We've pretty much been stuck on the same sat-nav technology for over a year. The inclusion of text-to-speech, which enables voice guidance to pronounce upcoming street names instead of simply saying 'turn left in 100 metres', was introduced well over a year ago, and there hasn't been much since then to differentiate new portable navigation devices from the old ones save for cheaper prices.

The most action we’ve seen has actually been on the phone side, with mid- to high-end mobiles and smartphones offering built-in GPS combined with satellite navigation software. But you know what? I’ve never been a big fan of sat-nav on a mobile. For one, they’ve always been fiddly to use on a small screen, and when lost on foot (which is often for me), I’ve always found it far quicker to ask a friendly face on the street for directions than have to fire up the GPS on a phone.

For portable navigation in the car, it's not like nothing's been happening in the industry – just nothing here in Australia. One more than one occasion I’ve been annoyed by local releases of GPS devices that have cool features like real-time traffic updates and map sharing capabilities over FM stripped out because they’re not supported here. So how about working on getting those cool features working in Australia rather than rehashing last year’s tired designs and expecting us to get all excited about them, hmmnnn?

The recently-released Dash Express just rubs salt in our GPS-deprived wounds, offering always-on Internet access courtesy of the built-in Wi-Fi antenna and GPRS antenna. Nope, that's not a typo, that's GPRS, with an R, which means it has a SIM card slot and can access data over a cellular network.

And why, pray tell, would it want to do that? I'm glad you asked. These wireless connections let the Dash download any software updates as they become available, but more importantly, let you access the latest traffic information for the route you're travelling, as well as send information out to other users.

What I like about the Dash Express is that it takes the next step in navigation. The current crop of GPS devices concentrate mainly on guiding you to unfamiliar destinations, but the Dash Express makes getting you to places faster an equal priority.

Naturally, the GPRS is a subscription-based service that you have to pay a monthly fee for, and the need for carrier cooperation makes it even less likely that we’ll see a device like this in Australia any time soon. A shame, as the portable GPS market in Australia is incredibly saturated, without all that much to differentiate available devices from one another. Even the HP iPAQ 312 Travel Companion, which I’ve been looking forward to because of the 3D mapping, probably won’t have this feature available when it’s released here in June.

Thankfully I’m currently ‘without car’, so the depressing state of portable navigation at the moment doesn’t affect me too much. But come on TomTom, Garmin, Mio (who ate Navman a few months ago) and all the others – let’s get some action happening before I fall asleep at the wheel (figuratively, of course, sleeping while driving is bad!)!