Update: I had an old PR link. updated with the proper link

This year's Consumer Electronics Show began Sunday in Vegas and already there's a flood of news for



gadget lovers.* Among the Virtual Earth news (stop by our booth if you're at the show for more) is our announcement with Garmin that their latest Portable Navigation Devices can receive individual Waypoints (addresses, business listings, any pushpin) as well as entire Live Maps Collections sent from your PC or Mac. What is unique here is that you don't need to physically connect your PND to your PC and it doesn't need to have a connection to the internet as the data is transmitted over FM airwaves. This enables you to do your trip planning at home on your PC with Live Search Maps and when you are done select the new 'Send to GPS' menu to have your location information transmitted to your Navigation device automatically. Plan a vacation by building a Collection of all of the attractions, Hotels, and landmarks you want to visit, then with once click you'll have them on your navigation system when you're on the road. Since you don't need to plug the device into your computer and it doesn't need a net connection, you can even send waypoints to a driver when they are on the road!

Garmin is using the MSN Direct network (aka SPOT) which allows their devices to not only receive waypoints from Live Search Maps but gas price information, real-time traffic, weather and movie time information. A PND with access to this data in real-time can do some pretty amazing things like route you around traffic jams on the fly.

Here's the Garmin Press release with information on the new models that have this impressive feature and a link to the Garmin blog to keep up on all of their CES news.

Technorati tags: Garmin, Nuvi, StreetPilot, PND, GPS, Virtual Earth, Live Search Maps

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Alpine do have a great OEM factory GPS solution, it is to bad that there aftermarket PND does not have the same features.Gps Navigation System

I do find with the OEM GPS system including the Alpine that is installed in the Honda, Accura, Mercedes etc will not allow you to route in areas that are not verified and test driven by NavTeq.

This is a big issue since aftermarket PND will allow you route in rual area that has not been confirmed by NavTeq, you maybe a block off but you will get to your destination. The OEM units does not allow this option which means if you are routing in Clearlake California, you have to bring a paper map or an aftermarket GPS.

OK, I could be crazy, but is there a way to send an address from Mappoint 2009 to my GPS? I can send addresses from the MS Live Map web site just fine. I can also launch MS Live Maps from Mappoint 2009, although it just shows the map zoomed to my current view from Mappoint--it does not bring over the address, so that doesn't do it, unless I retype it into the MS Live Maps site. It would seem like there should be an option in Mappoint to just send to gps. Possible?

Oh, also, any idea why I can't select a complete address from Mappoint, such as one appearing in my route or on a map? If I need to paste the address into another site as "123 Main St., Hope, AK 55555" I can't seem to do it.

Thanks for any input!

Barclay