NeuAer: Another Radio Wave “Location” Solution

Says CEO Dave Mathews of NeuAer in Venture Beat about apps like Highlight that launched at SXSW this year:

The problem at hand with LBS apps is that they require the GPS radio to run nearly full-time, have a clear view of the sky to get a signal, and report back to a server their location.

They eat your batteries leaving you alone with no tweets or Facebook or anything. But of course he has a solution: using a bunch of radio waves as a signature for not locating per se, but prompting your device to "do something."

Sadly, the NeuAer website does not have a "how it works" page or video. But I found this digging into the blog:

This marks the first time that our ToothTag engine for proximity plumbing is available for developers to create their own web services that can be executed based upon your smartphone seeing another wireless radio.

And, Rafe at C|net did the due diligence:

Mathews' technology, ToothTag (can we talk about that?), uses all the radio signals that come into a phone--Wi-Fi, GPS, near-field, and most importantly Bluetooth--to fingerprint a location or a person with high accuracy. Most of the real-world locations and things you care about, he says, emit a complex radio-frequency signature based on more than one transmitter. Mobile-phone location services don't use enough of these signals, he says. When it comes to mobile assets like Bluetooth headsets, you don't even have to connect to the other device or "pair" with it. In other words, once you collect the Bluetooth signature from someone you know, you could, with ToothTag technology, get an alert on your mobile device whenever that person came within Bluetooth range of you.

So, you capture a signature of the place/object of interest, then identify what you want to happen when that place/object is in range again. As Rafe notes, there are all sorts of privacy implications here. The first: must you ask permission to capture someone's electronic signature? The app and developer tools are available for Android, with iPhone coming later.

I'm not expecting to see this solution hit it big.

LightSquared Update - Sprint Pulls Out - 3/16/12

Lot of smal news on the LightSquared front:

Today Sprint has desolved its partnership with the company. Sprint is returning $65 million in prepayments to LightSquared.

- Forbes

- LS press release ("It's best")

GOP Rep. Alan Nunnelee (Miss.) urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to not block wireless startup LightSquared's planned 4G network in a filing with the agency [in a Feb 28 letter to the FCC].

- The Hill Blog

In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) International Bureau, the American Soybean Association (ASA) and other organizations representing farmers and agribusinesses in all 50 states declared that “high-precision GPS technology is vitally important to American agriculture, and would be gravely harmed by LightSquared’s plans.”

- Delta Farm Press (The folks at the Save Our GPS Coalition distributed the ASA press release.)

LightSquared hired Ted Olsen, Bush's lawyer in Bush v. Gore, for its legal counsel going forward.

- Telcoms

Today (Friday Mar 16) is the last day for comments on the FCC's planned decision to deny LightSquared a license to proceed.

Relocating the Hollywood Sign for GPS Navigation Purposes

To keep traffic from residential areas and to prevent drivers from getting lost, Garmin and Google have relocated it to route drivers to viewing areas.

- Contra Costa Times

Everywhere I’ve Been: Data Portraits Powered by 3.5 years of data and 2.5 million GPS Points

Everywhere I’ve Been: Data Portraits Powered by 3.5 years of data and 2.5 million GPS Points is the title of a post by Aaron Parecki Geoloqi co-founder. It's written in part to keep up the buzz from SXSW, but it's pretty interesting and includes both the why and the how of the data collection. The maps remind me of an exercise I did in college where we mapped our routes and where we were for two full weeks on 4' x 6' paper maps. The results are pretty much the same: we all follow some regular patterns that define what I like to call an "orbit." (Credit for that term goes to reader Larry.)

GPS enabled Solar Panels and other GPS News

AllSun Tracker is a Complete Solar Electric System

The AllSun Tracker is a dual-axis active solar tracker which uses a motor and GPS (Global Positioning System) to turn the solar PV panels both from east to west and up and down to ensure the panels always follow the sun’s elevation.

I guess it's cheaper to use GPS than another sensor, like a light detector?

- All Earth Renewables via @gletham

GPS receivers in China are not passing inspection.

Over 70 percent of GPS navigation devices on the Chinese market failed to pass a recent sample inspection carried out by experts, reports Xinhua News Agency.

Out of a total of 18 different GPS devices, produced by 13 major firms, only 5 devices produced by three different factories, have passed the inspection and are deemed fit for use. The pass rate was below 30 percent.

Among the 18 different types of device, 17 failed to locate a particular position, or were unable to find a path to a specified location. Some devices used outdated map data that was first published ten years ago.

There are more issues with the less expensive devices.

- CRI English

In other Chinese GPS news, an Ameican was fined just over $3000 for illegally collecting survey data with a GPS back in 2010.

Illegal surveying and mapping by foreigners in Xinjiang is "a threat to national defense andeconomic security", Liu Geqing, head of the [surveying and mapping bureau, told China Daily on Tuesday.

"As our ancestors say, an atlas is the key to a country, which cannot be shown to others," Liusaid, calling for the public, especially those working in foreign-related companies andorganizations, to realize the significance of surveying and mapping work.

About 10 foreigners have been prosecuted for illegal mapping in Xinjiang in the last 5 years.

- China Daily