What my inner geek is thinking about these days...

I consider myself a serious gadget guy, but have to confess that I don't own one of the most prolific gadgets available today: a GPS.

This may seem odd since I travel aplenty for my job, but I've managed to work around this by either planning ahead or using Google Maps on my Blackberry with large success. Rarely do I get lost or am unable to find where I need to go.

That doesn't mean things can't be better. Enter a new company called Dash. They just launched a new GPS that offers some significant features no other GPS available can provide. Allow me to elaborate.

By far then best feature is two way communication that gives you real-time TruTraffic updates. What this means is that the GPS unit has a basic cell-phone-like feature that always communicates with Dash and receives information from Dash as well. So if other cars are stuck in traffic due to an accident, the Dash knows about this almost instantly and can send you to your destination via another route. Once more of these units are sold, the data will only get more accurate and effective.

The service also automatically updates maps which is often a time-consuming and even costly proposition.

The Dash also has wi-fi so you can enter addresses and points of interest on your laptop and wirelessly send them to your car in the garage/driveway if you have a simple network set up in your home.

True, it's nowhere close to being the smallest or sexiest-looking GPS on the market, but right now I'd prefer functionality over form.

It's priced fairly resonably at $399. There is a monthly service fee of $12.99 though. I'll let you know if I bite on this one or not...

If you go to Dash's website, there's a short video that shows how this works.

[photos are from Dash's web site as well]