Drive a Car with Your iPhone [DIY]

Drive a Car with Your iPhone [DIY]: "

A lot of people have been impressed with how you can find an app for everything. What about driving your car? With this (very) ambitious DIY project you can drive a car with your iPhone.

Why use your iPhone as merely an accessory to your car? You can flat out control it with this crazy DIY modification. Check out the video below to see how the mad scientists at Waterloo Labs modified a car—definitely not their daily mode of transport—to be controlled by an iPhone.

Check out their web site at the link below to see additional videos, as well as all the schematics and part lists you need to complete your iphone-remote controlled car—and, of course, if you build one, we definitely want some pics and video. Assuming you're not in the car while you're shooting them.

Drive a Car with Your iPhone [via Make]

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Get Google Maps Navigation on Your G1

Get Google Maps Navigation on Your G1: "

Google's awe-inducing, turn-by-turn Maps Navigation is exclusive to Verizon's Droid phone—unless you're willing to hack around with your G1. With either some command-line-fu or a two-part Windows application, you can put Google Maps Navigation on a rooted G1.

By 'rooted,' we mean a G1 running the latest Cyanogen custom ROM (and here's the wiki guide to installing it). Installing this hack, like rooting your phone, totally voids your support options from T-Mobile or other provider, and we can't recommend backing up your G1 highly enough before you launch on this endeavor.

Having said that, I've managed to get Navigation on my G1, following the step-by-step instructions at the second link, with the Android developer's SDK installed and using adb --help to figure out what I was doing. Gizmodo recommends a batch file that does the dirty-but-quasi-legal work for you, including installation of the Maps/Navigation app from Android 2.0 (which I grabbed from this thread, registration required).

Update: Some users in the xda-developers forums and elsewhere are seeing the Navigation option vanish upon reboot, or when trying to replace their build.props file to escape glitchiness. We'll update this post with any long-term fixes when we find them.

Here's a little video reminder of what Google Maps Navigation does—in short, web-attached, turn-by-turn, voice-recognizing driving directions:

Got Navigation working on your own G1 (or, even better, other Android phone)? Tell us what you like, or any quirks you encounter, in the comments.

[Think Tank] Modifying G1 to enable Navigation [XDA-Developers Forum via Gizmodo]

Original step-by-step terminal instructions [XDA-Developers Forum]

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Google Maps Navigation Brings Slick Turn-by-Turn GPS to Android

Google Maps Navigation Brings Slick Turn-by-Turn GPS to Android: "

With Android 2.0 just around the corner, Google's pushed out an enticement for those considering making the smartphone switch: a dedicated turn-by-turn GPS application, hooked up to Google Maps, aware of traffic, and powered by plain English voice commands.

Google points out a few unique features of its super-upgraded Google Maps, arriving first on Verizon's Droid (which premieres Nov. 6 at $199 with a two-year Verizon Wireless contract) and then on any phone that gets the 2.0 Android update and has the 'with Google' branding. The big ones are plain English voice and text search ('Navigate to Burger King on Main Street,' or even 'Navigate to the museum with the 'Body Worlds' exhibit in Buffalo'), inclusion of traffic information gleaned from other Maps users, and a Street View image of your destination. It also searches along your route, so asking it to find a Jiffy Lube while you're road tripping won't make you break out the compass or take you far off your itinerary.

Some of those features aren't just unique to a phone GPS app—they're unavailable on a number of dedicated GPS navigation devices. Those of us who've been watching Google slowly add in Maps features, and its competitors do likewise, have been wondering when this shoe would drop, and it's neat to see what it finally looks like. In other words, Adam totally called it.

Check out video demonstrations of each feature at Google Maps Navigation's home page below, and Google's own blog post about it below that. And tell us if a seriously buffed-out Google Maps navigation tool makes you think twice about an Android phone in the comments.

Google Maps Navigation on your mobile phone [Google]

Announcing Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 [Official Google Mobile Blog]

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Outside the lanes: WIRED Celebrity Meter

If you were ever curious of how popular you are on the World Wild Weird, check out Wired's rendition of "Are you internet famous?" Mind you, I scored a level of a catfish where the likes Kevin Rose and Barack Obama ranked as celebrity sharks. The beta allows scoring of myspace, twitter and blog/personal pages and is customizable as well embeddable into your own site. Great for getting prime seats on the next ComicCon or impressing the ladies.

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