Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

In days past, photographers had to rely on their memory to answer the question “where did I take this shot?”. Not so any more. Geotagging is fast becoming popular in the days of digital photography. By definition, Geotagging is the process of adding a form of geospatial geographical identification metadata to your images. It can also be added to other media like websites or RSS feeds. This metadata almost always consists of latitude and longitude coordinates; although it can sometimes also include things like altitude, bearing, or even location names depending on how specific you want to get.

Geotagging can also be useful if you are looking for location-specific information. For example, you are trying to find images taken near Red Rock Canyon. You simply enter the latitude and longitude coordinates into a Geotagging-enabled image search engine. There you go! These same search engines can also be used to locate location-based news, websites and more.

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Google is getting ready to launch their Street View technology in the UK, and it isn’t being met with open arms. Although the mapping tool is already in place in some major US cities, folks in the UK are protesting the implementation on their turf.  Street View works by taking photos of, logically enough, streets to match maps. However the photos also include any people on those streets. This is where the problems come in for the UK folk. They feel this is a blatant disregard for privacy; and that permission should be granted by any individual photographed since the pictures are being used in a commercial regard. 

Personally, I don’t see how Google is getting away with this. As a freelance photographer myself, I know that any photographs that I take (even in a public setting) must have release forms signed by each recognizable person in the photo, if I am to be using them in any way for profit. (They even consider a person to be “recognizable” if the photo only shows the back of them for the record.) Apparently, Privacy International, a UK rights group, agrees. They believe the technology clearly breaks data protection laws. 

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Remember that GPS navigation application that Nokia was touting during the Mobile World Congress earlier this year? Well, Nokia has just released it officially. Nokia Maps 2.0 is a nifty application made specifically for Series 60 mobile handsets that include all N-series and E-series models as well as some high-end 6000 series models.

This useful application will give users access to free downloadable maps of around 200 countries. It’s got street by street and city to city routes, various perspectives of different maps and even gives out some multimedia city guides which is available as a premium upgrade.

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LG has officially announced its Secret—a new 5-megapixel camera phone that is able to capture video in DivX quality at 120 fps. Set for a European release sometime in 2008, the LG’s Secret, aka KF-750, actually belongs to LG’s Black Label series.

The Secret boasts of being the slimmest 5-megapixel camera phone at just 11.8mm (0.46-inches) thick. But don’t let its thickness persuade you into believing that the LG Secret will offer you features as thin as its body. On the contrary, the LG Secret wallops some heavies aside from its camera. Other features include a carbon fiber casing, tempered glass LCD and neon touch features. If those materials sound familiar, that’s because those are the materials commonly used in aircrafts and high-performance cars. 

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The new Pocket Express smartphone edition offers free access to news, sports, and weather. For a small fee you can get movie showtimes, 411 directory search, street level maps and turn-by-turn driving directions. Here’s What, Why, How, and most importantly How Much:

What? - PocketExpress is one the fastest growing infotainment services for mobile devices.

Why? - Sports, news, weather, stocks, movie listings, 411 information, maps to name just a few – all get pushed to the mobile device. No browsing, no calling, no hassle, no brainer!

How do I buy? Handmark (supplier of Pocket Express), has invented a fun and hassle free way to give and receive Pocket Express.  They have turned the mobile device into a Holiday stocking!  You can buy Pocket Express for friends, family, loved ones, business colleagues by simply going to PocketExpress.com – entering the mobile device information and hey, presto! Come Christmas Day or Chanukah or Kwanzaa (or any day of choosing) Pocket Express gets delivered straight to the mobile device with a cute SMS message of your choice.

How Much? An annual subscription to award-winning Handmark Pocket Express is just $69.99.

Check it out [Pocket Express]

The newest addition to Garmin’s travel assistant line, the nüvi 660, is bound to equal or surpass the sales achieved by its predecessors. Introducing a 4.3-inch touchscreen, integrated traffic capabilities, FM transmitter, a super-bright display and an integrated FM transmitter that broadcasts voice guidance, MP3, audio books and phone calls over the vehicle’s existing speakers. The nüvi 660 also incorporates past attributes like the GPS navigator, traveler’s reference, and digital entertainment features.

“Since we first introduced the nüvi family, customers have been drawn to it because of its elegance, size and features,” said Gary Kelley, Garmin’s vice president of marketing. “The nüvi 660 builds on the legacy of the nüvi 300-series while adding desirable enhancements like a wider screen and integrated traffic, which are two features that have never been packaged together before.”

With its large, touchscreen interface, the nüvi 660 makes it easier than ever to obtain voice-prompted, turn-by-turn directions; route calculation; and automatic rerouting if a motorist strays off course. The unit speaks street names, so drivers will know to “turn right on Main Street.” Garmin has also made it possible for customers to augment the pre-loaded maps with custom points of interest such as school zones and safety cameras.

Read [Garmin]

Yahoo! unveiled its new Trip Planner, an online travel research tool that allows users to plan their trips based on other travelers’ experiences to create a customized printable travel guide. Trip Planner is a tool on Yahoo! Travel that lets you save hotels, attractions, restaurants, maps and more to a customized travel guide. You can add travel dates, your own comments, even bookmarks for other sites to your trip. Once you’ve created your trip, you can print a copy to bring with you, or access it from any computer with Internet access.

Yahoo! Travel officials say they are aiming to help users better plan their trips with the ability to create travel journals, plot their trip on an interactive map, as well as include ratings and reviews of destinations, hotels and points of interest they have visited.

Start planning [Yahoo Trip Planner]

It’s frustrating when you go to access a website on your portable device and the text and image just keep wrapping and wrapping all the way down, not only extending the scroll bar indefinitely but also making the content gibberish.

Thankfully Gadgetell is optimized for your mobile browser (sorry for the plug) as well as many Google apps. Today Google’s mobile web services get a bit more worldly with a bunch of new languages (U.S. and U.K. English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, and Turkish) for the mobile versions of Gmail, News, and Personalized Home.

So give ‘em all a whirl—visit Google in your mobile phone’s browser, and click the Maps, News, Gmail, Personalized Home, or Gadgetell links.

Read [Google]

Last October, Google merged Google Local with Google Maps. Well users have not stopped requesting them to change back since then, as per the Google Blog, and so they obliged.

At that time, we thought it was most appropriate to name the integrated product “Google Local” to emphasize the broad searching capabilities of the site and that it was much more than an ordinary mapping site. But we underestimated how much people loved Google Maps. Many have continued to refer to the site by the previous name, and many have explicitly asked us to “bring back Google Maps.” Since it’s most important to us to give our users what they want, we’ve decided to change the name officially to Google Maps.

So there you have it your prayers have been answered. Now what about that wish we have about interviewing the Google boys…