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Recently in Salon Technology

Micro-remedies
In lieu of a breakup, Microsoft proposes some minor behavior modifications to cure it of its monopolizing ways.
By Salon Technology staff
[05/11/00]

Cybersex 101
Can't find porn online? Maybe you need a real adult education -- one that brings hardcore scenes and sex chat tips into the classroom.
By Katharine Mieszkowski
[05/10/00]

RIAA 1, Napster 0
Napster lost its first round in court. But with both sides of the lawsuit depending on the murky Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the war is far from over.
By Eric Boehlert
[05/09/00]

Books
"The Leap"
Tom Ashbrook's tale of self-doubt, poverty, marital discord and a $25 million jackpot is just the thing to inspire would-be entrepreneurs to take the start-up plunge.
By Janelle Brown
[05/09/00]

Technology: View from the top
Come on, Eileen
Napster CEO Eileen Richardson is walking on sunshine. But with lawsuits piling up, is she really dancing on a grave?
By Damien Cave
[05/08/00]

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"How do I use it?" I asked. The woman at the counter smiled. "It will show you. People say it's very user-friendly." I signed the rental agreement with a certain excitement. No one I know in San Francisco has ever used anything like the NeverLost. My friends are fully digital, wireless, Web-enabled, glow-in-the-dark people, but when they get lost, they have to ask directions like anyone else. For once, I would lead them in the gadget race. I would be an early adopter.

The NeverLost, which is manufactured by Magellan, is a parking-ticket-sized box that perches beside your car's gearshift (or where one would be if you had a manual transmission). It has a little screen, a round button and oblong buttons labeled "Enter" and "Cancel." Inside the box is a global positioning system computer, which tracks the position of four or more satellites in the sky overhead and, by calculating the computer's distance from each satellite, figures out exactly where in the world you are.

The NeverLost speaks in a soothing female voice, but it does not listen; somehow you have to use its three buttons to tell it where you want to go. I tried again and again to give it my hotel's address, but for some reason it wouldn't believe that I wanted to go to Pasadena. It suggested instead that I visit some spot on a street with the same name in Los Angeles. Finally I persuaded it to take me as far as an exit on the appropriate freeway -- not my exit, but close enough, I hoped. The NeverLost suggested that I take a left turn, plow through a row of parked cars and then go straight along the road highlighted in pink on its little screen.

By the time I left the parking lot, it was already urging, in its soothing voice, "Please return to the indicated route." If it had several voices at its disposal, it probably would have shrieked, "Where are you going?" Driving to Pasadena -- part of the way on the indicated route, part not -- it occurred to me that the NeverLost is like an onboard digital parent: It wants you to do the impossible, and gets upset when you don't oblige; the only way to make it happy and useful is to lie about where you're going. For only an extra $6 a day, I had turned the car into my mother.

Next page | The NeverLost announced happily, "You have arrived"