There are two ways Sat Nav Shoes give you directions. An LED DNav Bubble on the front acts as a visual guide and you’ll hear a beep when you are heading in the wrong direction. The heel of the shoe is equipped with waterproof speakers or for those with wireless headsets, bluetooth.

It doesn’t look like the shoes will track your trip (that would be a feature that would be like to see) but we still think its a great idea.

You can buy them now via Firebox.com for £129 – there is no word on availability beyond the UK at the moment.

The post SatNav Shoes: Navigate the City on Foot appeared first on Digital Urban.

The clip below details the camera in action:

While interesting we would place this one in the ‘gimmick’ category, stitching software has advanced considerably in recent years and now any digital camera or indeed camera phone is capable of creating hand held panoramas at a higher resolution.

That said, perhaps it would be nice to have for capturing high rise buildings or urban landscapes on the fly.

Picked up via slashgear.com

The post Sony’s CyberShot DSC-HX1 with ‘Sweep Panorama’ Technology appeared first on Digital Urban.

The clip below details the camera in action:

While interesting we would place this one in the ‘gimmick’ category, stitching software has advanced considerably in recent years and now any digital camera or indeed camera phone is capable of creating hand held panoramas at a higher resolution.

That said, perhaps it would be nice to have for capturing high rise buildings or urban landscapes on the fly.

Picked up via slashgear.com

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Our N95 was let down by a slow fix time, leaving us looking slightly foolish when friends asked where we were, only to pull out the latest gadget which five minutes later was still trying to access satellites. The iPhone on the other hand provides an almost instant location via triangulation of phone mast signals and known wifi points.

Accuracy is limited but it works and provides a quick and easy way to orientate yourself in the city, and now thanks to Navizon you can track your friends as well. Navizon is an application that builds on the iPhones ‘locate me’ feature, it tracks both your and any friends location every 10 seconds issuing you with an alert when they come into a predefined range.

You can add your friends to your Buddy list with a click of a button and then simply click on “Buddies” to see where they are on a map. Your friend will receive an notification with a link to click on and you will be able to see each other’s location.

The YouTube movie embedded below provides a walkthough of Navizon:

This is the first example we have seen of near real-time location tracking of people on a consumer device. It is perhaps a landmark moment in geo-software and an indication of the route ahead as we are all becoming increasingly ‘geo-located’.

There is a free trial available and more details from http://www.navizon.com

The post iPhone in the City: Navizon – Location and Buddy Tracker appeared first on Digital Urban.

Garmin have released two videos on YouTube that provide a closer look at the phones features. The second of the two is well worth a look as it provides an overview of the location aware applications:

Meet the nuvifone:

Scenarios:

The movies are almost cringe worthy ‘marketing’ fodder but the phone does seem to deliver…

Time will tell when its released third quarter of 2008.

Picked up via the ever essential Engadget.

The post Introducing the Garmin nuvifone (Movies) appeared first on Digital Urban.

The ‘Nuvifone’ seems to take on the iPhone with its touch screen navigation and adds the all important GPS capability.

Garmin view the phone as ‘the ultimate multi-tasker’ and the “first of its kind to integrate premium 3.5G mobile phone capability with an internet browser, data connectivity, personal messaging, and personal navigation functions in one device.”

The Nokia N95 was the first to mass market GPS with its built in functionality but with a slow fix time and a slightly ‘clunky’ interface it has fallen out of favour, at least with us, as it is too cumbersome to use.

Of note is the built in ability to geotag images and upload to services such as Flickr via either 3G or Wifi.

With the respected name of Garmin behind the phone we are expecting good things from the GPS – this could be the ultimate Neogeographers phone?

Release is due in the third quarter of 2008, full details can be found via the Garmin page.

The post Garmin nuvifone – A Phone for Neogeographers? appeared first on Digital Urban.

Of note in the specifications is the units ability to gather stereo data, allowing essentially a 3D model to be constructed from the flightpath. This combined with oblique imagery from the same flight opens up the prospect of texture mapped models of small areas.

The movie below shows the Microdrone in action:

The clip is slightly creepy to be honest with the unit peering into windows and spying on women on beach towels – the Microdrone also resembles the surveillance units in Half Life 2 (see our City 17 movie).

Bringing it back to geography and urban models, the movies would also be of use for camera matching allowing a local context for 3D models. In short we want one – sadly we cant afford a unit with prices coming in at 25,000 Euro.

You can buy one and find out more details from OrbitGIS.

The post Microdrone – Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Surveying & Mapping appeared first on Digital Urban.

The minus points are many with various niggles about lack of a volume control on the unit meaning having to remove the Ipod from your pocket and touch twice/swipe everytime you want to skip a track or change the volume. Engadget have just put up their thoughts and we have to say that we agree with most of their views.

In addition to these points are the lack of applications compared to the IPhone, notably in our view the Google Maps App. However, as the IPhone and the IPod Touch run the same operating system the apps seem to be interchangeable as long as you can find a way to transfer them.

We don’t recommend this due to issues of warranty and copyright but HackTheIpodTouch.com are reporting the ability to transfer Maps.app to the Ipod Touch. No word on levels of success yet but if you want to fill up your Ipod Touch screen with all those missing apps we are betting the chance is only a few weeks away.

With it of course comes a void warranty and risk of legal action etc etc….

For those interested our Ipod Touch is going back to the Apple Store in Regent Street, London, next week as its screen is shockingly bad for playing video, see Apple Touch for more info.

The post Get Google Maps.app on your Ipod Touch appeared first on Digital Urban.

The minus points are many with various niggles about lack of a volume control on the unit meaning having to remove the Ipod from your pocket and touch twice/swipe everytime you want to skip a track or change the volume. Engadget have just put up their thoughts and we have to say that we agree with most of their views.

In addition to these points are the lack of applications compared to the IPhone, notably in our view the Google Maps App. However, as the IPhone and the IPod Touch run the same operating system the apps seem to be interchangeable as long as you can find a way to transfer them.

We don’t recommend this due to issues of warranty and copyright but HackTheIpodTouch.com are reporting the ability to transfer Maps.app to the Ipod Touch. No word on levels of success yet but if you want to fill up your Ipod Touch screen with all those missing apps we are betting the chance is only a few weeks away.

With it of course comes a void warranty and risk of legal action etc etc….

For those interested our Ipod Touch is going back to the Apple Store in Regent Street, London, next week as its screen is shockingly bad for playing video, see Apple Touch for more info.

The post Get Google Maps.app on your Ipod Touch appeared first on Digital Urban.

In our view the 5 essential items for capturing and visualising the urban environment are:

Number 1: Nokia N95

Despite a few issues with battery life the integrated GPS, 5 mega pixel camera and ability to upload geo-tagged images directly to services such as Flickr make the Nokia N95 an all round essential tool.

The camera’s quality to high enough for photomodelling in SketchUp and the addition of the admittedly slow to get a fix GPS is adequate for geo-locating. Stick it to a kite and you have instant aerial photography, or rotate around a single spot for a high resolution panorama (see our tutorial).

All in all the N95 does it all although in rapidly moving times the interface is slightly clunky and it could well be soon knocked off the list with up and coming models.

Number 2: Google EarthGoogle Maps

To have essentially free software in at number 2 is quite an achievement. Google Earth and Google Maps have changed the way in which we share and communicate geographic information, the ability to tag data, upload images and import 3D models in the case of Google Earth into a common environment on a global scale is amazingly something we now almost take for granted.

The simple fact is that if you want to share geographic information at this time and point it has to be in Google Earth or Google Maps – see our Working Paper for tools and methods to import and visualise data.

Number 3: The Nodal Ninja

The Nodal Ninja is perhaps slightly unknown outside of the panoramic photography industry but it is an essential item. Priced at $229 the Nodal Ninja is one of the cheapest yet most versatile camera mounts.

The important point with capturing either Giga Pixel images or panoramic 360×180 scenes is to ensure that the camera rotates around a single nodal point. The Nodal Ninja works with the majority of cameras, allowing you to switch between high resolution images for professional capture or a light weight point and shoot camera for off the cuff shots.

Central to its position at number 3 is its light weight, we have used a number of panoramic heads in our time and carrying them around town is often hard work. With the Nodel Ninja it is easy to transport and as such should be part of the regular kit when capturing any urban images.

Number 4: The Power Monkey Explorer

The Power Monkey is a portable power charger than can extend your Nokia N95’s life by up to 4 times. Portable and light weight the main unit can be charged up either via the supplied Solar Slave or via a USB cable if you don’t have access to a mains outlet.

Supplied with a number of sockets to fit and power gadgets from digital cameras to Ipods and phones it finally means that you wont be out and about only to find you have run out of power.

We will have a full review of the Power Monkey Explorer in the next few days…

Number 5: Google SketchUp

Google products feature three times in this simple top 5 list, Google have changed the way in which we work and in a 3D concept Google SketchUp is a leader in its field. Again available free of charge unless you require higher end import and export options SketchUp is one of the most enjoyable pieces of software to use. The ability to simply load in your images and trace over them to create photorealistic models is something that used to be limited to high end photogrammetric software.

We know that there are users our there that view SketchUp as a tool for the masses and frown upon its simple tool set and interface. Yet this is what its all about, mass participation in modeling and geographic information using simple to use yet powerful toolsets.

In essence this is the start of a longer list of recommend hardware and software of note is our lack of mention of ESRI, 3D Max, Laser Scanners or other high end software/hardware.

The market is changing and with it both the software and levels of hardware required, to be continued..

The post Top 5 Urban Gadgets and Software appeared first on Digital Urban.