tech

Route 66 takes the high road

When Crave mentions sat-nav, our beloved readers probably think TomTom, possibly Garmin, or maybe even Navman. But, you guys should probably start adding Route 66 to your mental Rolodex of cool GPS devices.

We've just taken receipt of the trendily named Route 66 Chicago 9000, part of the new line of Route 66 sat-navs announced at CeBIT earlier in the year. The 9000 is the big daddy of the bunch and incorporates a 2GB SD card with detailed European maps, plus an RDS/TMC receiver--the anti-traffic missile of sat-nav warfare.

The unit looks fairly innocuous. Its 4.3-inch screen … Read more

Judge tosses out Jack Thompson's lawsuit against Gawker Media

GamePolitics.com is reporting that U.S. District Judge Paul Huck has dismissed anti-video game crusader Jack Thompson's lawsuit against Gawker Media, the publisher of game blog Kotaku. Thompson had claimed that Kotaku and Gawker Media had failed to honor his requests to remove "threatening" comments from several of their blog posts that were critical of his eagerness to blame video games for the tragic Virginia Tech shootings earlier this month.

On Wednesday, Thompson had added the blog-publishing company, which also operates other popular blogs like Gizmodo, Wonkette, and Valleywag, to a list of defendants in a … Read more

LG jumps on GPS bandwagon with three portable nav systems

You can now add LG Electronics to the growing list of consumer electronic companies entering the U.S. GPS market. First previewed at CES 2007, three portable navigation systems from LG are making their U.S. debut: the LG LN730, the LG LN735, and the LG LN740. Here's a quick breakdown of each device; they're all available now for purchase.

LG LN730: An entry-level system with North American maps and 1.7 million points of interest preloaded on the device. The unit is equipped with a SiRFstarIII GPS receiver and offers voice-guided directions, MP3 playback, and a photo … Read more

Hungry? Palore maps lots of restaurant reviews

When looking for a new spot to eat or shop, I tend to turn to Yelp (controversy aside) more than to other business rating sites. But I could be missing crucial comments made by someone outside of Yelp.

Happily, I just checked out a cool service that displays ratings from around the Web at a single glance. The browser add-on Palore aggregates business reviews from a variety of Web sites and displays them next to Google and Yahoo's local search results in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Currently Palore has data for some 2.4 million businesses in big cities … Read more

GM recruits MapQuest to cut out the middleman

General Motors and MapQuest have teamed up on a new service enabling drivers of GM's OnStar-enabled cars to use the Web to select and store destinations for their turn-by-turn guidance when out on the road. The new service, called OnStar Web Destination Entry, will allow drivers to find up to five destinations on MapQuest's Web site, then send them to the OnStar system directly from their computers.

The theory goes that these destinations can then be accessed while out on the road by connecting to the OnStar service center and selecting a stored destination via OnStar's automated … Read more

Salad days for green media

You can hardly walk by a newsstand, Web site or TV station these days without getting the message that going green can save greenbacks and the Earth at the same time.

For Earth Day, big metro newspapers featured green specials, while MTV's Pimp My Ride converted a muscle car to run on biofuel. Magazines as varied as Outside, Vanity Fair and Knit.1 printed green issues this spring (whether they used recycled paper is another matter).

Over the weekend, two more big-media outlets released green offshoots designed to show a mainstream audience that every day can be like Earth … Read more

VA Tech-related domain names blow in

In the past five days, hundreds of Virginia Tech-related domain names have been registered that appear to be suspect, security experts warn.

And they further note that these potentially malicious sites have been registered at a quicker clip than those for Hurricane Katrina.

In sizing up the Virginia Tech domain names, which deal with the shooting massacre at the sprawling campus, security researcher SANS Institute noted: "Some of them are used for benevolent purposes. However, a good share of them are parked for auction and even used for fraudulent donations."

SANS, with the aid of outside security researchers, … Read more

Throw-and-go 'invisible' UAV

To see and remain unseen is what military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) aspire to. In keeping with that goal, Vera Tech Aero has developed the "virtually invisible" Phantom Sentinel.

The aircraft's tripod, boomerang design reportedly relies on the "concept of persistence of vision" for invisibility.

Apparently, the aircraft operates in such a way that it fools the eye/brain motion-detecting apparatus. Because the Phantom's single rotor blade is located outside its fuselage and because it spins in flight it is "virtually undetectable to the human eye", according to Vera Tech.

The UAV … Read more

Russian petroleum and electricity direct to North America

Those friendly Russians want to bring more energy directly to your doorstep if you live in North America. That means digging the world's longest tunnel. The proposed project would dig a tunnel over 60 miles long beneath the Bering Sea, surfacing at two islands en route.

Next week a coalition of Russian businesses will present this plan to Canada and the U.S. If it moves ahead, the tunnel would be twice as long as the one now connecting Britain and France.

The tunnel would connect major highways and pipelines yet to be constructed. The hope is to deliver … Read more