If the cost of the BMW built in SatNav has always felt a few too many pounds to spend, then you’ll be pleased to hear Garmin and BMW are working together on the 1 and 3-Series models. As well as the BMW Portable Navigation device (based on the Nuvi 360) being branded with a BMW logo, it features a BMW logo on startup, a BMW dealer database, and uses a custom mount for the Nuvi which allows users to attach the device to the interior trim instead of the windscreen. This mount is positioned for optimal viewing by the driver, and is powered directly by the car, so eliminates the need for exposed cables. This comes on the back of a MINI-specific Nuvi version last year.

Unfortunately, no UK availability information has been released yet.

Vodafone are now offering a new USB Modem in their range of devices. It’s a USB stick, which plugs directly into the USB port - no trailing device on the end of a cable, like the more common USB Modem used. It’s available now from free (on 24 month contracts), up to £149 (no PAYG) direct from Vodafone.

Update: It’s a Huawei device (model E172), and supports speeds upto 7.2mbps (although Vodafone’s fastest network access is only available in selected areas of London and a few airports.

Having released the SDK and Emulator for Google’s new phone OS, Android, a group of developers worked out that the development version of the OS, which was designed to boot an ARMv5 development board, would also boot other similar hardware, which includes the Sharp Zaurus PDA range. Apart from bringing a new lease of life to these PDAs, it has produced more devices suitable for developers to use in the short term.

Picture courtesy of Engadget.

Everex have announced their Cloudbook PC, which is a rival to the Eee PC. This includes the gOS Operating System (a Google optimised version of Ubuntu). It has a 1.2Ghz VIA processor, 512Mb memory, 30Gb Hard Drive, DVI output, 4-in-1 media card reader, a1.3 megapixel camer, and should last up to 5 hours. It has WiFi, and like the Eee PC, does not have Bluetooth.

The preinstalled software includes Firefox, gMail, Meebo, Skype, Google Documents & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, Google News, Google Maps, Wikipedia, Google Product Search, GIMP, Blogger, YouTube, Xine Movie Player, RhythmBox, Faqly, Facebook and OpenOffice.org 2.3 (includes WRITER, IMPRESS, MATH, DRAW).

It will be available before the end of the month in the US, no UK availability information has been announced.

A lot of people have been trying to connect their TomTom SatNav devices to their new 3 SkypePhones to get traffic updates, and having problems. Crundy, who developed the SkypeIN / SkypeOUT workaround, has released details instructions on how to achieve this, which you can access in the rest of the article.

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Carphone Warehouse have launched a new deal. For £35 per month (18 month contract), you get the 3 USB Modem, with 3Gb of data and 200 SMS text messages per month. However, they are also providing a free Dell laptop as part of a complete mobile broadband solution. This compares with paying around £350 for the laptop, and £15 per month for the usb modem. This means at the end of the 18 months, the cost is about the same, but it may be easier for people to finance without the initial cost of the laptop.

Thanks to SMS Text News.

Sling Media have announced some new features, and some new hardware. Firstly, they have released the SlingPlayer 2.0 desktop software, which allows you to access the data from your Slingbox. This also includes the new feature, Clip+Sling, which will allow you the ability to “grab” snippets of your favourite television content and instantly share them with friends. Sling have created the new Sling.com website to share these clips (other people will only need a web browser to access these clips). This new player also gives you EPG facilities, and a local buffer, to give you some DVR-like facilities (eg Pause TV).

Sling have also launched the SlingCatcher, which is in essence a reverse Slingbox - ie instead of allowing you remote access to your TV, this provides your TV with the ability to play any video, from your PC, from a Slingbox, from USB devices, or from internet video sites. In essence, it allows you to distribute your Slingbox videos around your house without needing PCs. Even better, the Slingbox doesn’t need to be located at your home, so could provide you with a hardware device you can use anywhere in the world.

Intempo have announced a new low power Internet / FM radio, offering over 6,000 internet radio stations. The low power facility means that the rechargeable battery should be able to last upto 20 hours.

It is expected to be available in April for £150.

Picture courtesy of TechDigest.

JBL have announced an iPhone speaker dock, the JBL OnStage IIIP, which is similar to previous OnStage docks, but is for the iPhone. It comes with a remote control, and a mini stereo jack for other music devices, and is powered from the mains or from batteries. It will charge the iPhone, and has connections to allow you to sync your iPhone with your PC / Mac. No details of UK availability yet though.

Although not yet confirmed on the T-Mobile website, we believe T-Mobile is going to offer it’s mobile customers free WiFi access, if they are on the Web’n'Walk Plus or Web’n'Walk Max tariffs (ie not the standard Web’n'Walk tariff). This will give these users access to T-Mobile’s 1,200 HotSpots.  More information once available.

Pictures of an 8″ Eee PC (on the right) compared to the existing 7″ screen (on the left) have been found. The above shows that the screen will fit into the existing unit. Right now, the pictures show the same 800×600 resolution, although it’s not 100% sure whether the 8″ or 8.9″ screen versions will get higher resolutions or not.

Pictures courtesy of EeePCNews.de [Via JKKMobile]

As part of Bill Gates’ CES speech, he included an announcement that BT will be offering the Xbox 360 as the hardware behind their BT Vision service. Their current box includes Freeview support, which won’t be added to the XBox 360, so it will not quite offer the same functionality, although the better gaming offered by Microsoft’s console may compensate for that. No further information is available yet.

For those involved in OpenStreetMap, or for those thinking about getting involved, the NaviGPS is a common unit to use. As well as being able to log large amounts of data to an SD card, the unit functions as a working GPS, which is rare for DataLoggers. Historically, the manufacturer, Locosys, has produced 2 models, the second including Bluetooth to allow the unit to provide the GPS data to a PDA, or other device.

Locosys has announced, at CES, an updated NaviGPS, the GT-31 and BGT-31 (with Bluetooth). This has a SirfIII chipset, is waterproof (and floats), and has battery life of up to 24 hours.

Logitech, who recently bought Slim Devices, have announced a new device in the range at this year’s CES show. The Duet controls your musical devices with a wireless controller in a similar style to the Sonos controller. The wireless controller (a 802.11b/g device in its own right) should be able to additionally control any of your existing devices, although you’ll need to be running the latest version of the server software. The pair cost $400, with additional music devices costing $150, and additional controllers $350, although we’re still awaiting UK prices.

Update from Slim Devices: The Controller also has a small built-in speaker and headphone jack which are used for sound effects for the user interface. Future software updates could make the Controller a player itself, streaming your music (or any of the internet radio or music services on SqueezeNetwork) to the headphone jack. If and when that software update happens, the Duet bundle would be like getting two players in one box.

There’s also an SD card slot in the unit, an IR transmitter, a 3-axis accelerometer and an expansion port on the bottom. What software features get added depends largely on what the community comes up with, there’s already a bunch of neat applets and other software that have been created during the beta program.

Next week, as part of MacWorld, Garmin will announce some new software and showing hardware which are both Mac compatible. Garmin, the GPS and SatNav company, pledged better Mac support across their range a while ago now, and have been slowly making good on their promise. As part of this, next week they will announce a new software solution codenamed Bobcat.

Asus have announced at CES a range of extensions to the Eee PC range. For the US, the big announcement is an Eee PC with built in WiMax (in conjunction with Sprint and Intel). Also, they will be expanding the range of screens available, with multiple screen sizes from the current 7″ to 8″ and 8.9″. Asus have also stated Windows XP will become an officially supported OS on the devices too.

On another note, Asus also launched a UMPC device, the R50A, which will include built in GPS, a 5.6″ 1024 x 600 screen, integrated dual webcam and digital TV tuner. Asus claim this is “WiMax ready” too.

No news on UK availability on any of these devices, although Asus have pledged to make the Eee PCs available worldwide when they start shipping.

If you need a way to easily reboot your Symbian phone, then this app maybe for you. pyRestart allows you to reboot your phone as fast as possible, but uses the correct APIs, so should not cause problems. The app is available from Symbian Freak’s website here.

Picture courtesy of Symbian Freak.

Sony have confirmed that Skype will be coming to the PSP-Slim via a firmware update later this month, but that it will not be available on the original PSP.

The Skype functionality includes SkypeIN and SkypeOUT though, which the 3 Skypephone doesn’t have.

Some more details about the new Garmin Colorado range have been released by Garmin…

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OpenMoko are preparing to preview a new consumer version of their Neo 1973 (pictured above) next week at CES. This should be available in Spring (although we suspect it will not be shipping in quantities until the Summer) in US and European GSM versions. More information and pictures when they become available next week.