Thursday, September 10. 2009

GPS Satellites to Get Better Clocks

Massachusetts based PerkinElmer received a $15 million contract from ITT to update the atomic clock technology it provides for the Global Positioning System satellites.

- Mass High Tech

Tuesday, September 8. 2009

Podcast: What Your Relationship with your GPS Says About You

In this special "vacation" edition of the podcast, our editors turn their attention to a piece of geospatial technology they both use: the Garmin Forerunner "GPS watch." There's quite a bit of disagreement about what's expected of the device and what's wanted in future versions.

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Tuesday, August 25. 2009

Quote of the Week

"The GPS bases are loaded on the iPhone — it now remains to be seen if developers can knock it out of the park."

- But as Patrick Connolly, research director of IMS Research, in a TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics) article about GPS apps for the iPhone

$80 GPS Watch for Waypoints, Geotagging

The ChinaVision GPS watch is not for the Garmin Forerunner crowd (where pace and distance are key measures). No, this bulky and utilitarian device allows you to save your path, set waypoints and have it guide you back to them (not necessarily on roads, but as the crow flies) and it can time stamp locations so that digital photographs can be later linked to those locations.

The price is good; all the detailed specs are here.

Via Crunchgear

Map Projecting Gadget Takes Silver at Design Competition

I've learned that when a device wins a design competition, there's a good reason: elegant design. That does not mean the device is practical or in demand.

Take the Maptor, designed by Jinsun Park and Seonkeun Park of South Korea's Samsung Art & Design Institute, which received a silver award at the 2009 International Design Excellence Awards organized by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).

The not-yet-available tubular device fits in your hand (or hangs around your neck) and projects a map image on any flat surface. The device is battery powered and downloads maps via Bluetooth. And there's a GPS inside so there's a "you are here" pin on the map.

- Crave

Monday, August 10. 2009

Don't Track Kids, Track the Folks Checking Up on the Kids

Florida is among the first states to use GPS, digital photography and cell technology to insure that case workers responsible for the state's challenged children are doing their jobs.

The Florida Department of Children and Families new Blackberry app upload information directly to the state database in Tallahassee at each home visit. Social workers snap the child's picture which is sent on to the database stamped with a date, time and GPS coordinates. That helps document visits and keep workers safe in rough neighborhoods. It may also prevent some false records that led to children being lost forever.

For now the app is in use in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties now, with a rollout to the entire data planned for October.

- Miami Herald