JustBritish

Never text while driving. Call with caution while driving.

But there’s one phone application made specifically for use on the road — GPS navigation. Already, several car nav programs for mobiles are available, but today the most highly anticipated of them arrived: the TomTom app for iPhone, which was announced in June.

The app was designed to closely emulate GPS navigation units for cars, and indeed it has turn-by-turn directions, voice instructions, touch-screen commands, a choice of 2D or 3D mapping, day/night screen choices and coverage of the U.S. and Canada.

The price is not cheap — $99.99 — but that’s less than the cost of the vast majority of dedicated car navigation units. Of course, the iPhone screen is smaller than the ones on most car units.

The tech blog will have a full review of the app, upcoming, but early buyers who posted online had one main complaint — the vocal directions on the TomTom iPhone app do not include street names.

At the June announcement of the product, TomTom said it also would make available a windshield mount for phone. No word yet on when that would be available or at what price.

BTW, if you still need convincing of the dangers of texting while driving, view this public service commercial recently released in the U.K. It does have graphic content: It takes a much stronger stomach than any slasher flick.

– David Colker in the Los Angeles Times

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As the new season of Top Gear starts, you can almost feel the excitement on the wires. Well, maybe I exaggerate a bit, but people really are eagerly awaiting the new season of their favorite car show.

As proof, check out the new fansite dedicated to Top Gear at site www.topgearshow.com. With subject ranging from the recent Stig reveal controversy to the reviewed cars themselves, there is a ton of good information on the site. (Let’s just hope they devote a nice section to Oliver, my favorite car from the show.) They are trying to create the ultimate fan site that is dedicated to classic moments of May, Clarkson and Hammond, so stop by and take a look.

And don’t forget to tune in to Top Gear!

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There’s an official-looking horizontal line about 3ft off the ground as you enter the new exhibition at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. The notice alongside says: YOU MUST BE THIS TALL (to be bigger than Richard Hammond).

And that sets the tone for the World Of Top Gear section that opened last week, coinciding with the start of a new series of Top Gear today (June 21st).

The motoring programme has a huge following in 80 countries but this will be the only place in the world where you can see some of the vehicles that featured in Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May’s best-known stunts.

Cars such as the Reliant Robin Space Shuttle, Suzuki Swift that played ice-hockey and Toyota Hilux driven to the North Pole are almost TV stars in their own right and are expected to attract thousands of visitors to the museum in the New Forest.

Seen up close, the modifications to vehicles from the world’s most popular motoring show look amazingly crude. It’s easy to see why the 1,000ft stretch-limo Fiat Panda built by Jeremy to taxi Chris Moyles to a red-carpet celebrity event in London broke in half on the way there.

And you wonder why anyone would want to take to the water in the homemade ‘Dampervan’ and ‘Toyboata’. No wonder they drenched their occupants on the Top Gear amphibious car challenge. Other highlights include the humble Mini that was fitted with rockets and sent down an Olympic ski jump, and Richard Hammond’s Suzuki Vitara ‘police car’ with a DIY stinger device made from a rubber mat with nails hammered through it that hopelessly missed its target.

The Top Gear section is a refreshing change from the ranks of historic cars in the rest of the museum. Unlike the gleaming pristine classic cars in the main part of Beaulieu, many of Top Gear’s vehicles appear to have been simply cut up with an angle-grinder, then stuck back together with rivets.

One of the highlights is the Mercedes S-Class Cottage. Peep inside and you’ll see the driver sits in a wing-backed armchair (I seem to remember Hammond toppling over when it went round a corner). It also boasts stone tiles and rugs, bookcases, a fireplace and a fringed lampshade hanging from the ceiling.

Visitors can wander round a mock Top Gear TV studio complete with ‘fastest lap board’ – where the racing achievements of the show’s celebrity guests are recorded – and Cool Wall, where new cars are rated.

Big screens show a ten-minute film specially made by the Top Gear team. True to their irreverent form, it starts with Clarkson knocking James May’s elbow so his tea pours down his shirt.

After a fit of giggles, Jeremy announces: ‘We’re really sorry we can’t be there – but we literally couldn’t be bothered.’

From The Daily Mail

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One man… stripped of everything he owns and challenged to just buy British…

Join award-winning television comedian Dom Joly on an epic road trip around Britain in an attempt to fill his house from top to bottom with British-made products in the brand new series Made In Britain.

As part of this unique experiment, Dom will have his family home turned upside down and stripped of everything he owns that’s not made in the UK. He’s then challenged to go on a remarkable shopping trip, travelling the length and breadth of the country to try and replace all his foreign goods with British-made products.

Before the inspectors arrive, Dom’s quaint country cottage in the Cotswolds is a safe haven for foreign merchandise: the Italian coffee machine, a television manufactured in Japan and pants made in Taiwan. In no time at all the Joly family home isn’t looking quite so jolly anymore. In their bid to find out what’s British and what’s not, the experts have banished two thirds of everything they’ve looked at including his bed, laptop and, controversially, his wife’s cosmetics, and Dom is left with little more than his Savile Row suit, a pair of muddy Wellington boots and a lengthy shopping list for his trip.
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