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Hot topics at CITA Wireless 2005 include location services and mobile entertainment. Both areas of discussion coexist in a new handheld from Florida-based Tiger Telematics called Gizmondo.

Already shipping in the United Kingdom, Gimzondo won't find its way to the U.S. for at least another few months. The wireless industry in America, however, gets its first chance to play with the device at this year's CTIA show.

Gizmondo is a "hybrid" device that blends the gaming capabilities of, for example, Nintendo's GameBoy Advance with the functions of a PDA or smartphone. Other handhelds in this category include TapWave's Zodiac and Nokia's N-Gage platform.

Unlike other entertainment handhelds, Gizmondo integrates a global positioning system (GPS) chip to enable location and navigation-based features in games as well as more traditional mobile applications.

The company announced in January that it contracted MapInfo Envinsa to provide the core functionality for Gizmondo's GPS services (i.e. location-based mapping, routing, and geocoding).

Initially, location services will fall into two categories: added value services for the end user - such as 'where am I?' and 'find the nearest' - and services that enhance personal safety, such as tracking and panic button features

We're told the merger of games with GPS tracking—Gizmondo's most heavily hyped feature—won't appear until a later as-of-yet undisclosed date; no doubt disappointing gaming aficionados drawn to the concept. Perhaps Tiger Telematics is finding the technology more difficult to implement than expected, or developers haven't come through with their GPS-enabled in time.

Gizmondo runs on Microsoft Windows CE.NET and is powered by a Samsung ARM9 400 MHz processor that incorporates a 64-bit graphics accelerator. It boasts a smallish 2.8-inch color screen.

The handheld also serves as a MP3 music player, MPEG4 movie player, and a digital camera. Users can send multimedia messages over a GPRS connection that also allows for wide area network gaming. This lets you play against other Gizmondo owners worldwide.

Bluetooth lets you play games wirelessly too, except in this case the players are in the same room. 64MB of on-board storage comes courtesy of M-Systems' mDiskOnChip solution. And a Secure Digital slot delivers memory and peripheral expansion.

Gizmondo should go for between $300 and $400 when i