SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - Via Springwise a HUD (Heads Up Display) for car GPS units that draws the line of where to drive on your windscreen. It’s called Virtual Cable.

The makers of Virtual Cable say they have a better solution. The New York City area start-up has designed a heads-up dashboard display that virtually ‘paints’ a highly visible line above the road ahead. The line curves precisely where a driver using an in-car navigation device would normally be instructed to turn. Follow the line till you reach your destination. It’s that simple.

I love technology like this. Love it. But, I’m worried about this one. You just know that some unsuspecting fool will follow the HUD not the road and driving into an oncoming car or sit in the wrong lane as the HUD told them to.

Especially at night… isn’t this plain scary? If there’s problems with people following the tail lights of the car infront, what behaviours will this invoke?

At least tail lights are a safe bet.

The upside to this is, the driver does not have to focus on a small GPS map on the dashboard.

I disagree with this as a safety point…

The driver does not have to interpret audio commands or translate map symbology.

Still I’d love to try this and see it for myself…

Do check out the videos of it on their website and post your opinion on safety below.

-Robin-

(Image Credit: From the MVS website.)

IRELAND, DUBLIN (Geared Up Blog) - Just out this month it looks like Garmin have tried to combine looks and function. No more cables needed to link up with the computer as the Forerunner 405 communicates wirelessly with your computer. The other major difference is there is now a power saving mode which will let battery last 2 weeks in this mode. Or the battery life training time is 8 hours. If someone is looking to double up their training watch as their everyday watch as well then maybe this is the thing for you!

Long runs, tempo runs, speed drills. You expect a lot from your body…and from your training gear. Meet Forerunner 405. This GPS-enabled sport watch tracks your training, then wirelessly sends your data to your computer. The ultimate in training technology, its sleek design features a touch bezel that lets you quickly scroll and select features on the run.

People may be thinking now, ‘will I upgrade to the new Forerunner 405 or not?’ Well in my own opinion i don’t see it as an upgrade just a new part of the range. This watch is aimed at people who want everything from a watch. Being able to train with it on and it not looking out of place in an office environment. I think the Forerunner 305 will continue to sell well while the 405 explores a different area.

-Eoinod-

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - The Water-Buoy, a flotation device for your keys has appeared on Springwise, one of my favourite sites for ideas.

As featured on BBC’s Dragons’ Den last night, young entrepreneur James Halliburton is bringing an innovative solution to market for boaters who are worried about losing valuable items overboard

It works very much like a hydrostatic release on a lifejacket. At a certain water pressure it pops open a valve releasing gas. The impressive thing here is, this tiny keyring can lift 1kg.

Once the Waterbuoy hits the water, the gas inflates the balloon and the submerged item is pulled up to the water’s surface. Aiding retrieval at night, an integrated LED light switches on and keeps flashing for 24 hours.

Much like Alex’s dark thoughts about his Life Bag being used on long flights, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if this went off in your pocket on a dance floor.

-Robin-

(Image Credit: Images from Water-Buoy, montage made by Springwise)

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“He jumped from 40,000ft without a parachute…” Know the lyrics? Travis Pastrana does! This Moto Cross rider (world famous for performing backflips on a motorbike) has jumped out of a plane wearing only his boxers and holding a can of Red Bull. No Parachute!

In the promotional stunt, after getting the required film footage his dive crew ’soared’ over to him and attached his hidden harness to a chute in free-fall and pulled the cord. Nice! How much could have gone wrong with this one?! Story via Goblog I think.

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TrackMyJourney.co.uk apparently a great tool for GPS linkage to your mobile phone. Must run a test myself!

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Outdoor bloggers Rock & Ice writing competition. Neal & Dave, boys you should enter this with your stories!

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Video of MAX Adventure (Fiennes cancelled trip due to funding) and the landrovers they were using that had modified wheel bases to take tracks on them. Very cool vehicles for Ice work.

1997 - Wales, Alaska. Reconnaissance of the Bering Strait to establish the feasibility of driving across the sea-ice from Russia to Alaska. This was part of a bigger project to drive around the world from the west of Ireland to the east of Newfoundland, to celebrate Land Rover’s 50th anniversary. Led by the renowned explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the project was cancelled due to costs.

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Project your GPS speed onto your windscreen
for a real HUD (Heads Up Display) system like out of Star Wars.

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Have an amazing weekend!

-Robin-

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - Stephen Nork has just posted his review of the new Nokia 6110 Navigator phone. The phone is as much camera-phone as a GPS handheld unit.

Stephen did some great testing of the unit with the free Nokia Sports Tracker software loaded on his Symbian S60 model. Check out these screenshots.

So we went for a little hiking trip this weekend and the Nokia Sports tracker tracked our entire 20km walk (plus 7km back by train).

This phone looks great, and I’d quite like one. Nokia, fancy giving TGU a review model? Read the full review.

-Robin-

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - Google have just launched ‘Street View’ on Google Maps. It appears they have driven around large US cities with a 360 camera mounted on a vehicle taking panoramas every 20 metres. This is fantastic.

Try this link to Times Square, New York. Try clicking & dragging around, panning within the street view image. Nice, isn’t it! Now try clicking one of the little arrows on the road - it’ll jump you a building down the street. To get anywhere else, just click on the blue outline.

I know Amazon A9 did something similar, but the 3D effect on this blows it out of the water.

-Robin-

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - Via Mobiles to Go I came across ‘Bones In Motion‘. It’s an application for on your mobile phone that hooks up with its internal GPS (or a bluetooth one, I suspect).

While you’re out running, it will download maps on to your device and plot your route on it. It’ll record your run, and do all sorts of stats at the end.

Fast-forward the video above to ~1 minute in to get past the scripted infomercial (why do they bother?) talk and get into the product demo. It does look good.

-Robin-