Garmin’s Speak brings Alexa into your car for $150

It kinda sounds like voice assistant overkill, but maybe Garmin is onto something: the navigation systems firm’s new Speak gadget sticks to your windshield and lets you invoke Alexa to ask for directions, play music and audiobooks, shop on Amazon and turn off the lights at home with your voice.

The device is about the size of a car charger and features a circular OLED display, an LED light ring and two mics; it can stream audio over your car’s speakers via Bluetooth or an AUX cable, and display turn-by-turn directions on its screen using Garmin’s GPS system. You can also use Sensory’s skill on Alexa to accept phone calls hands-free.

For $150, it’s not a bad choice if you’re already sold on Amazon’s voice assistant and your car’s entertainment system doesn’t support Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.

Plus, Alexa is getting handier by the day – it just added support for custom lists so you add items to your to-dos for the day or just dictate a packing list for your vacation. It can also play simple games to keep your passengers occupied. If you’ve been meaning to take Alexa’s abilities on the road with you, this looks like a good bet.

Find the Garmin Speak over at Amazon and Best Buy .

Designer of first laptop wins lifetime achievement award

The designer of the first laptop, the Grid Compass computer , has won the 2010 Prince Philip Designers Prize in the UK.

Bill Moggridge designed the world’s first laptop, which was, according to the BBC , sold for $8,000 and used on the Space Shuttle in the 80’s.

Moggridge, currently the director of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, won the UK’s longest running design competition (set up in 1959) for the laptop he created in 1979 and beat out Dame Viviene Westwood among others for this year’s prize.

We previously said that this early laptop was the first , but in fact, it would seem as if the Grid Compass (have to love the fax-like phone on the side right?) was actually first, though the Toshiba one was one of the first commercially available laptops.

Hands on with the LG Optimus Pad, an Android tablet that shoots 3D video [Video]

Not content with a 3D smartphone , LG also revealed its 3D tablet at Mobile World Congress. Sadly, it will only display 3D only with the aid of glasses and via an HDMI connection to 3D TVs, but you can shoot 3D photos and videos thanks to its dual rear cameras.

As with the Optimus 3D, there’s no release date or price for this device yet, but with Honeycomb onboard, it should deliver a slick Android experience. That said, while this device will probably be a good choice for an entertainment addict with a 3D fetish, based on my first impressions, the Motorola Xoom and Galaxy Tab 10.1 might be better all-purpose, iPad-contending propositions. With some Android tablets being touted at silly-money prices , in the end it will probably all boil down to price.