The Sony GPS-CS1 ($150) is a tiny device that attaches to a Sony digital camera to pinpoint on a map exactly where you captured your photographs. This is a useful tool if you aren’t able to archive project photos or family vacation snapshots until years after they’ve been taken. When you download your pictures and the GPS-CS1’s data to your computer, software correlates the time stamps embedded in your image files with the GPS unit’s tracking information, and—voilà!—your planetary position for each time you snapped a picture is revealed. Additional software shows each picture’s point of origin with a pushpin icon on a map. Roll your mouse over the icon to reveal the exact location in which you took your pictures.

Cellular phone service providers have discovered ways to incorporate GPS into their service contracts. Verizon Wireless offers VZ Navigator ($10 per month or $3 per day, plus air time use), an application that turns your mobile phone into a helpful traveling companion. Available anywhere within Verizon’s Enhanced Services coverage area, VZ Navigator directs you to services (such as restaurants, gas stations, and cash machines), produces onscreen maps of your requested locations, and produces audible, turn-by-turn driving directions to your destinations.

Parents can have peace of mind with GPS-based cell-phone services. Sprint offers parents Family Locator ($10 per month), a service that can identify a child’s geographic location at any time (provided the child is carrying a compatible cell phone). When a parent requests a child’s position, a map appears on the parent’s phone or computer indicating where the child’s cell phone currently resides.

Parents can also use the service to receive automatic notification when a child reaches a particular destination, such as a school or a friend’s house. Children receive text messages whenever their locations are detected, so Mom or Dad’s checking up is never a secret.

Verizon Wireless offers a similar service called Chaperone ($10 per month) that shows the location of a child’s phone on the parent’s PDA or phone at any time. The enhanced Chaperone with Child Zone ($20 per month) gives parents the added ability to define an area—for example, a school property or a neighborhood block—and receive text-message alerts any time their child enters or exits designated boundaries.

Intel Unveils Core 2 Duo

This year’s most significant personal-computer industry product release wasn’t a particular machine, but rather, a new line of processors likely to improve performance across all PC brands. In July, Intel introduced its Core 2 Duo processors, which run faster, use less power, and emit less heat then their Pentium predecessors.

“Intel has pretty much cut their chips’ power consumption in half,” says Steve Cuddihy, technical manager for Voyageur PC, a Burnsville-based computer manufacturer. PCs using the new processors also should be quieter than earlier models, Cuddihy explains.

There are versions of the Core 2 Duo made for desktop and laptop computers. Among the first mainstream-aimed PC makers to put this technology inside their products are Dell, HP, Velocity Micro, Gateway, and Apple. Gaming-oriented manufacturers Falcon Northwest, Voodoo, and Alienware (which Dell owns) were also quick to put out Core 2 Duo–powered products.

There are still plenty of computers available that use Intel’s older processors and chips from Intel’s primary competitor, AMD. Fortunately for consumers, many such machines have dropped in price since the Core 2 Duo hit the market.

“It’s a win-win for everybody,” Cuddihy says. “This is going to push AMD to make a better chip, and that will push Intel to make a better chip. Competition is good, and this is definitely good competition between the two companies.”

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