Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN) stock is falling after GPS chipmaker SiRF Technology Holdings (NASADQ: SIRF) cut its first-quarter revenue forecast due to lower-than-expected demand in a weakened economic environment. This is bad news for GRMN, since it implies lower sales for it as well. GRMN is also under pressure from news that consumer confidence sank to a five-year low in March. If you think this stock won't be rising too far in the coming months, then it could be a good time to look at a bearish hedged play on GRMN.

After hitting a one-year low of $52.18 in April, the stock hit a one-year high of $125.68 in October. This morning, GRMN opened at $59.49. So far today the stock has hit a low of $57.70 and a high of $59.97. As of 12:15, GRMN is trading at $59.78, down $2.60 (-4.2%). The chart for GRMN looks bearish but deteriorating, while S&P gives the stock its highest 5 STARS (out of 5) strong buy rating.

For a bearish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a May bear-call credit spread above the $75 range. A bear-call credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of call options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make an 8.7% return in two months as long as GRMN is below $75 at May expiration. Garmin would have to rise by more than 24% before we would start to lose money.

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) continues its cruise into providing GPS-based location information to anyone with any device by partnering with GPS device maker TomTom. Google will make it easier to search for and then send business addresses from Google Maps to TomTom portable navigation devices.

Although services that send web-based driving directions to portable GPS devices already exist, this is the first time a Google Maps search can be sent directly to a TomTom navigation device with a click. Although anyone can enter an address into a GPS device and receive driving directions, it's much easier and faster to use a web service like Google Maps to locate the most updated information and then send that to a GPS in seconds.

As such, Google has added a "Send to GPS" link to the existing "Send" feature available when any customer uses Google Maps. For salespeople and other traveling professionals, being able to locate a business address within a few seconds and sending that information to your GPS device with a single click will be immensely valuable.

This new partnership will also make Google Maps more customer sticky than it already is. Google Maps competes with Yahoo! Maps, MSN Live Maps and AOL's MapQuest.

The Japanese government is concerned about Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) dominance in the global search business. Senior officials in the country believe that they have lost their consumer electronics advantage to companies in Korea, Taiwan, and China. And now, the Asian country may end up with no edge in the fast-growing search software business.

The battle for market share has already been won by Google on the PC platform. The Japanese government is building a partnership of several major consumer electronics companies to create search software for handsets and other devices.

According to the FT: "Tokyo hopes to use Japan's strength in developing devices, such as mobile phones and car navigation systems, to create proprietary search and information retrieval functions"

The government has matched NTT Data with Toyota InfoTechnology Center and Toyota (NYSE: TM) Mapmaster to create an interactive, personalized car navigation system. Other partnerships involve NEC, Hitachi and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Computer Science Laboratories.

To start, Japan will put about €90 million into the ventures.

Of course, Google and GPS navigation companies are already moving their software to devices other than the PC, so the Japanese may be a Little late.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

It was bound to happen -- automakers stopped competing on ancient specifications like horsepower and safety and started competing on technology-laden offerings inside new vehicles. In my opinion, safety is still the single largest feature of any vehicle. After all, these are rapidly moving barrels of steel competing for road space with a thousand other drivers. Yet, safety seems boring to many of us since we can't touch or see it. Enter new car technology like Bluetooth, GPS navigation, and iPod-integrated satellite stereo systems and you have a technology arsenal inside that new car.

And, we're not talking high-end luxury vehicles here -- many of these tech appointments can be found standard in some mainstream vehicles as well as affordable options in others. How much tech is too much for the average driver? That's a question that will be played out as the customer-uncentric auto technology engineer crams ever more gadgetry into all these newer vehicles. Hear that beep-beep-beep when your neighbor backs up his new SUV? That is the motion detector telling him or her that there are no objects behind them. No kids, bikes, etc.

Therein lies a central problem I see here -- engineers are trying to assist everyday vehicle maneuvers like using driving directions and backing up safely with technology. Notice I said "assist" -- but customers will expect these new features to 'replace' old habits. In other words, customers may use these new features (if they can understand them) to take over from paying attention while driving all these new cars. In a classic tale, and something I agree with, engineers don't understand the fine-tuning of how the average customer thinks and acts, but designs to how any logical driver would think and act. How many logical drivers out there in bumper-to-bumper traffic or with kids screaming in the back seat? Raise those hands higher, please. Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is about the only company I can think of who designs to how customers will use products, not to how the company 'thinks' customers will use its products. Maybe Steve Jobs and Co. should consult with the auto industry soon?

Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray is backtracking on his earlier column that Apple, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone is perfect. While his employer fronted him the $600 to consider an iPhone purchase, Bray cites four reasons he'll return it:

• It doesn't sync with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT)'s Outlook. Bray likes Outlook and has "his life" on it and he was delighted to see that the iPhone is designed to let users copy their addresses, phone numbers, and appointments into it. That means users can find their Outlook phone numbers on the iPhone, then just tap a number to dial a call. Unfortunately, it took Bray about a dozen tries before the iPhone copied the Outlook data stored on his work PC; it's never worked on his home machine. Bray found at least a dozen online complaints from iPhone owners with similar problems. Either the iPhone won't sync with Outlook at all, or it does so intermittently or incompletely.
• The GPS navigation doesn't work. Bray admits this is a trick question but he finds it hard to believe that the $600 iPhone lacks GPS, a feature built into the Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ) Wireless phone he got for free when he renewed his contract in 2006. Bray finds the iPhone's Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) Maps implementation quite useless when he's lost. And he doesn't understand why GPS is now common in the cheapest phones, but absent from the iPhone.