At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Nike has been showing off what happened when it teamed up with GPS maker TomTom.

The Nike+ SportWatch GPS is, much as the name suggests, like taking the Nike+ shoe sensor, a wristwatch and a GPS device and tying them together with a USB cable so you can connect it to your computer.

The interface is very simple, with three buttons and four items in the home menu: clock, run, history and records. Once you've started running you can mark a lap by tapping the face of the watch. It also keeps track of various aspects of your run like speed, time, distance, heart rate, how many calories you've burned and, of course, your route.

Once you're finished you can use the hidden USB connection to plug the device into your computer and automatically upload your stats to nikeplus.com to check yourself or share with the Nike+ community.

The SportWatch GPS has won awards for innovation and health at CES. You can pre-order one from the Nike+ website. When it hits stores on April 1 it will be priced between $199 and $299.

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-- Tim French

Garmin unveiled a new personal tracking device at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) with downright Orwellian capabilities. The GTU 10 is small -- 3 inches tall and weighing 1.7 ounces -- and you can track it live through a smart phone or computer.

Stick it in your teenager's car, on your bike or in your child's backpack, and you can instantly track the kid James Bond style. The device even allows you set up "geofences," or virtual borders, around any location. The unit will let you know whenever it passes into or out of a "geofence," which makes monitoring a child (or spouse?) particularly easy.

The unit relies on a built-in rechargeable Li-ion battery, which makes it ideal for short-term tracking (sorry, long-term covert operations are likely infeasible). The device has a suggested retail price of $199.99 and comes with one year of standard tracking service complimentary, or for an additional $4.99 a month you can upgrade to the deluxe tracking package to get more information.

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-- Tim French

It’s not just automakers such as like Ford, Toyota and GM that are getting into the telematics game. Now aftermarket manufacturer Pioneer Electronics Inc. has revealed a host of smart-phone-connected systems at CES.

The Long Beach-based company, known for its car stereos, raised the curtain on two new in-dash touch-screen navigation systems -– AVIC Z130BT and AVIC X930BT. Both are coming out in the spring and will be priced from $1,000 to $1,500.

And each will be compatible with smart phones such as the iPhone. Pioneer’s free Aha Radio Mobile App will use an iPhone linked into the navigation system to turn Twitter, Yelp, Facebook and other social-media outlets into audio broadcasts.

Drivers will also be able to listen in on updated traffic conditions and customized music from Pandora.

And when the vehicle is parked, Pioneer’s App Mode feature will transmit videos from Safari, YouTube and more from a hooked-in iPhone onto the car’s navigation screen.

 Pioneer will also be exhibiting its SmartCradle, which turns a GPS-equipped iPhone into any other Garmin or TomTom-style system. But the mount will have an accelerometer to measure speed as well as a gyroscopic sensor that can flip the map into portrait or landscape views.

An external antenna will help improve reception, preventing the wandering pinpoint problem that often occurs when navigation units can’t read satellite signals around high-rise buildings or in tunnels.

When users are driving efficiently, a small light will switch from red to green. And an added bonus: The cradle will also charge the phone.

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CES: Toyota Entune and BMW ConnectedDrive telematics systems

-- Tiffany Hsu

Toyota drivers could soon buy movie tickets and make restaurant reservations from their in-car navigation system, the automaker said Tuesday at CES.

The Entune multimedia telematics system will show up this year in several Toyota models and will also feature sophisticated software that can recognize voices speaking naturally instead of just simple commands.

Users will have to download the Entune mobile application and then link up the Bluetooth on their phones with their cars, Toyota said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Then, drivers will be able to access music through Pandora and Clear Channel’s iheartradio app. They’ll also be able to check out MovieTickets.com, Microsoft’s Bing search engine and OpenTable’s reservation service.

And that’s on top of real-time and crowd-sourced traffic updates from INRIX as well as fuel prices, weather, stocks and sports. Ford, which updated its Sync in-car technology at last year's CES, will make its presentation at this year's show on Friday.

But that’s not all from the telematics front at this week’s show. QNX, which contributed software to Entune, also said Tuesday that it was pairing with BMW on its ConnectedDrive system. 

Featured on the showroom floor in a zippy BMW Z4 Roadster sports car, ConnectedDrive will show calendar entries and contact lists on a display.

QNX, a subsidiary of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, will also power a function that allows BMW drivers to listen to e-mails and text messages while driving instead of handling their phones.

"The driver will be able to seamlessly receive information and respond without taking their eyes off the road," said Derek Kuhn, vice president of sales and marketing for QNX, in an interview. "Whatever you can imagine is possible with smart phones, we can now deliver a lot of that integration in cars."

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-- Tiffany Hsu

Photo (bottom): BMW Z4 Roadster. Credit: Karen Tapia-Andersen/Los Angeles Times

Nevermind GPS -- cars of the future will be able to predict traffic conditions ahead of time and tell you how to best plan your route. Your cellphone will run on air. And conference calls will entail sitting across the table from a hologram.

Those are some of IBM's predictions on new technologies that will hit the ground by 2015. The annual "Five in Five" forecasts five innovations likely to be developed in the next five years. This year's predictions:

1. "Citizen scientists" will collect real-time data about their environment using sensors in cars, phones or wallets, which can then be used by professional scientists for research.

2. Holograms will become commonplace. People will be able to interact with far-away friends in 3D, using something as commonplace as a cellphone.

3. Today's batteries will become obsolete. Cellphones may be powered by batteries that run on oxygen, and static or kinetic energy may eliminate batteries altogether for smaller devices.

4. Instead of wasting the massive amounts of energy needed to cool them, computer and data centers will recycle the heat energy the machines generate, potentially helping to power cities.

5. "Adaptive traffic systems" will personalize your commute, anticipating congestion and other issues to get you to work with a minimum of road rage.

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 -- Abby Sewell

Photo: A hologram is the center of attention in a scene  from "Star Wars." IBM predicts holograms will become commonplace in the near future. Credit: Associated Press / Lucasfilm Ltd.

A little-noticed change in Apple's recent update to its mobile operating system was that, in the built-in Google Maps application, road traffic is displayed a bit differently.

Instead of solid bars of red, green and yellow (indicators of the severity of traffic), the bars are now semi-transparent, no doubt to allow users to see underlying street and business names that the solid bars had blocked -- a useful improvement in theory.

But as the color bars go from opaque to transparent, they also become washed out, so that fire engine red becomes more pinkish, and lime green fades to sea foam. Indeed, the traffic bars have literally half-disappeared.

The muted colors make it more difficult to evaluate traffic conditions at a glance -- one of the great features of Google Maps for Mobile. And when you're driving on a busy freeway, a glance is all you can afford.

Worse yet, color-blind folks such as myself need all the help we can get when it comes to differentiating reds and greens, and that goes triple for when we're driving. Without the more intense shades, we find ourselves squinting to try and tell the difference. On the Google Maps app, the higher traffic color lines (red and yellow) sort of pulsate, indicating trouble. But in order to notice the pulsing, you have to watch the screen closely for several seconds. In traffic, that's a no-no.

It seems that in an effort to make its maps more readable, Google has made them less readable.  Personally, I was happy with the "Hide Traffic" button when I needed to see a street name, but maybe Google can still find a smart -- and colorful -- solution this problem.

Neither Google nor Apple has yet responded to a request for comment on this issue.

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-- David Sarno

 

Speeding through a red light? Not a chance, according to IBM Corp.

The technology behemoth, known for its work with computers, is now trying its hand at traffic. The company recently filed a patent application for a system that could remotely stop and start vehicle engines at traffic signals in order to save fuel and prevent crashes.

The system would sense vehicles’ positions and send a “stop engine” notification – either by automatically turning off the engine or displaying an alert telling drivers to manually switch off power.

At intersections, railway crossings and other locations, the system could use anything from weight sensors to camera and GPS units to track vehicles. The technology could also be used to calculate when cars have been idling for too long and should be shut down.

Once the light turns green, the system may be able to time when drivers should crank up the ignition based on where they are in the line.

Drivers might also be able to sign up for a sort of service that would use Wi-Fi, cellular networks or satellite communications to tell inform them when to cut their engines.

The blogosphere is ablaze over the proposal: What about hackers? What about glitches? What happens when I need to get my pregnant wife to the hospital?

The patent application explains the rationale this way:

Vehicle fuel consumption is a major component of global energy consumption. With increasing vehicle usage, there may be more traffic and longer wait times at traffic signals (e.g., at a traffic intersection or a railway crossing). Fuel may be wasted when drivers keep their vehicles running while waiting for the traffic signal to turn "green" or waiting for a train to pass at a railway crossing. Most drivers may not switch off their engines in these situations. Drivers who do switch off their engines may do so inefficiently. For example, a driver may switch off the engine, only to start it up a short time later. In such cases, more fuel may be consumed in restarting the engine. Some traffic signals may have clocks that indicate remaining durations before the signals change. However, drivers in vehicles waiting at the back of the queue may not be able to view the clock.

Now, if only someone would do something about those stop signs.

--Tiffany Hsu

Photo: Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach. Credit: Don Kelsen/Los Angeles Times

My favorite Q&A on Coachella's website deals with the question of whether or not payphones will be available inside the venue. The answer on the FAQ page advised concert-goers that, "This is 2010. Get a cell phone."

But the organizers of the concert (April 16th-18th) missed a chance to offer even more cellphone-related helpfulness: just as essential as the phone itself is the 2010 Coachella app for iPhone and Android.

Over 50,000 users downloaded the 2009 version, and with smartphone adoption skyrocketing, it's sure to be more this year.

My favorite aspect of the application is the friend finder feature. Considering last year's festival attracted  more than 160,000 people, I have no doubt I will get lost in crowds multiple times that weekend (see the video above if you're curious what a packed show at Coachella looks like).

To use the friend finder feature, simply add your friends' e-mail addresses to the application, then have them add your e-mail address to the Coachella application on their phones. The application is set up to help you find each other: A map records where each friend was standing based on the last time they opened their Coachella app. The friends show up as dots on your Coachella map, which you can then click on to see the specific friend's e-mail address. (See purple dot in the image below.)

(I'm told this hasn't always worked well in the past, as phone service can be hit-or-miss in the chaos of the music festival. AT&T, however, is promising to provide expanded service this year, according to the app's developer, David Bullock.) 

The application features a countdown to Coachella and a full list of performers. In the coming days, as concert details get released, users will be able to check out specific performance times and sort artists they want to see by venue location.

If you plan on taking pictures during the festival, the application also provides a way to upload the images. The pictures, once approved by concert organizers, will be uploaded onto the main Coachella.com website, Bullock said.

And unlike the overpriced beer and snacks, and the pricey ticket, this app is refreshingly free.

-- Zohreen Adamjee

What's the best way to compete with free? Start offering some perks for free.

GPS manufacturer TomTom, faced with pressure from Google Maps, plans to give away features it previously charged for. Updated map and traffic data can soon be downloaded for free for select devices starting in the second quarter of this year.

Newer GPS units qualify for the free-update model, including the small, consumer-entry TomTom Ease, which was announced Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

[Updated, 3:50 p.m.: The soon-to-be-released EASE, a 3.5-inch LCD touch-screen device, may join a series of newer devices that receive "free updates for life," but then again, the EASE "may not necessarily be included," said TomTom spokesman Kevin Carter.

In addition to maps, traffic data will also be free.]

-- Mark Milian
twitter.com/markmilian

TomTom, the navigation technology company that says it has sold 30 million portable navigation devices in the U.S. and Europe, took a major hit to its stock in October when Google Inc. announced it would be giving away its own turn-by-turn navigation software to owners of many smart phones.

The Dutch company's stock is down nearly 40% since the announcement that sent shivers through the navigation industry, which has long charged both for its devices and for its service.

Google's move raised questions about whether stand-alone navigation devices were still necessary in the face of intelligent handsets that can perform thousands of functions.

But TomTom says that "rumors of the death of the portable navigation device are premature."

"I think there's been perhaps a bit of overreaction," Tom Murray, vice president of market development at TomTom, said in a visit to The Times today. "I don't really share in the worries. There are a lot of things that Google has to do in order to have a material impact on our business." 

"It's not going to change the landscape overnight," he continued, acknowledging that the issues was "top of mind" for industry insiders. "It's provocative, but when the dust settles, it'll just be another player, and it'll prompt us to get better."

Murray highlighted what he said were still major differences between what Google might offer on smart phones, and the kinds of features stand-alone units have: larger screens, louder audio directions, longer battery life. Most simply, he said, a dedicated navigation device is not as vulnerable to the "multitasking problem," where users may have to make a choice between making a phone call or checking their e-mail (not recommended while driving!) and using their mapping software.

Still, Murray said, though revenue from TomTom's iPhone app has been a small slice of the company's overall income, it has sold more than 100,000 copies of the app, making it one of the top-grossing apps available on the iPhone. That milestone is made more remarkable by the TomTom app's hefty price tag. At $99, the app is the same price as TomTom's lower-end standalone devices.

The company considers itself a software maker first, Murray said. TomTom plans to be flexible enough to work on a variety of devices and handsets, ideally enabling users to maintain one account that works across multiple platforms.  

But for the time being, Murray said, Google's Android mobile operating system may not be one of those platforms. Though Android will be available on more than a dozen smart phones this year, TomTom would not comment on when or whether it will even try to compete on Android.

"Maybe that wouldn't be the best place for us to invest, although I'm not saying we're ruling it out."

-- David Sarno