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Hackable In-Car GPS Unit?

Posted by timothy on from the what-I-want-is-an-r2-unit dept.

gigne writes "I'm in the market for a new, in-car GPS/sat nav. I am preferably looking for one that has live, up-to-date traffic information and route planning that doesn't make you want to cry. I'm not quite dumb enough to drive off a cliff, but something that doesn't even try and lead me to watery doom is preferable. The only thing I absolutely must have is the ability to hack it. It would be preferable if it ran GNU/Linux, but given a convincing argument, I would be swayed to another OS. Without wanting the Moon on a stick, what is the best device that would offer a decent modding community and a good feature set?"

2 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. g1 by blackomegax · · Score: 5, Interesting

    what about the android platform. telenav, and soon garmin will be on it.

  2. Uh, it's called Windows Mobile by Saint+Stephen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I drove from California to NC, I wrote a custom app that read the GPS lat/long coordinates, searched a database of 5000 fast food places, gas stations, and hotels within 1 mile of I-40, so I could find where I wanted to go even if it was 70 miles up the road, and hit a great big button to search for it so I wouldn't wreck my car, and then enter the coordinates in the navsat program to start driving me there.

    Does that count as hacking it?

    I did it on my PocketPC. Does that mean Windows Mobile still sucks and is useless for hackers?