digital compass
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Bushnell BackTrack D-Tour personal GPS takes you home, shows you how it got you there
We've seen our fair share of uncomplicated (and under-featured) GPS units, but the Bushnell BackTrack D-Tour throws in just enough tricks to make our inner techno-mountain-man salivate. The D-Tour does away with onboard maps and turn-by-turn directions for five simple waypoints and a digital compass. Lose your way? Just follow the arrow back to the campsite. When you get home, you can dump your hiking data into Bushnell's map application, which will show you exactly where you've been, how far you traveled, and how fast you trekked. Its also a built in digital compass, clock, thermometer, and altimeter. Not too shabby, but a bit steep at $120, considering you'll still need to provide your own maps. Hit the break for a video of the doodad's track recording and mapping software.
BlackBerry 7 gets an SDK, NFC, AR, other acronyms
BlackBerry 7 OS is coming soon but, to take advantage of all those fancy features like NFC and the digital compass (ok, some of them aren't that fancy), devs are going to need some new APIs -- enter the BlackBerry 7 Java SDK. Creators of BlackBerry apps can go download the beta of the new software development kit at the source link and start whipping up augmented reality browsers and 3D games, thanks to support for OpenGL ES 2.0. There's nothing mind-blowing about RIM's latest update, but we're glad to see the corporate stalwart start to catch up to other smartphone OSes, and it's only a matter of time before Layar and Quake hit the BlackBerry Bold 9900.
HTC Sense's new map pre-caching demoed on video
If you were paying attention during HTC's keynote earlier this morning, you'll have noted Peter Chou dropped a big old promise on us all: no more waiting for maps to load when zooming or scrolling. Pre-cached maps are one of the headline new features in the upgraded Sense that accompanies the Desire HD and Desire Z's announcement today, so we naturally had to go have a peek for ourselves. Requiring no internet connection, the Desire HD on hand sauntered through the streets of Sao Paulo and it was true that there were none of the aggravating grey squares of doom that we've grown used to when panning around. What isn't true, however, is HTC's claim that there's no waiting to be done. Responsiveness on these maps is far from perfect and patience will still need to be exercised. Notably, HTC said that you'll be able to download city maps free of charge, but navigation and other additional services will cost you. A final note is merited for the use of the phone's digital compass to rotate the map with you -- so that the map adjusts itself to whatever direction you point the phone. A very classy little inclusion. Eric Lin was on hand to answer the question of when this new Sense might trickle down to the classic Desire or other handsets in HTC's portfolio. Well, his answer was a non-answer: no roadmap or schedule has been set and HTC isn't ruling anything out just yet.
Next-gen iPhone photos leaked?
The iPhone blogs says they've uncovered the very first photos of a brand new version of the iPhone (the pictures are watermarked from a site called UMPC Fever), and while there's no actual indication that they're real (at the very least, it wouldn't be hard at all to make a picture and load it on the iPhone stream), they are worth a look, if only as ideas. The pictures hint at what's basically a dream roundup of new iPhone hardware: a camera with autofocus, a digital compass, and there are hints at a CPU log as well (which may be a developer function of some kind).A few people note that there is a percentage near the battery, but that's actually a known function of 3.0, and it's been possible on jailbroken iPhones for a while as well.To add to the mystery, commenter Dstreelm in the comments over there took a look at the metadata on one of the photos (the one supposedly taken by the iPhone), and it was taken near Hong Kong, just a day or so ago. It's definitely all rumors, so take it all with a grain of salt, but it does lend more credence to the idea that we'll be seeing a new version of the iPhone hardware very soon.
