Okay, First things first. 74% of the poll takers aren’t fans of the new Knight Rider; not a big surprise.

More importantly though, the Big Bang Theory investigation thickens as there wasn’t a clear cut answer about WTF that thing is on the apartment wall. There were two common themes from my question yesterday though: either a some sort of keyboard/piano action or an electrical grounding block thing. I’m leaning more towards the latter, but I’m still not convinced. 

Knight Rider definitely hasn’t earned praise from the car or nerd communities thanks to an overwhelming story line and a cheesy K.I.T.T but that hasn’t stopped NBC from ordering up a full season of the show. The Micheal Knight wannabe will be back for at least nine more episodes or until NBC suits wake up and cancel the remake.

There are lots of GPS units out there, talking to lots of drivers.  Some people may even enjoy the voices produced by their GPS units. But only the Mio Knight Rider GPS can speak to you in the voice of William Daniels, the original voice of KITT from the Knight Rider television show.

Sure, it’s gimmicky, but it’s also a lot of fun to hear Daniels’ voice giving you turn-by-turn driving directions. I’ve been using this GPS for a short while now, and even once the novelty of pretending to drive KITT wears off — especially when your car doesn’t respond when you say “Kitt, I need you pal!” into your wristwatch — the voice of KITT is surprisingly pleasant and enjoyable.  If for some reason you do grow weary of William Daniels giving you directions, you can select the generic Male and Female voices.

The unit itself is extremely light.  The plastic case is shiny, and not uncomfortable to hold.  It slips easily into shirt and jacket pockets, as well as the back pocket of your pants.  It’s not bulky or awkward, so it’s easy to take the Mio Knight Rider GPS with you when you exit your vehicle.  In addition to a power button on the top, there’s also an SD slot so that you can load new maps.

The user interface is easy to use, and the touch screen is responsive.  I never felt the need to stab the screen to make it recognize my input.  Battery life is acceptable, though not stellar, which is to be expected from a device that is intended to be plugged into your car’s power outlet for most of its use.  Satellite acquisition is reasonably fast, as is route calculation, and most of the routes it plots are acceptable.  It doesn’t usually take me the way I would choose to go to some of the destinations I selected, but it never led me astray.

You can select from four screen modes: 3D, 2D, route, and turn-by-turn (thelast two only available when you’ve actually defined a destination).  Several preset zoom levels are available for quick use, as well as manual incremental zoom.  You can have the top-right widget display the distance to go, time to go, speed, estimated time of arrival, or just a plain old digital clock.  The bottom right widget can display a compass, battery life, satellite signal strength, or a speaker icon telling you whether you’ve muted the voice or not.

This GPS is not without its faults, of course.  The user interface is a little sluggish, especially when typing in location names as it tries to provide a list of auto-complete matches for you.  If you keep this sluggishness in mind, you won’t have any problems.  If, like me, you forget the sluggishness, you’ll type in extra characters and find yourself pressing the backspace key a lot.

My other big gripe about this unit is the mechanism for finding locations nearby.  The destination search screen has three big buttons: City/Area, POI Name, and Search Nearby.  I know where I want to go, so I usually press the POI Name.  This takes me directly to a text input window, where I can start spelling out the name (and pressing the backspace key a lot, because I’m impatient).  That searches the entire state though, so when looking for Wal-Mart the first suggested match is in Akron, Ohio, rather than Columbus, Ohio, where I am.  What I need to press is that “Search Nearby” button, and then press “Search by name” at the top of the following screen: then I can start spelling out my destination and get the list of Wal-Marts in my city.  I’m sure a lot of time was spent deciding that that button configuration was best for the Mio users, but it just doesn’t make sense to me.  It’s aggravating that I need to press an extra button to move past an extra screen to start typing my destination name.

Finally, it took me a while to get the AC power adapter properly settled in the windshield suction mount in such a way that I could easily and quickly dock the GPS in order to charge it.  This is hardly a reason not to buy the device, but it’s worth knowing about, in order to be prepared.

Overall, I enjoyed using the Mio Knight Rider GPS.  It’s not a top-of-the-line GPS, and it’s not a bottom of the barrel, either.  It works well, does what it purports to do with no other fuss, and the included software is perfectly adequate.  All in all, a decent product.  Now, if only someone would get Peter Cullen to record a GPS voice, so I could live my fantasy of riding around inside Optimus Prime…

Bottom Line
Great fun with some good functionality. A must for KITT fans.

Who seriously thought that the Knight Rider remake was going to be good? I mean, come on; NBC is doing it? Maybe, just maybe, if FX, HBO, or Showtime was producing the remake, it would of had a chance. But if you are currently watching the show and don’t like what you see, you might enjoy this guys good ‘ol fashion blogging rant.

Note to all would be producers of TV and movies remakes. DO NOT DEVIATE FROM THE ORIGINAL STORY. If you think you’re gonna put your own spin on it and it will be wildly popular, you better take a look around before you spend the studios money.

4. KITT is too vulnerable. In the TV movie and the first 2 episodes, KITT was incapacitated. This is unacceptable. The car is the show… The car is the show… THE CAR IS THE SHOW! Don’t forget that.

My little tid-bit…K.I.T.T. isn’t a ‘stang, even if it is a KR500 edition. He’s a Pontiac man.

Oh, it’s true, folks. This is the real deal. The Knight Rider GPS from Mio has a tentative launch set for August and it is priced at $270. The software is still being worked on hence some noticeable sluggishness in the video, but it’s just a demo unit at the moment that’s pretty neat and definitely nerdy. I mean, really, who wants another plain ole GPS when you can have William Daniels telling you where to go with flashing red LEDS?!

Oh, and the TV show is going back into production tomorrow. Not sure if that’s a known fact, but I thought I’d share.

If your name is Michael and you’re into GPS systems, then have I got the unit for you. The Knight Rider GPS by Mio features voice directions by none other than William Daniels, the voice of KITT on the Knight Rider series. When you fire the gadget up, you’ll hear “Hello, Michael. Where do you want to go today?”

No word on a release date, but the price will be $270 when it becomes available. Peter’s got a meeting with Mio later today, so he’ll likely get some more info.

via BBG

The keyboard in that two hour long Ford commercial from Sunday night? Yah, it’s from a Mac. Does that mean KITT is running Leopard? No, his Wi-Fi likely works.

Zing!

KITT 2008 powered by a Mac? [Macenstein]

I know you read this blog, Mom, to keep tabs on me. And because you’re proud that I’m the only guy here yet to make dick jokes, so I’d like to draw your attention to an auction on eBay.

You might remember when growing up that Knight Rider was one of my favorite shows after the Dukes of Hazzard and The A-Team. I always wanted to drive KITT, and now I can. See, KITT is up for auction, one of the original four used on the show. And there’s only one bid at $20,000! We can do this!

In fact, we can split it. If you just want to give me a $10,000 eBay gift card, I’ll take care of everything else. K?

Thanks Mom, you rule!

Matt

Oh, yah, here’s the auction. [eBay]

If you haven’t already realized this I loves me some comic bookish TV shows and movies. My previous Transformers and Iron Man coverage should make that quite apparent. Although, I didn’t post the Iron Man trailer because everyone else at CG thought it was lame, but here’s the link in case you missed it. Man, this coffee is making me all sorts of antsy (Note to self: no more coffee). Back to the task at hand.

I imagine most of our audience is familiar with Knight Rider and how awesome The Hoff used to be. Well, NBC is bringing it back with a two-hour ‘backdoor pilot’ and they’ve hired Doug Liman (his most notable projects have included Mr. & Mrs. Smith and his involvement with the Bourne series) for a Transformers-inspired version of the classic ‘80s show. So this can go one of two ways: it can be the most superbad thing on the planet or be the worst thing to ever, ever make it onto network television. The NBC bigwigs want to explore the idea of evil cars, too. I really hope they don’t screw this up.

What’d I’d really like to see make a comeback is Air Wolf. What about you?

NBC taps Liman for ‘Knight Rider’ [Variety]