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Time for a Beer?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the god-bless-technology dept.

i am fartacus writes: "Good news for thirsty beer lovers in a strange town, this will help you find the nearest pub... hmmm beer .... and help you stay on time. " The gist of this is that it's a watch with a GPS transmitter that can show you the distance and direction to the 4 nearest pubs. Ingenious!

5 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Just a nit picking thing by ergo98 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a GPS receiver, not a transmitter. GPS works passively by listening to the timing differences of time-encoded signals from up to 12 satellites at once (there are 24, but generally the most you'll be able to "hear" at once are 12). Here's the dummies guide to it.

    It is funny though how GPS is a basic technology, but every application of it is treated as some new discovery: i.e. I'm going to make a piece of software that has a database of all movie theatres, and when you have a GPS on your PDA it'll point you to the nearest theatre: Whoopee, I've developed a new theatre detector! Blah. As a sidenote: MapPoint 2002 is a very nice product. The breadth of information in it is astounding.

  2. Vindigo already does this by MrRagu · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you have a handheld (Pocket PC, Palm, and certain internet enabled cell phones) and live in a major city, this has been available for months from a free app called Vindigo. Its even better in that it tells you directions to the nearest bars, restaurants, stores, and movies and it doesn't even need GPS as long as you know what block you're on. It also has reviews for everything -- which is extemely useful.

    I don't want to sound like a marketing guy, but IMHO Vindigo is indispensible if you live near a place like NYC and often have trouble finding places.

    Downsides: It is currently only offered in 18 cities and has ads but I bet that watch doesn't work all over the place either. The upsides are tremendous, though. Having a bar finder in a watch is all well and good, but if you already have a Palm you might as well get all the other useful info as well. You'll never have to wander around the Village looking for the Original Ray's Famous Pizza again.

    --


    No brain, no pain!
  3. More info... by superpeach · · Score: 2, Informative

    For more information on the watch and other Bristol uni wearable stuff look at http://wearables.cs.bris.ac.uk

  4. Fave feature on my GPS by mwillis · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have an eTrex by Garmin. It has MapSource installed, giving it points of interest data. Finding the nearest bank machine or pub or gas station is pretty cool, and has proved truly useful at times.

    If anyone is interested, you can browse the maps online; e.g. Like Here

  5. Picture of the watch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    You can see a picture here:

    Pub Watch