activity. All that champagne to chill and whatnot. The last thing you need to worry about is something so proletarian as steering. The "Minn Kota RipTide Wireless CoPilot" from Cabela doesn't drive the boat by itself, but it may be the next best thing. Uber-Review says the small remote, which can be worn on the wrist or a belt, has five simple buttons that can control speeds and turns. Perhaps most important of all, the remote--yes, it's waterproof--can also float in case the party gets the best of you.… Read more

With gadgets and their components getting smaller all the time, it makes sense that amplifiers should join the trend. But this is ridiculous.

Oki Electric Industry, according to Fareastgizmos, has debuted a chip that includes a "stereo-playback-capable DAC (Digital Audio Converter), 3D surround functionality and speaker amp"--and can easily fit on a fingertip with plenty of room to spare. The amplifier can improve sound quality on any number of portable devices, ranging from digital dictionaries to cell phones and GPS navigators.

All this is well and good, of course, but we ask you: Can it really compare … Read more

There's one thing that brings people together every holiday season, and we're not talking about the mall: It's car accidents. Bad weather, bad drivers, bad last-minute-shopping attitudes make for a deadly combination. So Crave is doing our part to spread cheery thoughts by passing along the "RoadBox."

This "vehicle accident camera system" from South Korea, according to Red Ferret, "incorporates a speed and acceleration monitor to give you some all round information about the circumstances leading up to the crash, 14 seconds before and 6 seconds after." It just goes to … Read more

It's a simple fact of life: Good ideas often miss something obvious that would make them great ideas. One example is GPS devices for locating lost or missing children.

Many of the tracking technologies we've seen are basically one-way systems--you stick a sensor onto a backpack or clothes, then the parent tracks it with a main unit. But why not make it work the other way around as well?

The "i-Kids" safety system promises to do just that, giving your child a device that allows them to touch a single button that alerts you to … Read more

Technology's anorexic trend in has claimed another victim, this one a GPS device. Taiwan's Power Digital Card claims that its "Guide Dog" is the world's thinnest navigation kit, according to Navigadget. Even if it's not, this dog still hunts. Its roster of impressive features includes a 4-inch display, built-in antenna, 3D gaming, Web browsing, e-mail and a "parking sensor," whatever that is. We can't verify all these claims, but they already had us with the 4-inch screen.

Like many Japanese and European parties that Americans have arrived woefully late to, (see also: soccer; 3G networks; Law, Jude), the personal navigation device is just now going mainstream.

Though it's obviously not the only to do so, ViaMichelin released its first personal navigation device for the North American market this week after ignoring us for six years in favor of our apparently more direction-challenged European counterparts.

Using SiRFstarIII GPS receiver technology and NAVTEQ digital map data, the X-930 model can give voice and text directions for driving in the car and walking down the street.

Weighing in at … Read more