For iPhone 3GS users that want true turn-by-turn navigation but don’t want to spend a fortune, MotionX GPS Drive is for you. One of its best features is the full iPhone Address Book integration, just select an entry in your iPhone contacts list, and MotionX will get you there. While navigating, you can access playlists and listen to your music, audiobooks, and podcasts without going back and forth between applications. You can even place a phone call directly from search results. If you want live voice directions MotionX even comes with a full free 30 day Live Voice Guidance package. Courtesy of MotionX. After the first 30-days, you can purchase the Live Voice Guidance during the months you need it for $2.99 or purchase a full year for $24.99.

With MotionX-Routes™ technology, “the MotionX Smart Router calculates the best route, whether you are driving or walking.” The walking routes are designed specifically for pedestrians, so if you park your car several blocks away, it will “walk you” to your destination and back to your car.

[From the iTunes App Store .99¢ to $4.99]

ION unveiled the iDISCOVER KEYBOARD at the Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center. According to a press release “The iDISCOVER keyboard transforms your iPhone or iPod touch into a music creation studio. Virtually anyone can use it to easily create music [editor note: the same way, anyone with a hammer is a carpenter, your mileage may very.] . 25 piano-style keys and a custom sound app that includes more than two dozen world-class sounds give you everything you need to learn and create music with your iPhone or iPod touch.”

“iDISCOVER KEYBOARD consists of a 25-key, battery-powered piano keyboard workstation with dock and a custom iDISCOVER KEYBOARD app for iPhone and iPod Touch. iDISCOVER KEYBOARD gives users velocity-sensitive, synth-action keys, pitch and modulation wheels, and physical buttons for the most commonly used controls including octave up and down and sound-bank selections. It features stereo RCA outputs and a headphone jack for connection to playback and recording systems. iDISCOVER KEYBOARD also has a USB/MIDI output so musicians can use it as a controller for MIDI software on Mac.”

ION also demoed a product called iType (pictured below) which was a regular keyboard for the iPhone, but has since removed it from their product lineup.

[Via ION]

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. Such is true with the iPhone SuctionClip from Brandra. The SuctionClip is a very easy to use mount for your iPhone, which can be placed almost anywhere. For example, use the suction clip to stick it on the seat back of an airplane or train seat so you can watch your iPhone hands free. It can be used as a desk stand to prop up the iPhone for a great viewing angle. You can also clip it without the suction cup to under an inch in thickness.

The unit is small enough for me to take it anywhere. I keep one in my travel kit and one in my MacBook case. Great for the gym, car or anywhere you need to be hands-free while watching media on your iPhone. It comes in Black & Pink, White & red, Black & Grey, Black & Red (pictured), White & Grey and White & Pink.

[Available from Brandra for $12.99]

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

— Alfred Hitchcock

Many years from now when Tricorders are common place, we just might look back on October 30th 2009 as the birth of the first real tricorder. While the iPhone currently has motion, sound, light, location, radio wave and distance sensors, Jing Li a physical scientist, along with several other researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California developed a working prototype of a harmful gas detector for the iPhone.

The team, working under the Cell-All program in the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, created a small stamp sized detector to be plugged in to an iPhone to “collect, process and transmit sensor data.” The sensor can detect and identify low concentrations of airborne ammonia, chlorine gas and methane.

[Via NASA]