GPS

How Ford makes its cars smarter

I remember when Paul Mascarenas was named CTO of Ford. It was January 2011, and literally days later he made his way to the CNET stage for a chat at the Consumer Electronics Show. About 18 months later, the company opened its new Silicon Valley Lab to try and emulate the pace of innovation found in the electronics industry. These were very real indications that Mascarenas and Ford would place more than lip service on being in the midst of consumer electronics, and not just in the car business.

Mascarenas is part of CEO Alan Mulally's reinvention of Ford … Read more

Scout bridges navigation gap between car and phone

LOS ANGELES -- If you ever read an address off your phone and typed it into your car's navigation system, you experienced one of the biggest disconnects between smartphones and cars. At the LA Auto Show, Telenav demonstrated how its Scout navigation app solves this problem.

Last September, Ford and Telenav announced that Scout was compatible with Ford's Sync AppLink app integration feature. Sync AppLink lets drivers control compatible apps through their car's interface. Scout was the first navigation app to work with AppLink, and joined a growing number of compatible apps.

Telenav's Mark Burfeind demonstrated … Read more

MirrorLink turns cars into dumb terminals

LOS ANGELES -- Modern cars play digital music, guide us to destinations, and respond to voice commands. But so do our smartphones. Through a technology called MirrorLink, the Connected Car Consortium (CCC) hopes to rid us of this duplication, using the car's LCD and interface to show navigation and play music from a smartphone.

The MirrorLink initiative turns the car into a dumb terminal, lacking much in the way of its own computing power and relying on the phone as its processor. One advantage of this system for the user is that the same data stored on the phone … Read more

Ford upgrades Fiesta tech with LCD, navigation

Last week Ford told us the 2014 Fiesta, the smallest car in its lineup, would be offered with a new, fuel-saving 1-liter EcoBoost engine. Ford notes this week that the 2014 Fiesta will also get a new version of its MyFord Touch infotainment system, which marks the first time this model gets a navigation option.… Read more

Take control of your car's tech with these six apps

OK, so you you can't remotely drive a BMW with a phone like James Bond does in "Tomorrow Never Dies," but there are plenty of real apps that will let you take control of your car and its tech with little more than your smartphone and a data connection. From beaming destinations to your Toyota's navigation system with Entune to remotely unlocking your doors with GM's OnStar RemoteLink, we've rounded up a few of the best car-controlling apps. … Read more

GPS pioneer takes aim at the future of navigation

The pace of modern consumer technology has been so swift in recent decades that you can still meet the people who helped change the world, and find that they're still at it and working on what's next. Bob Rennard is an example.

He was one of the developers of the GPS technology we rely on today, and is a co-founder of TeleNav, a provider of GPS-related software and services. The company called me and offered to have Rennard explain its Scout platform. I'm normally reticent to come do a story on a product pitch, but the key … Read more

Ultrathin Wallet Trackr monitors your billfold without the bulge

Maybe you're less forgetful than I am, but I'm pretty sure that most of people have, at some point or other, realized all too late that they've left their wallet at home or in the car. (If you're like me, this happens at least weekly.) With the help of your smartphone and an app, Phone Halo's new Wallet Trackr can let you know that you've misplaced your billfold, clutch, or purse before you get too far away from it.

If you've read our review of the Cobra Tag (which is also powered by … Read more

Nokia, Navteq show us how a map is made

If you've ever wondered where the map data that powers your smartphone or portable navigation device comes from, then you're in luck. Nokia stopped by recently with the new Lumia 822 Windows Phone 8 handset, its new Nokia Maps 3.0 app, and the awesome, street-scanning Navteq True car.

Sitting atop the True car is a pretty impressive bit of data acquisition equipment.

At the top of the tower is an array of cameras that capture a 360-degree street view as the True car rolls down the road. This scanned data is used in the street view that … Read more

GPS buying guide

I get it. Portable navigation devices (PNDs) are a bit archaic at this point. In a world where every smartphone and tablet has some sort of GPS receiver built into it and most cars offer some sort of navigation option, buying a standalone GPS navigator seems both superfluous and archaic.

Yet, the PND market is far from dead. There are still a number of good reasons to choose a standalone GPS device. So if you're interested, here are our top picks.

Garmin Nuvi 3490 LMT

The Garmin Nuvi 3490 is the flagship of Garmin's line of GPS navigators, … Read more

GPS apps that let you know where you've been

When most of us think about GPS apps for smartphones, we're thinking about navigation apps that help you to get wherever you happen to be going. However, there's a whole range of GPS logger apps that are designed to keep track of where you've been.

Tracking your historic position, movement, speed, and elevation is very useful for fitness, as evidenced by the selection of fitness apps below, but it can also be fun. For example, after exporting the .GPX data from a GPS logger app, it can be imported into Google Earth or similar software to create a 3D flyby or, as is the case in the image above, 2D virtual artwork on a massive scale.