Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Often, a shotgun is used at the beginning of a dash, but not so in the world of connected GPS devices, where Telenav launched its Shotgun portable navigation device days after Dash decided to exit the hardware business with its pioneering Dash Express.

Unlike Dash, Telenav was no newcomer to the guided navigation space, being a leading provider of turn-by-turn navigation services to cell phones. Its customers include Sprint and AT&T, and consumers can subscribe to the service directly through Telenav -- even if their carrier doesn't support it -- as long as their smartphone does. The product is free to download, but carriers charge a subscription fee for unlimited use, or offer it on a per-diem price. Because it is designed for an inherently wireless device, Telenav software includes features such as traffic notification, which is a premium feature in portable navigation devices.

In addition to physical advantages such as the large screen, the Shotgun has at least one important advantage over Telenav's cell phone services. Since its maps are local, the device continues to route even when you drive outside of cellular coverage areas. But there's at least one holdover from its cellular heritage that Telenav needs to shed on the Shotgun -- an unceasing, bright blue LED signaling wireless connectivity, which is hugely distracting to the driver, especially at night. Perhaps a bundled strip of black duct tape will do in the meantime.

It doesn't seem like the connected GPS market is the best place to be at the moment -- Dash just dropped hardware sales in a radical restructuring and Magellan's halted development of the 5340 -- but Telenav isn't shying away, throwing its hat into the ring with the $300 Shotgun. A $12/month GPRS subscription gets you the usual slew of web-enabled features like real-time traffic and weather, live POI searches, gas pricing, and online trip planning, all wrapped in the usual Telenav PND UI and bolstered by 11 million preloaded POIs. Sounds like an interesting piece of kit, and it's apparently well done -- GPS Review took an early look at the 4.3-inch touchscreen PND and found it to be a "good start," albeit with some minor annoyances that will hopefully be remedied in a future software update. Still, we're just not all that convinced that another subscription fee is going to appeal to many in this economic climate -- we'll see if the Shotgun manages to fire. Peep tons more pics in the gallery.

We think the emphatic "For Parts ONLY" in the description of this well-loved E90's eBay auction pretty much says it all.

[Via Just Another Mobile Phone Blog]

DARPA's already dropped a chunk of cash on some tiny, camera-equipped scout robots, but it looks like the ever-funding agency isn't satisfied with its surveillance options just yet, with it now turning to a camera network that has a rather unique means of being deployed. As DefenseNews reports, the cameras developed by CDM Optics are capable of surviving terminal velocity drops, meaning they could be deployed from high-altitude aircraft or even fired from a shot gun. In the latter case, the cameras could apparently be affixed to a spike and fired at walls, forming an ad-hoc network to cover a particular area. While complete details on the cameras are obviously a bit light, they apparently have "surprisingly good performance" and are said to be "very cheap." While there's no word on further development of that particular system just yet, DARPA's larger ELASTIC program has reportedly netted some other results, including an "electronically steered imager array" developed by Toyon and JPL, which has now received some follow-on funding.

[Via Danger Room]