I visited the Dash site and got a little hands-on with the the new Express. Besides all of the normal GPS functionality, they have a wireless (cellular) link built in that allows for lookups through Yahoo! Local.
This is kind of a cool feature, when searching for a restrant, you don’t have to get a hit on the name (like with most GPSs). The Yahoo! search can go deeper, like to a type of food. Or, when searching for gas, it can give you the cheapest gas nearby. It will even include movie times when you search for theaters.
You can also create your own feeds…using GeoRSS. This is really cool. I could, for example, create a list of all Masonic Lodges in California. This list would then be available to me in the car at any time.
And, the last cool thing is the Send2Car functionality. They have an add-in for Explorer and Outlook that let’s you send an address to the GPS from your computer. Because the GPS has it’s own connection to the Internet, you don’t even have to bring the unit into the house. The address will be waiting for you when you get to the car.
I see Dash moving into more of a software provider. I think the Express is a reference design. The real power is in the software not the device. I’d like to see them license the software to others (Garmin, Magellan, etc) and make the functionality more broadly available.
I’m still trying to convince my wife that this is a good upgrade from my Lowrance…but it’s an uphill battle.
