Word: blackbirders
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Other birds seem to be in trouble because of habitat loss. The decline of the rusty blackbird, for example-one of the most rapidly dwindling species in North America, says Butcher-may also be due to global warming, but the immediate cause seems to be a drying up of the Canadian wetlands where it breeds. The same may apply to the Canada warbler. The cerulean warbler, also in decline, is losing habitat not because of global warming but because of another human activity: the destruction of Appalachian mountaintop forests by coal-mining operations...
Last week, I reviewed the frill-laden Alpine Blackbird navigator, a $750 product that has all sorts of features, including an FM transmitter to hear instructions (and music) through the car stereo, as well as built-in hardware to receive traffic updates, once the service launches in June. This week, I look at Sony?s entry into portable navigation, the remarkably priced and exceptionally stylish...
...audio, too, was a surprise. Who would have thought that a digital woman?s voice, set at a reasonable volume, could so clearly cut through the music blaring from my car stereo? Alpine?s Blackbird may have an FM transmitter for broadcasting commands through the car radio, but Sony?s Nav-U doesn?t seem to need...
...Blackbird's full talents won't be realized until June, when a major software update will be released. Customers who buy the Blackbird now will be able to download the software for free. Not only will it contain the latest map of the U.S.; it will also activate the real-time traffic receiver built into the product. (Navteq currently tracks traffic in 31 cities, and will most likely charge $60 per year for the service...
...market for a navigation product, the Blackbird certainly holds its own against competition from Garmin, TomTom, Magellan and soon, Sony and Mio. But if you want to get your $750 worth, you had better be ready to upgrade (via Web download or CD-ROM) this summer...