The Garmin nüvi 1260T

The Garmin nüvi 1260T is ready to assist you in the car or on the street because not only is it an amazing GPS system but also it features an enhanced pedestrian mode. This top of the line system, when combined with the cityXplorer maps, can aide pedestrians in finding bus and subway routes. This could be a huge blessing to people living in a large city full of complex public transportation systems.

The 1260T features a 3.5-inch, 320 x 240-pixel screen, a Bluetooth phone interface, and is pre-loaded with maps for North America. Also included is text-to-speech conversion and ecoRoute. EcoRoute is a feature that allows you to find the most fuel-efficient ways to get around. In automobile mode, the 1260T functions exactly like the Garmin nüvi 265T, but in pedestrian mode, a whole new realm opens up. It will assist you in finding the nearest bus and subway stations and provide a detailed map of the city streets that you might happen to be wandering.

Another fascinating selling point of the 1260T is that it is the thinnest GPS system currently on the market. This is important due to the fact that you might be carrying this GPS around the streets of New York City and won’t exactly want to be weighted down. With its sleek appearance and lack of bulkiness, this definitely gives some brownie points to the 1260T.

I feel like this GPS system is a pretty good deal. For $299.99 you can have the thinnest GPS on the market that also includes advanced features. I think the enhanced pedestrian mode could be a big help if you travel to big cities often, and the ecoRoute feature could definitely come in handy with the ever-increasing gas prices. In my opinion, the Garmin nüvi 1260T seems like a great GPS system to look in to.

iriver M7 NV Classic PMP

The M7 NV Classic is a new PMP from iriver. The NV Classic is basically an update to the original iriver NV with a few differences, namely the removal of the the large jogwheel. This PMP works as not only an media player, but also as a navigator. The NV features SiRF GRF3i+ GPS, two 1.5 watt speakers that allow for voiced turn-by-turn directions, an SDHC slot to upload maps, and a 7 inch TFT LCD 800x480 touchscreen. But the NV Classic also works as a media player.

The NV Classic can run through most any media file you have. It will run your WAV, WMA, MP3, and OGG audio files and will also run WMV9, MPEG1/4 and Xvid videos. The NV Classic also displays you images showing BMP and JPEG images. With the NV Classic, you can also view DMB digital television via a DMB tuner that also has on-screen controls for t.v. channel presets as well as radio channel presets. Storage for these files is via an SDHC card. iriver supplies you with two SDHC cards standard when buying the NV Classic, a 4GB card that you can use for all your media files and a second mapping SDHC card which can be used with The NV Classic's PND functionality.

The iriver M7 NV Classic will be shipping in Korea first at a price of KRW 329,000, or roughly $264 American. No word as of yet on availability outside of Korea, but I'm sure we will see the N7 Classic in other countries in the near future.

Emergency Stop Assistant From BMW

Driving a car requires attention, experience, and quick reflexes in case anything bad happens. But all of these factors suddenly become hindered if you have any kind of medical condition like, diabetes or are at a heightened risk of heart attack or stroke. Many people who suffer from ailments like these discontinue driving, knowing full well that they could become a risk not only to themselves, but to others as well. Some people, however, continue to drive despite their medical condition either because they do not perceive it as a risk or they have no choice but to continue driving. This puts many people on the roads at risk, and endangers many lives.

But BMW is working on a system to make this scenario a whole lot safer. BMW's new safety system called Emergency Stop Assistant, will safely bring your car to a stop during a medical calamity. According to BMW, the system will be able to sense a drivers medical emergency. Once the system realizes the threat, an auto-pilot feature takes over control of the car. The system is said to turn on the hazard lights, navigate the vehicle safely through traffic via radar technology, and then slow the vehicle to a stop on the curb or shoulder of the road. After this happens, the Extended Emergency Call System already installed in the car will contact emergency response services giving them the location of the vehicle. This new feature is a part of the project SmartSenior, launched by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research out of Germany. It will be interesting to see how the integrated system will detect said medical emergencies, how it will know the severity of the emergency, and how it will be able to pull the car over without hitting something. It also raises the question if this technology could be integrated to assist drunk drivers as well, something that would save even more lives than the SmartSenior program.

Airplane Tickets For $9?

Flying is definitely the fastest way to travel these days. However, the rising price of tickets is causing many people to find an alternate means of transportation leaving many small to mid-sized city airports to lose revenue and flights. But a new, low-cost airliner is going to start serving these small U.S. cities that the bigger carriers have left behind.

JetAmerica, based out of Clearwater Florida, will be offering 34 nonstop passenger flights from Toledo, Ohio; South Bend, Indiana; Melbourne, Florida; Newark, New Jersey; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Lansing, Michigan starting on July 13. 28 flights will either start or end at Newark Liberty International Airport and JetAmerica will add six additional flights from Toledo to Minneapolis starting on August 14. The company is targeting small to mid-size cities like Lansing, who has seen a drop from 35 daily flights to 12 at it's Capital Region International Airport in the past five years.

JetAmerica will offer Lansing business travelers direct access to New York City and direct access to central Florida for leisure travelers according to the head of Capital Region Airport Authority Robert Selig, something they don't have access to aright now. "This will fill a major void in our schedule," says Selig.

But filling this void is not going to be cheap. The Toledo, Lansing, and South Bend airports are subsidizing JetAmerica with $867,000 in waived airport fees, $1.1 million in marketing and advertising assistance, and $1.4 million in grants for their first year. The grants were received from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Small Community Air Service Development Program which has awarded over $104 million to 223 recipients since 2002. All this is a part of an effort to restore services lost and to reduce the cost of air fares.

John Weikle, the Chief Executive of JetAmerica, says that the money given by the different airports will help insulate the new carrier against spiking fuel prices for jets. Four major airliners have failed since 9/11 due to the raising prices of fuel costs, which affects smaller carries just as much if not more.

Weikle also founded Columbus, Ohio-based SkyBus Inc. which was known for its super low ticket prices starting at $10. SkyBus Inc. was bankrupt last year due to high fuel prices costing 450 people their jobs. JetAmerica will offer a similar price with their ticket prices starting at $9 and going as high as $199. The $9 tickets only apply to the first 9 to 19 seats on the plane. Other costs include a $15 bag check and additional charges for in-flight meals, drinks and movies.

JetAmerica will start off their company with one Boeing 737-800 with expectations to add an additional jet in their first month and to have a total of four by July 2010. In addition to the Boeing 737-800's Weikle plans to have a 189-seat jet leased every four months. According to Weikle, each Boeing 737-800 can fly to a total of four cities in a single day.

According to Weikle, JetAmerica's estimated revenue for the first year should be around $50 million dollars increasing to $150 million dollars by year two. JetAmerica has big plans that could very well revitalize the small to mid-sized airports getting left behind by the larger ones. With Weikle's plan, air travel could once again become popular and affordable.