And it is certain that if ever you turn away from the Lord your Mio, and go after the Garmin, I bear witness to you today that destruction will overtake you. —Deuteronomy 8:19(ish)
Just a few days after the new series premiere, RadioShack has announced that it scored exclusive rights to sell Mio’s Knight Rider GPS in the US. I already have a GPS unit, but the geek in me wants to buy this thing just to hear William Daniels tell me where the nearest McDonald’s is. The KITT GPS is available now for $US270. [RadioShack via CNET]
The two gadgets in that image aren’t a separate mobile phone and GPS navigator, oh no, they’re something far stranger: a dual-sided gizmo dubbed the Leap K1. From Mio (recently in the news with its Knight Rider themed GPS) the device is a quad-band phone with 2-megapixel cam and Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, that also does both GPS and AGPS navigation: you simply have to flip the phone over. A Chinese site has got their hands on one and unboxed it, and you know what? It’s actually an attractive piece of kit. We’ll have to wait to see if its price is equally attractive, and there’s no info on when it’ll be released. What’s your take on this, guys… weird or weirdly useful? [Mobile01 via Navigadget]
The Knight Rider GPS that everyone was drooling over a few months ago is now available for pre-order on the Radio Shack website in the US and Sears in Canada for US$270 and US$290 respectively. The device is set to ship on September 24th. [Radio Shack and Sears Thanks Will!]
Mio has come out all guns blazing with the release of three new satnavsfor the Australian market. They all look exactly like the Moov 380 we saw from the US back in June, although none of these local models have a built-in SIM card slot to let you make calls from the device.
All the new models are using Navteq maps, which (I believe) is a first for a dedicated device in Australia (I’m sure you’ll let me know if I’m wrong). There’s also a cool tech called instant GPS fix, which recalibrates the expected position of the satellites in the sky every three days to get your position quicker. Plus, each of the new models has a 2 year warranty.
The entry level Moov 300, which will have an RRP of $349, has a large, 4.3-inch widescreen display. They’ve rejigged the interface as well, so you get large icons (like TomTom and Garmin devices). There’s text to speech (so it reads out street names for you), which is a nice addition to an entry level unit.
But it’s the mid and high-range units that make the new Moov range interesting.
Mio’s new Moov 380 GPS just passed through the FCC, complete with the ability to make/take phone calls and send/recieve SMS texts. The GPS unit comes with a SIM card slot, allowing for said cellular functions as well as an SD card slot for storage. In addition, the Moov 380 comes with a SIRFStarIII GPS chip and cellular data speeds would range between 2.75G and 3G.
newVideoPlayer("/knightridergps_giz.flv", 476, 286,""); I got a sneak peek at Mio’s new Knight Rider GPS, and it’s more fun and cheesy than I expected. As you can see in the video, William Daniels, the original voice of KITT, guides you as you cruise the streets, fighting crime. Flashing red LEDs are synced up to the speech, and the screen marks your location with a Pontiac Trans Am icon. My favourite part is that is has 300 names built-in when you’re done pretending that you’re Michael Knight and you want KITT to call you by your real moniker. It’ll be US$270—a bit less than we thought—when it’s out in August. [Knight Rider GPS]
I already have a GPS unit but I’ll be dammed if I’m not throwing it out because the guys at Mio have come up with a Knight Rider branded GPS unit with voice prompts by the one and only Mr Feeny KITT William Daniels. Apparently, you will recognise his familiar voice as soon as you fire it up and hear “Hello Michael, where do you want to go today?” As an added touch, the display is flanked by a series of red LEDs that mimic KITTs hood-mounted lights. Further details are scarce, but we do know the Mio Knight Rider GPS will retail for US$299 when it is finally released. [Next Autos Thanks Dan!]
In this week’s Giz Explains, we’re doing a quick rundown of a sweet technology that has evolved from a (deadly) serious military application to becoming a household utility, found in all kinds of gadgets: GPS.
