If you’re a fan of GPS navigation systems, this is the most compelling reason to upgrade that I’ve yet seen; if you’ve been on the fence about whether to try one on, this just might push you over the edge.

Dash Express is a navigation system with built-in WiFi, better routing capabilities, traffic data, and a boatload of minor feature improvements, combined with an online control panel to expand your reach outside of the car.

The old way to navigate: at home, find the address of where you want to visit, write it down on a sticky pad, and head out to your car. Punch in that address and off you go. If they’re closed, you’re out of luck. Hit a bad patch of traffic, too bad.

Dash Express navigation: hop in your car, search Yahoo! Local for a destination, and get routed. Scan ahead for any traffic backups and reroute as needed. Change your mind as needed. Alert your friends (who are also Dash users) of where you’re heading to, or get updates in your unit of locations sent to you by your friends. Or rewind to the beginning. Find your destination address on your home PC, right-click it in your web browser, then select “Send 2 Car.” When you fire up Dash, the address will be waiting for you.

Dash is to standard GPS navigation systems what Google Maps was to MapQuest. One of things I always thought was “broken” in my nav system is the routing capabilities. To reroute, I’d have to pull up the turn by turn directions, and delete some of the waypoints, hoping I deleted the correct ones to force a reroute. Dash displays multiple routes and lets you choose from them. The UI has some significant improvements as well — at a glance it just looks more organized and intuitive.

Dash isn’t cheap at $399, but it sure is pretty! And maybe you can make up for some of that cost with one of Dash’s built-in features: find the cheapest gas prioces in town, and get routed there. Plus, if it ever gets stolen, you can remotely disable it so the thieves can’t enjoy your new toy.

Find it at Amazon

Modu is a tiny, credit card-sized, powerful mobile phone. Slip the modu into one of many very well-designed “jackets” to give it a new look and new functionality. Modu was formed in 2007, backed by $20 million in VC funding; it looks like they’ll be closing on another $100 million within the next few weeks based on an initial valuation of $150 million for the company.

Check out the YouTube video.

These modular components remind me of the concept behind Buglabs, but whereas Buglabs had more geek appeal, with open source hardware and software, modu has much more chic appeal. These things look slick.When is a phone not a phone? When it has “mates,” which morph the modu into various consumer electronic devices. All modu jackets are universally interchangeable, allowing you to swap modu jackets at any time, and according to the web site, with anyone. It also sounds as if some of these modu’s will be artist-branded and come pre-loaded with applications and music. I couldn’t find any price estimates to speak of, but product is supposed to ship at the end of 2008. And I want one. . . or ten.

Check out the Modu blog for updates.

Have you ever thought about making backup copies of the DVD’s you own?

You’ll have a few obstacles to overcome:

• The backup file is often quite a bit larger than a DVD-R can store
• Commercial DVD’s are often encrypted
• It’s not considered legal (not even considered fair use)

I’m not going to get into the legal implications of this here, except to say that I think it’s ludicrous that I can’t make backups of DVD’s I own. For example, if I were the copying sort, making backups of my son’s DVD’s would be a great application of this sort of thing. They could theoretically get all scratched up because his grubby little two-year old paws would eventually end up all over them. In a situation like that, I’d much rather use a throwaway DVD-R. That could hypothetically save me considerable expense, and after all, I do own these discs (in this purely hypothetical example).

My father-in-law, who is not a U.S. resident, uses Slysoft AnyDVD for his backups. He says that the program is fast, but the backups tend to be of poor quality, presumably because of the file size issue. If I were to compare one of my hypothetical backups with his backup, I bet it would be of much higher quality, because the software that I would choose if I were the backing up sort would handle compression.

So if I were to choose ripping software, I would choose something like the freeware DVD Shrink, current version 3.2.0.15. DVD Shrink is able to remove encryption, and then compress the file to disc so that it can subsequently be burned onto a single DVD-R. It also has pretty good reauthoring features, so I could choose to leave off the foreign language track or bonus features if I were so inclined.

DVD Shrink’s official web site is here, but software can’t be downloaded from it. Rather, there is a forum that links to the various download locations. If I were to download DVD Shrink, I would make sure that I downloaded it from one of the locations referenced in that forum, and nowhere else. If I were to do it, of course.

A good quick start tutorial can be found, and more in-depth task-based tutorials are available.

Once this hypothetical file were on my PC, I would then go about burning it to a DVD. A very capable program that could be used to burn these types of files is the free ImgBurn software, luckily available fro download directly from their site. The current version is 2.4.0.

If I were to go about making backup copies, these are the programs I would use. They are very capable and make high-quality backups. But due to the decryption, compression, and drive speeds, they would take some time to copy a full DVD, perhaps along the lines of 30 minutes to rip and 30 minutes to burn and verify. Or so I would reasonably expect.

In all seriousness, while I do think it’s ridiculous that I can’t backup movies I own for my own personal use, I am strongly opposed to intellectual property theft of any kind. I would never consider it, and I discourage everyone I know from doing it. Fair use on the other hand is. . . well, fair.