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.

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The internet service provider, TalkTalk, is looking to become the brightest and most trendy broadband supplier in the UK with a new advertising campaign and sponsorship of the X Factor.

According to TalkTalk, the firm is looking to become the UK’s brighter phone and broadband company.

The advertising will make use of a cool visual technology known as light graffiti, which looks very similar to images of sparklers that are waved around in the dark leaving a trail of light.

The images, which were shot at various locations in London, Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle and Edinburgh by photographer Michael Bosanko, will be used in the ISP’s latest promotion material.

TalkTalk appears to be pulling out all of the stops in order to push the TalkTalk brand in front of as many consumers as possible.

Techwatch link to news

On wednesday, T-mobile announed the official release of the second android phone, The company executives stated that they’ll use a high-touch retail experience and custom cases to give the new phone a unique personalizable spin.

“You can take the entire range of the rainbow and you can create for yourself the most powerful device that is 100% you, inside and out,” T-Mobile chief marketing officer Denny Marie Post said at a press conference in New York.