The new TomTom app that turns an iPhone into a turn-by-turn GPS navigation system spells the beginning of the end for standalone GPS. Not everywhere, but at least on dashboards, where a smartphone can now do everything a GPS can do and cost less than purchasing both.

Like most users, I have been unhappy with the GPS applications available for my iPhone. While overpriced at $99.95, the TomTom software is the first to truly bring standalone GPS performance to a smartphone platform. When the company releases its car kit, dashboard mounting and powering the iPhone will become easier.

With iPhones selling for as little as $99, the combination of phone, software, and mounting kit should cost less that $300. While you can purchase a nice GPS for that, it would provide little more than navigation and perhaps hands-free for a Bluetooth phone. The iPhone is a real pocket-sized computer that does everything the GPS does, and a lot more besides.

Still, a standalone GPS can–and this may be the genre’s salvation–provide a larger, more readable screen than the iPhone. It can also provide real (not touch screen) buttons for some functions.

Read More

The site has dramatically changed how people search for information online and boasts 13 million articles in total, when you count the versions in the other 271 languages.

Previously the Yongle Encyclopedia was the world’s largest encyclopedia, which was commissioned by the Chinese Ming Dynasty emperor, Yongle, in 1402 and completed by 1408.

Here, we round up this year’s most-viewed Wikipedia articles, according to the website Wikistics:

1) Wiki (131,383 page hits per day)

2) The Beatles (111,896)

3) Michael Jackson (79,734)

4) Favicon.ico (78,077)

5) YouTube (72,318)

6) Wikipedia (52,542)

7) Barack Obama (49,401)

Deaths in 2009 (48,758)

9) United States (46,545)

10) Facebook (42,679)

11) Current events portal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events] (40,962)

12) World War II (29,736)

13) Twitter (28,511)

14) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (28,395)

15) Slumdog Millionaire (26,755)

16) Lil Wayne (26,210)

17) Adolf Hitler (25,481)

18) India (25,380)

19) Transformers 2 (24,842)

20) Scrubs (TV series) (24,758)

21) Sex (24,754)

22) Rhianna (24,670)

23) United Kingdom (24,300)

24) Abrham Lincoln (23,743)

25) Heroes (TV series) (23,569)

26) Watchmen (film) (23,544)

27) Lady GaGa (23,376)

28) Star Trek (film) (22,990)

29) 2009 Swine Flu outbreak (22,968)

30) Featured content portal (22,829)

31) Megan Fox (22,573)

32) Naruto (22,573)

33) Australia (22,544)

34) Canada (22,437)

Read More

A WOMAN from Hove, East Sussex, was burgled last week by a man so odious he used her stolen laptop to taunt his victim on her own Facebook page.

Victoria Richardson, 42, lost her Tosh laptop and other possessions in the burglary, including current swag bag favourites an Iphone and a Nintendo DS games handheld, along with her purse containing cash and debit cards.

If that wasn’t bad enough the burglar then logged into her Facebook account using the laptop and left several gittish messages including “on my new laptop” and “Listening to music on my new phone feels so good.”

Further demonstrating what an intelligent and discerning young man he is, the burglar added, “I have the laptop, phones ok but a bit scratched itll [sic] do, tv was rubbish so I left it, ds was a bonus, now to the porn shop, thankyou toshiba is my favourite make. regards your night time burglar”.

Read More

UK telco giant BT has moved aggressively to counter the threat posed by Vigin Media by more than doubling the bandwidth for its domestic and business broadband customers at no extra cost.

BT Total Broadband customers will now get ‘up to’ 20Mbps (megabits per second) instead of the previous 8Mbps. Upload speeds have also doubled to 1Mbps.

These new, faster speeds will only be available through 549 exchanges initially, however, and thus will only apply to 40 percent of the country. BT is hoping to improve this coverage to 55 percent by March 2010. You can check what your maximum BT broadband speed is here.

To further ingratiate itself to its broadband customers, BT is also offering the BT Broadband Accelerator to them for only the cost of postage and packing: £1.20. BT claims it reduces the impact of electrical interference and can increase broadband speed by 1.5Mbps. You can find out more about the BT Broadband Accelerator here.

Read More

Advent, a subsidiary of DSGi, has announced the upcoming launch of its ultra-thin Altro notebooks.

Ultra-thin and portable notebooks are clearly in, and Advent’s solution hopes to mimic the style of Apple’s MacBook Air at a far lower price premium.

Read More

This is the first glimpse of Lexus’s answer to the Audi A3, a premium hatchback that will be coming to the UK late next year. A concept version of the car will make its debut at the Frankfurt motor show next month.

Lexus is keen to get a foothold in the C-segment premium market, which has so far been dominated by cars like the A3 and BMW 1-series.

“The C-premium segment has been growing and Lexus wants to position a car in that segment,” said the source.

Unlike Audi, which showcases new design directions on flagship cars like the forthcoming new A8, Lexus will be presenting a new styling philosophy on the compact concept.

A Lexus source told Autocar a production version has now been given the green light. Although Lexus saloons are generally rear-wheel drive, this model is likely to be front-wheel drive, like the Audi.

Read More

IBM’s proposals to close final-salary pension schemes by 2010 in an effort to trim costs have led to widespread employee protests.

Trade union Unite has claimed that hundreds of angry workers have joined the union over the past two months in resistance to the plans, announced at the beginning of July.

Read more

Tesco is beefing up its Clubcard loyalty scheme in a bid to steal a march on its rivals amid the doom and gloom on the high street. The retailer, the UK’s biggest supermarket chain, has rolled out a TV and press campaign to advertise the move, which will double the points given to Clubcard holders to two points for every £1 they spend.

Officially, it has denied that the changes – the second in just a year – are a panic measure designed to stem an exodus of shoppers to its rivals.

But do consumers actually care about reward cards and will a move like this really influence our shopping habits?

Like many of my friends I have a clutch of reward cards which I use to accumulate points, including the Nectar card which can be used at a number of retailers including Sainsbury’s and Debenhams, and the Boots Advantage Card which is seen as one of the most generous schemes. But I am rather slow to cash the points in, not least because I never seem to stack up the millions I would need for anything I am vaguely interested in. So, inevitably, retailers get the benefit of my complacency.

Not all stores have a reward scheme, of course. Marks & Spencer has managed without, as have Waitrose and Asda. Perhaps the ultimate scheme is that offered by the Co-op, which rewards its members with a “divvy” which can be returned to them or diverted to good causes. Some consumer surveys have shown that shoppers would simply prefer cheaper prices than reward cards.

Read More

The property listing website reported a 2.2% fall in average asking prices during the month, but saw a record number of visitors to the site hunting for new homes.

Although interest in buying a new home is strong, Rightmove says that revival will not come until the majority of buyers at the mercy of mortgage lenders’ tough selection policies see prospects improve.

Read More

Workers at Royal Mail have started strikes following a disagreement over cuts to jobs and services.

The strikes will run on selected days between 17 and 24 August.

They have already begun in Coventry, London, Leamington Spa, Nottingham and Stoke-on-Trent and will continue across the UK.

The union says Royal Mail is failing to invest in modernisation and is cutting jobs without agreement. Royal Mail says the union opposes necessary changes.

‘Modernisation’

This phase of strikes comes before the the Communication Workers Union (CWU) aims to issue a national ballot in September on industrial action.

It has argued that the reduction in jobs would compromise the quality of services provided.

A spokesperson for CWU told the BBC said there were differences over what each side saw as modernisation, hence the recent deadlock in talks.

The shift online for some services, such as banking, had reduced some traditional mail, but on the other hand, people were shopping far more online, so more packages were being delivered, she explained.

Read more