Wednesday, June 17. 2009

New SiRF Chip for mobile TV?

Joe wrote about the new SiRFatlasIV Chipset when it was announced. The idea, he noted, was to put a location-enabling chip out in the market and see how it'd be used. A report from DigiTimes now quotes founder Kanwar Chadha as saying it "will most likely target mobile TV applications at first."

- DigiTimes

Tuesday, June 16. 2009

Podcast: Location-based Advertising...It's Not Working...Here's Why

In the much-hyped, Madison Avenue world of mobile location-based advertising, the Holy Grail seems within the grasp for retailers looking for that one-to-one marketing nirvana oft cited in the early nineties. But in its current model, it’s not working the way it should or can. Today's business model uses "push" advertising to mobile devices. But what if the model should be "pull" thus allowing consumers to determine when, where and how they should receive ads. Editor in chief Joe Francica explores this model and more.

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Thursday, June 4. 2009

Using GPS to Keep Your Hybrid Cool and Efficient

In some hybrid cars, running in economy mode means the A/C turns off when the car engine does. So, some people are opting out of economy mode, which can defeat much of the cost and environmental savings of the vehicle. But fear not, geography to the rescue!

Ricardo's [automotive engineering firm in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, UK] system uses GPS to plot the car's position on a digital map that includes the location of traffic lights and junctions to anticipate when the engine, and the aircon, is likely to switch itself off. It then produces extra cool air to reduce the cabin temperature by a further 1.5 °C - not enough to make the passengers shiver, but enough to tide the vehicle over while it is stationary.

Tuesday, May 12. 2009

GAO Questions Long Term Stability of GPS Constellation

A Government Accountability Office report (pdf) released on May 7 suggests that if delays in putting new satellites into orbit continue the existing constellation may have enough failures in the next few years to limit its use for military and civilian uses.

The report is causing bit of pushback on the Obama administration's plans to shut down Loran-C. The concern is that GPS is supposed to be the state of the art navigation solution.

- eWeek
- NextGov

Tuesday, April 14. 2009

POIFriend Goes Corporate (sort of)

POI Friend is a social network based on GPS. You upload and can share your favorite Points of Interest. The next step, drawing in businesses. But instead of Scotia Bank offering up a map of its ATMs, it sponsored a map of hockey rinks. I'm not sure of how Tim Horton's participated but apparently you can track its locations, too.

- Digital Journal

Wednesday, April 8. 2009

GPS-enabled....inhalers

David Van Sickle, an epidemiologist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has rigged up asthma inhalers linked to GPS devices. The idea is to locate where asthma sufferers are when they need their medication. For now, he's looking for 31 volunteers in a trial of the devices which are about the size of an inhaler paired with a nine-volt battery. In time, he hopes to have folks all over the country tracking where attacks happen.

- Discovery