Posts Tagged ‘gps’
Polish Soldiers in Afghanistan Given Faulty GPS Units That Say They’re Still In Poland, Or Maybe Africa
The equipment, according to one Polish officer quoted in the Polish press, has caused some units to become completely disoriented in the Afghan frontier, a place where coalition soldiers really don’t want to be wandering around aimlessly. The GPS units have also been criticized for poor battery life and taking a long time to respond to requests – in some cases up to 15 minutes. Polish prosecutors are in the midst of an investigation into corrupt procurement practices in the military, which they say is to blame for the purchase of the faulty equipment.
In warfare and geopolitics, of course, location is everything. The Poles aren’t the only ones to suffer military blunders at the hands of geolocation technology this week. Nicaraguan troops mistakenly invaded a Costa Rican town across the border last week – lowering the Costa Rican flag and raising their own – after a Google Maps glitch showed the town was actually in Nicaraguan territory. Nicaragua blamed Google for the brief incursion and the Organization of American States and the UN Security Council are now mediating a resolution. Oops.
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In First Test of Interstellar GPS, Team Uses Distant Pulsars to Determine Position in Space
The idea of using pulsars as a kind of space GPS in the past;
but Matteo Ruggerio and some colleagues at the Politecnico di Torino are the first to have actually done it, using the radio telescope-equipped Parkes Observatory in Australia as their reference point.
GPS is nothing more than the measurement of time-delay measurements relative to different satellite clocks, and pulsars – rotating neutron stars that emit beams of radio waves – are extremely precise clocks. Because they are rotating very regularly, those radio beams appear to be pulsing at regular intervals as well, intervals so regular that they rival atomic clocks in their precision. But the high speeds at which astronomic bodies move makes calculating position from various pulsars pretty difficult.
Part of the problem with pulsar-based space positioning systems (SPS? Can we go ahead and coin that acronym?) is that you have to monitor more than one pulsar at a time to accurately calculate position. Parkes can only monitor one at a time. So the team used a software package called TEMPO2 to simulate the signals that known pulsars would produce anywhere on Earth.
Crunching all of that data together, they were able to get what they call “a correct result with a poor accuracy” after measuring for three days. Meaning that, compared to other methods of measuring the Earth’s position in space, they were certainly in the ballpark but not perfectly precise. But if a continuous stream of data is assumed, that accuracy improves to within a few hundred meters. Considering this is a relativistic positioning scheme – relative to objects scattered across the galaxy – that’s relatively close.
If you're relatively interested in pulsar positioning, set a course for .
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GPS Chips Installed in Endangered Rhinos’ Horns To Combat Poaching
Different alarms can also be programmed into the device, sending alerts if the rhino begins running, if it leaves the reserve, or if it sleeps for an abnormally long time. If such an alarm goes off, park employees can track the rhino with GPS and find it quickly. There are plans to tag more animals in other nearby parks in the next few weeks.
Poaching is still a huge threat for South African rhinos, more than 200 of which have been killed this year for their horns, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine. This system could help not only to keep the animals safe, but to potentially track stolen horns and help shut down their trade.
[BBC]
Mobile Indoor Positioning is Coming, But Incompatible Standards Stand in the Way
Several IPS technologies have been unveiled over recent weeks and months, and like GPS they rely heavily on radio signals. But radio signals aren’t well suited for location sensing indoors – architectural features and modern construction materials distort radio waves at every bend and turn, literally.
There are two prevailing philosophies in IPS development, neither of which solves that problem. Received signal strength (RSS) requires devices to know the strength of a radio signal at its origin, measuring the signal’s drop in intensity by the time it reaches the receiver to figure distance. Using two or more signals, devices can triangulate their positions. The other tech – time of arrival, or ToA – does roughly the same thing but instead reads time stamps embedded in signals to calculate distance from a transmitter, much as GPS does.
What does IPS currently look like? BMW recently unveiled a system that taps cars’ inertial sensors in tandem with an app to help drivers locate cars in parking garages. Last week Nokia showed off an RSS technology that tracked employees around a convention floor via radio signal triangulation. Similar systems are under development at various other firms, all using their own twists on the tech. The military seems more interested in ToA approaches – one such scheme developed by an Australian firm is locked to the GPS atomic clock, conveniently enough, and has drawn interest from the U.S. Air Force.
But none of these presents a perfect solution, and skeptics think none of them will without making smarter use of the phone’s own internal hardware – gyros and accelerometers that can also help define a device’s position by, say, estimating how far and in what direction you’ve traveled from the front door. Until that happens, you’re stuck with your paper museum maps and a phone that’s not quite as smart indoors as it is outside.
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Nike iPhone app keeps track of where, how fast you run
There was a time when going out for a run meant putting on some sneakers and leaving for a jog around the park. But if you need any indication of how far we’ve come, take a look at Nike’s latest app for the iPhone, released today on Apple’s App Store.
Using the iPhone’s GPS and accelerometer, the app lets you track not only your pace, distance, and calories when you go out for runs, but visually maps your run routes on Google Maps, showing you where you went and at which exact points you sprinted or slowed down.
Unlike previous Nike+ iPod offerings, no special sensors or kits are required for the app to function.
A couple of features worth mentioning are voice feedback — which lets you know how you’re doing — and the ability to tap on the map at anytime to see how far you’ve come. Additionally, some will appreciate its integration with the popular PowerSongs feature from other Nike+ apps, which lets you setup and play specific songs for different types of runs.
The app also syncs with , Nike’s online community, which has grown to over 3 million members since its debut back in 2006. Using the site, users can set challenges and track and share their progress through Facebook and Twitter.
While designed for the iPhone, users with an iPod Touch and iPad can also use it, albeit without the GPS tracking capabilities. The app is for $1.99.
We’ve covered a couple of similar applications before. RunKeeper that maps runners’ progress back in March of this year. And the San Francisco Country Transit Authority launched something similar for bicyclists in November 2009 called .
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Technological Tracking of Free-Range Felons Could Make Incarceration Obsolete
This brave new world of free-range felons is highly reliant on technological solutions, but, advocates argue, it would take tremendous strain off a failed prison system into which decent people who’ve fallen afoul of the law (often related to illegal substances) come out of prison hardened, more violent, and with a slew of new friends from their time spent inside. By keeping pettier criminals out of jail, we keep them working, keep them among positive influences like family (a relationship for which the benefits are often reciprocal), and keep them out of trouble.
How does the system keep them out of trouble? The current parole/probation system is also something of a failure, with overworked officers trying to ensure that too many felons keep their noses clean, day in and day out. Technological solutions like the from Anderson, Indiana-based BI Incorporated can do that automatically. The combination ankle bracelet and GPS transponder (worn on the waist like a cell phone) keeps real-time tabs on its clientele, making sure they do what they’re supposed to do and stay away from places where the state doesn’t want them.
For instance, a parole officer could detail a rigid routine for a free-range prisoner, ensuring he adheres to his work schedule (we’re using the masculine “he” here – in the majority of cases it’s accurate), reports for community service, and stays the hell away from schools or that watering hole down on 2nd Street where the whole trouble started in the first place. Not only that, but the tracking tech can make sure he stays clear of other felons wearing the device, but also from further crime – who would recruit a partner in crime who has a GPS tracker attached to his belt, anyhow?
BI’s technology is already capable of monitoring the free-range felon’s sweat for traces of alcohol use (what’s up, LiLo!) if necessary, but future versions could also monitor for other substances to ensure state charges stay off the hard stuff or on their meds. And as other wireless technologies progress, so too could the monitoring tech, for instance checking for proximity to the kinds of products the "prisoner" has a habit of stealing.
It sounds intrusive, but when citizens are convicted of felonies they do give up some rights. And given that the alternative is to sit in a prison cells, many would likely leap at the option to remain on the outside as a productive, yet partially restricted, member of society. Of course, we’ll always need places to put those citizens that are true menaces to society, but given that American has more than 2 million people wasting away behind bars right now in the U.S. – a population the size of Houston, as Wood points out – the idea of letting our less dangerous criminals walk among us doesn’t seem so bad.
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Controversy erupts over Apple software patent “copying” existing app’s home screen
Today’s Apple controversy: Apparently, a recent mobile app patent filed by Apple is blatantly copying the home screen of an existing application — the local search app — .
The problem with that analysis? After reading Apple’s patent, , it’s clear that Apple isn’t intending to steal the app’s functionality — it’s merely using it as an example.
Pictured in Apple’s patent app is a home screen that is unmistakably the same as Where To’s user interface (see picture above). It was reported last week that — something that is already highly contentious, in the first place. Since it appeared that Apple copied someone else’s idea, the response by many was venomous.
Nobody was as surprised as , the company behind the Where To app (which in 2008). Founder Ortwin Gentz writes in a blog post:
At first, we couldn’t believe what we saw and felt it can’t be true that someone else is filing a patent including a 1:1 copy of our start screen. Things would be way easier of course if that “someone else” would be really an exterior “someone else”. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
We’re faced with a situation where we’ve to fear that our primary business partner is trying to “steal” our idea and design. So how to deal with that? — As some of you know, we’ve always been for the platform Apple created. And, in fact, still are. However, we can’t ignore it if the #1 recognition value of our (currently) only app potentially is under fire.
He goes on to say that he’s unsure of the legality of using Where To’s interface in the patent app, but it “doesn’t feel right.” In the end, that may be the big problem with the situation. Apple should have at least let the developer know that it would be mimicking its interface for the application, which would have avoided much of the controversy.
GigaOm commenter why the image itself isn’t a huge deal: “After reading the claims, it’s clear that the spinning wheel image stolen from the 3rd party app was not part of the claimed invention at all and was just an illustration. You see this a lot in patents, where an exemplar device such as a Dell laptop is used in a drawing but is not part of the claims.”
FutureTap remains suspicious of that explanation, particularly since Apple’s patent application goes on to to describe the basic functionality of its Where To app. Apple also has a history of copying the work of smaller developers — most recently, with the design of its iBooks app on the iPad and iPhone, which and apps.
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