GPS Nüvi Blog

The popularity of personal location devices, led by Garmin and followed by dozens of other companies, and the growing reach of social networking sites like Digg may soon be merged as new technology seeks to integrate multiple features into smaller (and more powerful) devices.

Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Fark, Reddit, del.icio.us, Facebook, and the internet’s other social networking sites serve mainly to spread news and gossip to niche audiences, as well as to connect people with common interests. In the future, this concept will be used for more explicit and immediate commercial purposes, possibly even relying on the public to do the work (like they do now on Digg and other sites).

A few years ago, GPS devices just told you where you were on a crude little screen. Then maps were added, and this was quickly (and inevitably) followed by extensive listings of gas stations, restaurants, malls, and all the other institutions that keep well-heeled urban areas chugging along.

It is obvious that this will soon become a standard, unremarkable part of driving (or just being - GPS has already begun its metamorphosis from an automotive device to a personal one, like a cell phone). And to keep things interesting, you will be able to use your GPS to contact friends, share info about meeting places for lunch or shopping, and trade opinions and votes for various stores. Over time, people will gravitate towards those merchants who garner the most votes. Other merchants will go out of business.

Like Digg’s egalitarian system where votes send popular web pages to the top of the heap, so personal GPS devices in the near future will take the leap beyond reflecting what exists towards influencing what succeeds.

And who knows? Maybe social networking by GPS will even give some smaller shops the exposure they need to, if not conquer the Wal-Marts of the world, at least coexist peacefully with them.

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On January 28, 2008, GPSnuvi.com has added a constantly-updated text box on every single Garmin Nuvi model page, reflecting the latest pricing information of that model from dozens of vendors on the internet and allowing users to easily see where the best deals are.

This example graphic shows info for the Garmin Nuvi 260, reflecting January 28 information.

As of now, three prices are displayed:
• Garmin’s suggested retail price.

• The average price of (usually) 20 vendors chosen for closest relevancy by Google’s Checkout service. This offers an accurate reflection of what people are paying through various popular websites. This price will fluctuate as vendors come and go from Google’s relevancy algorithm, and as prices and deals wax and wane. The constant updates assure that this price is up-to-the-minute, a vital statistic on the internet.

• The average price of all the currently available units for that Nuvi model on eBay. This price is restricted to items with a “Buy It Now” price (i.e., a set price for which you can buy the item right now without waiting for the auction to finish). This restriction is intended to keep these comparisons apples-apples (only Nuvis that are buyable right now), but if a shopper can wait a few days for an auction to end, he or she can usually get the GPS even cheaper by poking through the listings. There is a limit of 100 listings from which to take the eBay average price. (In the example above, 18 relevant eBay auctions were found, a good comparison to the 20 Google vendors.)

The GPSnuvi.com “Price Trends” text box was designed to be easily read at a glance, giving a quick idea of the savings available wherever that may be. (Actually, it wasn’t originally intended to be a tool for eBay promotion per se, but the consistently huge price difference in eBay and regular internet vendors [in favor of eBay] is hard not to notice. It won’t always necessarily be that way though; if the non-eBay average is lower than eBay, the text box will reflect that too.)

The pricing information is automatically gathered and calculated once an hour, all the time.

To see the price trend information for any particular Garmin Nuvi model, click the corresponding menu item on the left.

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BMW has announced that for its Series 1 and Series 3 (pictured) cars, they will soon include a Garmin Nuvi 360 GPS navigation device.

The Nuvi 360, which features Bluetooth capability, an mp3 player, pre-loaded maps of the fifty United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, as well as Garmin’s longest-lasting battery (up to 8 hours), is a good choice despite the fact that it is far from Garmin’s top of the line.

Best of all, the GPS will feature a custom dock on the dashboard of the BMW and will be powered behind the scenes through this mount, so extra wires won’t be necessary.

It is unclear whether the dock will be able to accommodate a different Garmin GPS should the driver decide to upgrade in the future, though presumably it could also be fit with a Nuvi 370, which features maps of Europe as well as North America, for those who need it.

For in-depth specs and features of the Garmin Nuvi 360 click here.

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After bragging that he could fool his employer (the town of Islip on Long Island) into believing his company vehicle was parked at his house by removing the GPS inside, thus freeing him to use the company car for his personal use, Emery Dicey was caught doing just that when his humorless Big Brother employers stuck a second GPS on the underside of the car, tracking it one day and sending a goon out to spot Dicey as he apparently slept in the vehicle’s back seat in a hotel parking lot.

Although an employee of the town for 30 years, Dicey apparently chose the wrong job if he wanted an employer who had a human attitude and could see things in perspective. When your bosses are so paranoid and controlling that they start spying on you and planting GPS devices to monitor your comings and goings, it’s time to look for a new job.

Some will say that the employers were in the right because Dicey was misusing company property. To those people we say, relax and get a life. When someone has given you thirty years of their life, they’re entitled to a little personal rebellion, especially if it’s of a nature that hurts no one and costs next to nothing for the company. If that realization doesn’t come naturally to you, you have no business being in charge of anyone or anything. One imagines the managers gathered around a computer screen in a small airport office, flush with the excitement of their clever 007 trickery and immediately taking on a misguided, self-important sense of piety and duty.

But to Emery Dicey, we say: next time, try not to go bragging about your misdeeds. What you did wasn’t that bad, and the way you were caught is creepy to the nth degree, but it’s awful hard to blame anyone but you.

(We tried to get more information about Long Island MacArthur Airport for this story, but their official website doesn’t cover much and is still dated 2007, which didn’t fill us with confidence anyway.)

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In a recent ice fishing contest in Chetek, Wisconsin, big guys in big coats landed big fish from the frozen waters of Pokegama Lake for the usual array of prizes that would appeal to folks from more rural areas: a 12-foot ladder/tree stand; a two-man ice shelter; a whole bunch of rifles; and our personal favorite, a $150 taxidermy gift certificate. (Try pawning that off on your local businessman on his way to a power lunch.)

But the top prize was that favorite new toy of urban drivers: a Garmin GPS. Jeremiah Ganske pulled in a 9.91-pound pike to claim the Garmin Street Navigator.

If it’s true that rural communities are the true arbiters of a society’s trends, this may be taken as evidence that personal GPS devices have truly found their way into long-term consciousness. (Another prize was a Playstation, video games having conquered the hinterlands years ago as a way of killing time.)

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