Palm Pre merges GPS and calendar

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 20 Jan 2009 at 10:49

The Palm Pre is looking to edge out its rivals with a series of innovative planning and reminder services built on its inbuilt GPS.

Though excitement about the forthcoming device has been high, relatively few features have been revealed about the WebOS powering it.

However, speaking to Yahoo's Tech Ticker program, Palm investor Roger McNamee revealed a couple of new features based around the device's GPS and calendar.

Among the most interesting is a "running late" notifier that will compare the user's current location versus where they're supposed to be in say half an hour. It will then work out a potential drive length, and warn the user that they need to get going if they want to be on time.

If you're running late, the Pre can then email affected contacts automatically to let them know, instead of asking the user to do it.

The other interesting innovation is a feature that will allow the Pre to check your calendar every morning and automatically download all sorts of information related to your appointments. At a base level this could include maps to your destinations, but there's also the facility to go and root out executive information from sources such as LinkedIn.

To see videos of the Pre in action click here.