You know if you have a directionally challenged person on your holiday gift list. They’ve called you on more than one occasion while they’re driving, they’re hopelessly lost and you have to not only figure out where they are but also where they need to be. I personally have had to do this with a family member and I actually had to go by landmarks, gas stations and national hotel chains in order to figure out where the lost soul was then calculate the route to get where they actually need to be by using Google Maps.

The perfect gift for this person is an automotive GPS unit. But which one do you choose?

If it were up to me, I would pick one of the models from TomTom based upon the new feature they’re offering. In a partnership of sorts with Google, they offer integration with Google Maps with any TomTom GPS unit. From the TomTom website: Read the rest of this entry »

Columbus Geographic Systems has just released yet another GPS navigation system so that you will be able to find your way to your parents’ home this upcoming holiday season without getting lost - not a very simple thing to do especially when you’ve been away from home for a couple of decades and many new buildings have sprouted up all over the place. Dubbed the Ranger, this offering from Columbus is the company’s most recent off-road navigation application.

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The definition of handyman can be seen as “a man skilled in various odd jobs and other small tasks” - something rare to exist nowadays. Right ladies?

Anyhow, the following 10 gadgets are suited for the almost-in-extinction handyman, from cookers to campers, and GPS lovers, we’ve got it all here.

The products are ordered by price, not by usefulness or multi-functionality.

Garmin GPSMap 76 Handheld GPS Navigator

This Garmin GPS System is made for the handyman that likes the marine life, aka driving boats. It doesn’t have much internal memory, only 8MB that are suppose to be used when adding more data from the MapSource CDs.

Other features include 500 waypoints + maps of rivers, lakes, worldwide cities, and more + computer that shows info about trip distance, average speed, and a timer.

Price: $160
Product Page

Black & Decker Alligator Lopper Electric Chain Saw

If this Black & Decker existed 50 years ago, I bet it would be a hit for sure.

The Black & Decker Aligator Electronic Chain Saw has a 4.5 Amp motor, and a 4-inch cut limit. You can use it to cut small (or big) pieces of wood to use on your fireplace, unlike what happens while using a manual chain saw, you won’t get tired.

Take a big bite out of fallen trees, tree limbs and brush with the Alligator Lopper, a revolutionary new cutting tool that provides chainsaw-like cutting performance in an un-intimidating and easy to use tool. With its scissor-like action, the Alligator Lopper’s rugged metal jaws clamp onto logs and thick branches, as well as smaller tree limbs and vines and then saws through them with ease.

Price: $99
Product Page
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Kenwood recently paraded its prototype pen-shaped navigation system at the Tokyo Motor Show 2007, with old folks and beginners being the target market in order to get them familiar with its controlling navigation device. All you need to do is point it at a place on the map with the designated pen and the corresponding region information will show up on the navigation monitor. The big question is this - what happens to those folks who have no idea on how to read maps at all?

Source: AVing

Hand Held Products is famous for its range of image-based data collection solutions for mobile applications, and the company has just dropped an announcement that it has equipped its Dolphin 7900 Mobile Computer with GPS technology. This upgrade makes the Dolphin 7900 the first and only industrial-grade mobile data collection solution to come with a fully integrated GPS chipset that is currently up for sale to the masses, while the rest of its competition play catch up.

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Google have recently released a native version of Google Maps, for Symbian.

Compared to the older Java version of the program, this has lots of advantages, the most obvious being start-up speed and runtime speed. Every animation is smooth, loading times are blazing if you have a good connection.

An added feature would be the GPS support. This is really cool as long as you have an always-on connection, especially when on foot. It’s got all of the search features you know from the online version of Google Maps.

Read on for some hands-on reports and screenshots.

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How many times have you actually went off for a long holiday, snapping gigabytes after gigabytes’ worth of photos only to return home without having a clear memory of exactly where they were taken? With the QSTARZ Super 99 Bluetooth Solar GPS Travel Recorder, you don’t have to worry about suffering from memory lapses ever again, since this dual-powered GPS travel recorder is capable of logging up to 200,000 waypoints on each journey courtesy of the support for Geo Tagging of photos along with the ability to share your current location with friends over Google Earth. You can choose to have it operate using its integrated battery which can be recharged via a nearby power outlet, or using the integrated solar panel instead which is capable of powering the device for up to 48 hours at a stretch after achieving a full charge via natural sunlight.

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It may look like a phaser (well, only vaguely), but it’s the coolest stargazing aid to come out this year. The Meade MySky allows you to explore the heavens simply with a point and shoot. It’s database comes with 30,000 objects in the night sky and also can show cool multimedia astronomy presentations. And thanks to its 12-channel GPS receiver, there’s no complicated alignment either. It’s all automatic, which is something previous attempts at a handheld observatories have been woefully lacking at.

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