Sony's new XYZ in-car GPS navigation system presents a ground-level visualization of your route that looks like a low-rez Grand Theft Auto. I became a loyal Hertz renter when they introduced their crappy-but-serviceable Neverlost GPS a few years back (I have no sense of direction and sometimes get lost playing Quake), and this week I took a flyer and tried out Avis's new GPS system, which is unspeakably shit: it's a Nextel phone that you suction-cup to your windscreen. You call a call-center and wait on hold, then tell a person over the speakerphone where you're going and they program a route into the phone, which then reads you directions in a robot voice. It's such a dumb setup that I was half sure I'd screwed up, but no, that's how it's supposed to work.
