Garmin's PDA and GPS goodies

MOST OF the consumer gadgets out these days are, well, boring. Cameras, PDAs, lightweight laptops are all being tweaked, but there's nothing really new out on the market from the traditional electronics manufacturers. Wake me up in two years and I might go look at laptops again; maybe by then someone will have incorporated OLED, MRAM, and a fuel cell into an under-4 pound package, but let's face it - same stuff, different day, little innovation.

Enter Garmin, (www.garmin.com) a "traditional" GPS manufacturer. While I'm not going to claim Garmin has introduced world-shattering revolutionary products, they are at least trying to break the mold of the current set of consumer products by crossing their GPS chips with different gizmos. The product getting the most press buzz is the Garmin iQue 3600, a Palm-based PDA with built-in GPS, including a flip-up antenna and integrated software hooks. The iQue has the typical map load integration one might expect so you can know the exact place where you are lost and also includes voice guidance. An optional kit allows you to strap it into the car and have it yell navigation directions. At $589 list, it's a bit pricey, but if you need the functionality it looks to be a lot better than the PDA+GPS grafted solutions.

I can't wait until the DEFCON lads put this piece of hardware together with the SanDisk SD Wi-Fi card, but that's entertainment for another day.

Another gizmo, the Garmin Rino, got a workout with the U.S. Army in Iraq. The Rino combines a GPS receiver with a two-mile FRS (i.e. walkie-talkie) radio. It does regular GPS, can be used as a radio, and (most cool) Rino radios can exchange position location information between units, so you can know where everyone is. A cool thing for the amusement park or for squad-level ops in urban warfare. According to an Army after-action report ( here ), the Rino was used more for GPS functionality since it worked a lot faster than the mil-spec PLGR issue kit. Using the radio tended to burn up the batteries and the radio wasn't secure. (The latest version of the Rino has a voice scrambler built in).

[We should also note one Garmin unit saved a Marine's life not a way anticipated by the manufacturer. See here.

Exercise geeks will be attracted to the Garmin Forerunner 201. At $160 retail and available just in time for Christmas, the Forerunner is a GPS wrist unit (well, looks like a fat beeper, but...) that will keep track of a workout, calculate the number of calories burned, and allow for all the data to be downloaded onto a PC. It's even got a "Virtual Partner" feature that allows you to race against a pre-set pace.

[Hmm...I wonder if Garmin can loan me one for Comdex this year so I can figure out how many miles I walk around the Vegas trade show floor. Or better yet, let me test one at CES, yes, that's the ticket...]

Now, what I (as well as many photo bugs and government agencies) would like for Christmas is an integrated GPS function into a digital camera. Wouldn't it be nice to run a cross-reference of photos from the last vacation onto a graphical map? Geo-stamping of digital video would also be another logical step, so a family's camcorder can document the place where they got lost on holiday. µ