The ASUS R50A Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) was recently announced as an honoree for the 2008 International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) Best of Innovations Design and Engineering Awards in the Computer Hardware category. ASUS was well represented with the R50A sharing honors with the very new and extremely popular, low cost PC, the Eee PC and the P527 GPS cell phone.

According to ASUS’s news release, the ASUS R50A comes with GPS, 3G / 3.5G connectivity, TV tuner, webcam, microphone and full notebook functionality. It’s a step up from the PDA platform without going to the form factor of a notebook computer. To achieve the ultra mobile tag there is no QWERTY keypad rather relying on a 4.8 inch, 1024 X 600 pixel resolution touchscreen combined with ASUS’s InfoPen software for data entry. The R50A’s size is similar to some of the larger screen car navigation GPS devices available.

ASUS’s R50A ultra mobile computing platform integrating Internet connectivity with GPS capability is a move towards a future including GPS connected navigation devices. With an expected rapid rise in LBS (Location Based Services), GPS devices will become more find and navigate devices rather than navigation devices. Points of Interest from a static database will no longer be acceptable to consumers expecting dynamically updated location based search results.

GPS devices without Internet connectivity are on a path to extinction. You only have to look at Nokia’s recent strategic purchase of Navteq as evidence of corporate acceptance of the bright future for connected navigation devices.

It is not just LBS that will boost the demand for products like the ASUS R50A. Consumers will expect location aware software applications as well. For example, address books will be expected to be location aware even in real time if someone has agreed to ongoing sharing of their location with you.

The roll out rate for new location based services and software is set to jump dramatically due a number of factors such as:

• the rapid proliferation of GPS enabled devices
• reduced development times and easier deployment of location based software applications stemming from the release of multiple phone and carrier programming platforms such as the one recently released by uLocate
• the maturing and simplifying of GPS applications as evidenced by examples such as WHERE, the world’s first wireless GPS widget platform

We are on the edge of a rapid phase of development with expectations like those from market analyst Strategy Analytics prediction of the LBS market growing from some 200 million dollars in 2006 to 1.2 billion in 2011. It’s time for all manufacturers to start looking at what mobile connected computing platforms, such as the ASUS R50A, consumers will be looking for in the near future.

Further Reading

Read our review of Yahoo! Zurfer, a research prototype application from Yahoo! Research Berkeley which brings the location based photo browsing functionalities of Flicker to mobile devices.

Technorati Tags: ASUS R50A, Ultra Mobile PC, UMPC, GPS, 3G / 3.5G connectivity, TV tuner, webcam, ASUS’s InfoPen software, ultra mobile computing, location based services

Top features to consider with the ASUS MyPal A639 PDA, apart from being GPS enabled, are the combination of a large 1Gb onboard memory capacity with multimedia capabilities and flexible, advanced connectivity in the form of WiFi and Bluetooth.

The front face of the ASUS MyPal A639 has a 3.5″ TFT LCD with 65k Full-Colors, 16-bit Display and QVGA (240X320) resolution touch panel positioned above a horizontal row of three circles containing a speaker, five-way navigation control and a cluster of four application launch buttons. The screen is the same size as many dedicated car GPS units and is anti-glare for improved visibility when dash mounted for car navigation.
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Technorati Tags: ASUS MyPal A639 PDA, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth

The ASUS MyPal A636N is a GPS enabled PDA which comes with the bundled car kit. The 3.5 inch touchscreen can be orientated horizontally or vertically on the dashboard. The A636N has a pedestrian mode so once you’ve parked the car you can take it along for those final directions to your destination. This unit is not the thinnest of the ASUS GPS enabled PDA range as it has a fold out swivel patch antenna which is used to improve GPS satellite reception.

The front face of the ASUS MyPal A636N has a 3.5″ TFT LCD with 65k Full-Colors, 16-bit Display and QVGA (240X320) resolution touch panel positioned above a horizontal row of three circles containing a speaker, five-way navigation control and a cluster of four application launch buttons. The screen is the same size as many dedicated car GPS units and is anti-glare for improved visibility when dash mounted for car navigation.
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Technorati Tags: ASUS MyPal A636N, GPS enabled PDA, 3.5 inch touchscreen, pedestrian mode

The ASUS MyPal A696 GPS enabled PDA has the premium look that ASUS have sought to bring to the market. The A696 has a very smart looking stainless steel casing and at (157 mm) is the thinnest of ASUS’s GPS enabled PDA range. ASUS have achieved the slimming down by having the GPS antenna embedded in the casing as opposed to a protruding swivel patch antenna of other Asus GPS PDA models such as the MyPal A639 and MyPalA636N.

The front face of the ASUS MyPal A696 has a 3.5in, 240 x 320, 65k colour LCD positioned above a horizontal row of three circles containing a speaker, five-way navigation control and a cluster of four application launch buttons. The screen is the same size as many dedicated car GPS units and is anti-glare for improved visibility when dash mounted for car navigation. . The A696 has a pedestrian mode so that once you’ve parked the car you can take it along for those final directions to your destination. It’s an excellent platform for interacting with the rapidly growing range of location based services being offered. The A969 comes with the bundled car kit.
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Technorati Tags: ASUS MyPal A696, GPS enabled PDA, GPS antenna embedded

ASUS have just launched their P526 PDA Phone with GPS capabilities. It’s a compact, lightweight unit at 110 x 58 x 15.4 mm and 115g. The screen is a 2.6 inch TFT supporting 65,000 colors at a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. GPS capability is supplied by the ever popular SiRF Star III GPS Chip. You can compare GPS Chipset capabilities or find out some more on the SiRF Star III GPS chipset on GPSTek.

Running on a Windows Mobile 6 Professional operating system platform with the Java Mobile Edition (J2ME) supported, there is plenty of scope with the P526 to run GPS based business productivity applications. Microsoft have numerous GPS applications available.

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