Welcome to the modern world my friends! Remember back in the day when you used to steal garden gnomes from peoples yards, drive around taking pictures with them, then return them later with the photos? No? Um, me either.

That said, those kind of shenanigans wouldn’t fly this day and age, no sir-ee. Why, Tyler, you might be asking? Simple, today people put GPS chips in their nativity scenes. Believe it. Such was the case for a Florida couple whom upon finding out their Baby Jesus had been swiped, fired up the GPS tracker on the previously installed chip somewhere inside Our Lord and Savior. Lucky for them, Him, and well, that’s about it, Baby Jesus only wandered a block away, to a home across the street.

Here’s where the future gets a bit less funny, and a lot more serious: The police came, arrested the female thief, and took back the Baby Jesus (valued at $800) equipped with GPS (valued at $400) which sends the girl straight into jail…to the tune of a $3500 bail. Yikes. That said, welcome to the future, now leave Jesus alone.

Just thought I’d offer up a handy dandy little link for all of you who might want to know a bit more about the buzz going around surrounding turning YOUR phone into a GPS monster.

There is whispering around the blogosphere about all this, and I found out that we actually have a page dedicated to answering all of it!

At any rate, head over to the page we have set up all about the WHERE and Fugawi Touratel information!  Get it, as soon as you can, trust me, you don’t want to wait another day.

Hello and welcome back!  Hopefully this Holiday Season found you surrounded by the warmth of loved ones, and plenty of goodies wrapped up in nice little boxes with nice little bows.  That said, along with the gifts and loved ones this Holiday Season, there’s a good chance a whole slew of edible goodies were had by all as well.  Now what?

I’ll tell you what, get up, get out, and start hiking, walking and backpacking around the hills, mountains or urban landscapes that might surround you!  Can you think of a better way to burn off those extra calories?  I can’t.  That said, if you want to know just what you’re in for, the Fugawi Touratel Widget is for you.  It will find you, and then beam back topographic maps of exactly where you are.  How cool is that if you just so happen to be a biker, hiker, fisher, camper, backpacker, or yes, even a hunter!?  Very cool my friends, very cool.

So, head over to your WHERE Widgets, drop it in and find out just why I chose Fugawi Touratel as this weeks WHERE Widget of the Week!

Just a quick one today to wish all of you very Happy Holidays from all of US at WHERE!

Hopefully this time of year finds you surrounded by friends, family and loved ones no matter what you believe in, or what you celebrate!

Happy Holidays from our WHERE team to you!

Happy Wednesday friends!  As you probably know by now, Wednesdays are special days for me because it’s the time where I get to share with all of YOU, my newest and most favorite WHERE Widgets of each week.  This week I’ve been tinkering with an entirely original WHERE Widget:  CellSoul.

Basically, here’s what the widget does, and this is straight from the WHERE page:

“CellSoul calculates the precise timing of the five daily Muslim prayers based on a user’s current GPS coordinates. In addition to prayer times.” 

That’s right, a WHERE widget aimed at helping the spiritual side of you get even more in tune.  This one is aimed at those WHERE users of the Muslim faith, as all of ya’ll rely much more on the time and position of yourself on this watery globe of ours than any other faith.

Personally, I’m Buddhist, but I Love seeing this widget.  The more everyone, everywhere can embrace people of other spiritualities and faiths, the better off we’ll all be.  This is just a small step, but you know what they say about journeys of 1,000 miles…

Ok, I officially declare I can not wait for this WHERE Widget to launch! I don’t know about you, but from time to time my foot gets a little heavy and as such, my car tends to move a little quicker than a few laws might like. Hey, I’m human, come on.

That said, my friend Matt just informed me that in the works here at WHERE there is an exciting new blend of tech that will allow you to stay out of reach of the long arm of the law.  The tech in question is a GPS map that finds you and then combines it with submitted data and GPS locations of speed traps and well-known hiding places of ticket happy officers. The widget will be called Trapster and basically does all the aforementioned things, helping YOU stay out of jail and out of the officer’s ledger book. Good for everyone, yes?

Now, I think once we have this GPS WHERE Widget that does this, simply open your phone up, have it find you immediately, and tell you exactly what’s around you, that will be beyond spectacular. For my heavy feet, WHERE, I’m going to love you FOREVER.

Here’s a reminder to register by December 14th for the
NAVTEQ LBS Challenge.

Here are some reasons why…
* One of the largest prize pools of any developer contest
* Finalists receive widespread marketing and promotion
* Have a chance to be featured in a carrier roadshow by
Autodesk and WHERE

Here’s how to get started now:

1st step:
Register online with NAVTEQ by December 14th.
http://developer.navteq.com/site/global/lbs_challenge/p_lbs_home.jsp

2nd step:
Submit your WHERE application by January 11th.
More info at http://www.where.com/contest

Using WHERE, it’s easy to participate in the Challenge:
* No mobile experience is required.
* No need to own a specific mobile phone.
* No knowledge required about Nokia S60 emulators,
PSY simulation files, J2ME, or Flash Lite.
* No installation of IDE or emulator on PC.
* Developers from anywhere in the world can participate.

If you have any questions, email Matt and Allen:
create at where dot com

Friends, neighbors, I hope your Wednesday is a bit warmer and less blustery than mine. Yeah, it’s cold here, too cold, and to be quite frank, I’m longing for Spring already. Already and it’s only December. Yikes. That said, for all you in Colder climates, one of the quickest, easiest and most fun ways of beating off the winter chill is to stare achingly at photos of warmer places. Islands, tropical beaches, warm sun, ahhh.

That said, this weeks honorary WHERE Widget of the Week goes to something that is near and dear to my heart of hearts…photography. Some of you may know, or well, may not know, but I am a photographer in addition to moonlighting as a writer for this fine establishment, and so when I found out there was a WHERE widget aimed directly at photographers, I was excited to say the least. That’s right, this weeks WHERE Widget of the week is Flickpics. Flickpics basically lets you browse photos that have been geotagged by Flickr users to find out Exactly, and I mean EXACTLY where the photo was taken.

So, no longer do you have to see a photo of a tropical beach and just Wish you could be there…now, you can find out exactly where in this crazy world that beach is, and you can book yourself a flight out of this frozen season. Cool my friends. Cool.

Head over, load it up and start finding yourself in tropical locales. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.

Here’s a quick one for all you guys to start your lovely Monday off with. Now, being fans of WHERE, I have little doubt that most, if not all of you are mobile warriors. You’re used to traveling, staying in strange cities and strange beds, used to living in hotels and out of suitcases. That said, from now on you might want to be a litttttle more careful wherever you DO stay.That’s right my tech-savvy mobile warriors, that hotel room isn’t so clean, and those glasses you’re drinking out of…not so safe. So, as a caveat to all my tech friends, watch and learn:

http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22250/39039

If you honestly need a reason why I chose Gas Buddy, WHERE’s latest and one of their greatest widgets, to be the WHERE Widget of the Week, well, I’m sorry, because if you’re living in America and drive anything other than a bicycle, you’ll get it.

Get what?  You bicycle riders might be asking…get this:  the WHERE Gas Buddy Widget boots up and instantly shows you gas prices, and yes, the cheapest, all over town nearest to you.  That’s right, it scours the urban landscape that calls itself your home, finds gas prices, then shouts them back at you so you can weep softly into your empty and open checkbook.

So, my suggestion to you kind friends, load the WHERE Gas Buddy Widget onto your cell phones so whenever you see that little “E” light on your dashboard you’ll be ready, willing, and able to go buy cheap gas as soon as possible.  Ok, maybe cheap and gas can never coexist in the same sentence again, so I’ll say this:  You’ll be able to buy slightly less outrageously expensive gas, as soon as possible.