As promised at CES, Novatel are moving forward with their plans for the Mifi 3G personal mobile internet hotspot (that has been a life-saver for me at MWC) to include applications and software features. We spoke to the team at the Mifi booth at MWC a few days ago and got a nice demo of a GPS-enabled application. GPS is enabled in the next firmware but I’m getting the impression that it’s going to be a new model of the Mifi with slightly newer features which ‘might’ include, USB charging without becoming a device, better battery life and of course, the GPS. I’m hoping that the firmware comes to existing Mifi’s (or at least the ones with the application processor in them) to enable the GPS that’s already included in the unit.
In the video below, Gareth Davis talks about some of the things possible and demonstrates a nice GPS-enabled application served through the Mifi webserver itself.
We have also heard that the EyeFi (Wifi-enabled SD card) application is progressing and we’ll be sure to keep a close eye on it. Clearly a web-based navigation service would be possible and there’s a ton of things that can be done with social networking. Can anyone think of other interesting apps that could be created on this platform?(Apart from the obvious ‘free wifi’ password-inspection app that would be sure to pick up some interesting information if you left it for a few hours in a press conference!)
February 18th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
New article: Next-Gen Mifi Firmware Includes GPS and Apps. Demo Video. http://bit.ly/aoBMs1
February 18th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
RT @umpcportal: New article: Next-Gen Mifi Firmware Includes GPS and Apps. Demo Video. http://bit.ly/aoBMs1
February 18th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Next-Gen Mifi Firmware Includes GPS and Apps. Demo Video … http://bit.ly/b8mGhz #gps
February 18th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
great news
do they have a release date planned yet ?
February 18th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Next-Gen Mifi Firmware Includes GPS and Apps. Demo Video. http://shar.es/maXLH via @sharethis
February 18th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
RT @chippy: RT @umpcportal: New article: Next-Gen Mifi Firmware Includes GPS and Apps. Demo Video. http://bit.ly/aoBMs1
February 18th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
GPS + 3G connection… Hmm… Lost pet/child/elderly collar? (or panic button of sorts)
Clio Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Also, Quick Taxi Button. Press the button, the GPS location & time got sent to an Open Taxi web-app so that Taxi Drivers can be GPS-guided to the potential customer.
… hates seeing empty taxis whizz by next block.
March 19th, 2010 at 7:44 am
I would love to use a device like this as a GPS logger for the times that I am wandering around with my camera and want to associate location with the photos afterwards. Probably would need an external button or alike to then switch off all Wifi and 3G to save online time and battery.
Also it would be nice if the “mini-NAS” could offer the possibility to serve files to an Apple Ipad. If this would work I would probably not by an Ipad with loads of memory and internal Wifi but use the Mifi for this.