Take a peek into the future of GPS navigation with these two new units introduced today. On the left is the Navigon 8100T, whose claim to fame is its 3D view of upcoming terrain thanks to special on-board data courtesy of NASA. That coolness, along with its Its 4.8-inch widescreen display, real-time traffic updates and integrated lane assistant might make it worth its steep $599 price.

On the right, that's the Telenav Shotgun, billed as a "connected GPS," meaning it can communicate with the web, letting you enter your trip data online, get real-time traffic, gas pricing and weather data, and do live points-of-interest (POI) searches. Its appealing $300 price is nice, but look out for that $12/month subscription price to keep all those neato connected features working.

We'd like to see these 3D terrain and connected GPS features trickle down to all GPS navigators before long. It's possible, given the fact that struggling connected GPS pioneer Dash is starting to license its innovations to other GPS makers. Just when we thought GPS was becoming commoditized, these great ideas come along. Bravo.

Via Ubergizmo and Engadget