Wednesday, November 18. 2009

Seen During Geography Awareness Week II

The intro line for the new Turbo Tax: "Like GPS for taxes, TurboTax ® 2009 easily and accurately guides taxpayers step-by-step through their tax return, effortlessly getting them to their ultimate destination - the biggest tax refund possible. "

- press release

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in GPS at 07:16 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, November 16. 2009

Dutch to Tax Drivers Based on Driving Distance, Road Time using GPS

According to the Associated Press, the Netherlands will levy a tax based on the time spent driving in order to reduce congested highways. When the plan takes effect in 2012, a GPS monitoring system will track the distance, time, and place of drivers who will pay a few cents per kilometer. The tax replaces an annual road tax that amounts to approximately $900 per year for a mid-size car.

Posted by Joe Francica in Tracking, LBS, GPS, Sensors, Navigation, Routing, Tracking, Logistics at 01:17 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, October 13. 2009

A satellite orbiting the earth could someday prevent an auto accident...

That's the word from Dr. Gerhard Schmidt, Ford’s chief technical officer. He's referring to GPS satellites, so of course, he really means that data from them could be used with other tech to prevent accidents. The somewhat misleading discussion at USA Today explains:

Ford and Auburn are trying to see if GPS satellites can act as an early warning system that detects when a vehicle is about to lose control and communicate with the vehicle’s stability control systems and other safety features to prevent a rollover or other serious accident.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Oops, GPS at 09:24 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, October 5. 2009

First Review of Nuvifone

PC Magazine has the first review I've seen of the Garmin Nuvifone G60. Short story: "Unfortunately, Garmin spent almost two years bringing this phone to market, and it feels like a 2007-era device."

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in GPS at 12:09 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

Friday, October 2. 2009

EU Helps Make GPS More Accurate

The European Commission introduced EGNOS on Thursday. It's a satellite-based navigation system that improves GPS accuracy from about 10 meters to within two meters. Most navigation devices sold in Europe are ready for EGNOS; I couldn't find much discussion of whether US receivers are good to go with the new free service.

- Sci-Tech Today

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in GPS at 08:19 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, September 30. 2009

GPS in the Snow

Recall that one of the errors in GPS is called "mulitipath error" - that's when the signal from the GPS satellite bounces off something before it gets to the receiver, making its path artificially "longer." Its noise for most applications, but in fact is valuable in ... wait for it... measuring snow depth. Researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder, looking to learn about the impact of soil moisture on the echoes found their experiment in the middle of a snow storm. That lead to a startling realization: "The snow slowed the reflected GPS signals, and the delay corresponded to the snow's depth..." That in turn led to a method to accurately measure snow fall in real time. The team's paper, in Geophysical Research Letters appeared this month.

- ScienceNow

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in GPS, Remote Sensing at 07:24 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) |