science fiction TV

Knight Rider GPS… Turbo Boost Your Directions

Knight Rider GPSYou may have already read about this on THE UNIQUE GEEK listserv, but I just had to mention it here. I’m totally obsessed with this stupid Knight Rider GPS!  I don’t own a GPS, I don’t need a GPS, and I don’t particularly want a GPS because I either know where I’m going or I can read a map myself.  However, this Knight Rider GPS is soooooooooo tempting!

In case you haven’t heard, Mio is releasing a Knight Rider themed GPS to be sold exclusively through RadioShack.  What makes this particularly cool is the voice of the GPS belongs to William Daniels, the original voice of KITT from the 1980s Knight Rider TV show.  When I first heard about this GPS, I was guessing it would be Val Kilmer doing the voice since he currently does for the new Knight Rider series.  Therefore, I couldn’t care less because the new series isn’t all that great and I can’t stand Val Kilmer.  I’ve always felt that his acting is hollow and wooden.  Y’know, the more I think about it, him playing an emotionless computer sort of makes sense.  🙂

Knight Rider

Now that I know this GPS is voiced by William Daniels, I can’t get it out of my mind! In addition to his voice, there are LED lights along the left and right side that light up as the GPS speaks.  The lights are representative of the old voice box on Knight Rider (see image to the right for reference).  This GPS also comes with other bells and whistles such as antiglare touchscreen, and you can choose from over 150 male and female names (including Michael).

I’m curious if there are any “Easter egg”-like items in the GPS, for things such as “Turbo Boost” and “Super Pursuit Mode”.  That would be fun!

While I think this is one of the coolest geek toys of 2008, I just can’t see myself shelling out the $270.  That price tag is a little too steep for me, especially since I don’t really want a GPS anyway.

8 thoughts on “Knight Rider GPS… Turbo Boost Your Directions

  1. Wow! K.I.T.T. as my GPS, I’m sold. My brother has a Tomtom and he got a load of celebrity voices from Navtones.com but I think when I get the Knight Rider GPS I will be putting his Mr. T and Dennis Hopper to shame. Navtones is powering the voice on the Knight Rider GPS so I know it is going to be good and the real thing.

  2. Todd has a Mio and curses it nearly daily. It can’t find our house. Even when you are at the house, and it shows the right street where you are at, if you want it to give directions to somewhere else, it can’t until you leave the neighborhood. Also, the interface isn’t very intuative. I’ve got a Garmin Nuvi, and it’s so much easier to use.

  3. I’ve heard that this Mio unit navigation quality is pretty bad. Such a shame…glad I found out about this before I went out and bought one! I so would have loved that thing if it actually was better at navigating. I own a Garmin nuvi and it’s great, and over at the Garmin website you can download a nuvi program to let you record your OWN voice for spoken directions….I’m sure with a bit of ingenuity you could use soundbites from other sources to make whatever voices you’d like.

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