Posts Tagged ‘GPS’
Tuesday, September 4th, 2012
In a recent article “Emergency rescuers: Use GPS devices with caution,” the message was really about what happened to Craig Matthews, who turned off a major highway in northern New Mexico last spring, whose remains were found in July by his girlfriend and another friend. Why? Matthews had been traveling north on Interstate 25 when he talked to his girlfriend, Debra Hughes, who lived in Penrose, Colorado. When Matthews didn’t return home, Hughes called search and rescue. A state game warden found his truck lodged in a snowdrift four days later about 44 miles off a remote side road, U.S. 64. He was found approximately 4/10 of a mile from the vehicle.
Hughes thinks Matthews got confused after he stopped for coffee in the town of Raton which is on the Interstate, and got on 64 instead of the Interstate. She thinks he turned on his GPS to direct him toward home.
(more…)
Tags: geospatial, GIS, Google Maps, GPS, iPhones, navigation, volunteer geographic information
5 Comments »
Thursday, July 12th, 2012
The first two ESA Galileo navigation satellites in space can now transmit dummy signals in a modulation scheme designed to allow full interoperability with the US GPS once operational services start.
This is the European version of the Multiplexed Binary Offset Code signal standard which is the agreed upon standard with the United States for the interoperability of Galileo and GPS.
“This is an advanced modulation technique that offers robust protection against signal interference and the misleading signal reflections known as ‘multipath’,” said Marco Falcone, Head of Galileo System Services.
-ESA Navigation
Tags: Galileo, geospatial, GIS, GPS, navigation
3 Comments »
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
Nobody really knows how effective GNSS-aided tracking is in the monitoring of criminals released early from prison, but there is a burgeoning market for this type of GPS tracking, according to a recent study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). Although GNSS-aided tracking has been poo-poohed by rights activists as interfering with citizens’ civil rights, it is thought to be valuable to the whole of society to be able to track those such as high-risk sex offenders as well as parolees. In California alone, that number of parolees numbers over 100,000.
 (more…)
Tags: geospatial, GNSS-aided tracking, GPS, location, parolees
1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
 Magellan has just announced the 7″ RoadMate Commercial 9270T-LM navigator for trucks. The big-screen unit comes with an extended windshield mount, and allows routing based on the height, weight, width and length of the vehicle, and any hazmat restrictions.
Magellan’s newest addition to its Magellan RoadMate Commercial GPS family for truckers and commercial drivers provides improved safety and productivity before, during and after their on-the-road trips. The Magellan RoadMate Commercial 9270T-LM GPS device is compliance-ready, and meet the needs of truckers with its extra-large GPS display, customizable truck-specific routing, hands-free communication and trip logging.
(more…)
Tags: geospatial, GIS, GPS, Magellan, RoadMate Commercial 9270T-LM GPS device, truckers
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Wednesday, May 16th, 2012
LightSquared Inc. recently had lost the approval of the Federal Communications Commission to convert airwaves originally designated for satellite service to spectrum for land-based radio towers in February. The FCC withdrew approval for the company’s network after government tests found that the signals would interfere with global-positioning systems. Now Lightsquared has filed for bankruptcy, saying it “will seek to resolve the concerns of U.S. regulators who thwarted the company’s plan to deliver high-speed wireless to as many as 260 million people.”
According to the story, LightSquared, based in Reston, Virginia, listed assets of $4.48 billion and debt of $2.29 billion as of Feb. 29 in a Chapter 11 filing today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Besides its head to head battle with the FCC, Lightsquared has had financial difficulties. Creditors have requested that the company’s backer, Philip Falcone, step aside. In spite of that request, Falcone and the current management team will remain with the company, according to company spokesmen.
Bankruptcy “is intended to give LightSquared sufficient breathing room to continue working through the regulatory process that will allow us to build our 4G wireless network,” Chief Financial Officer Marc Montagner said in a statement. Reaching agreements with U.S. agencies may take as long as two years, he said in court papers.
-Bloomberg
Historical coverage of LightSquared in GISVoice:
Controversial LightSquared goes before House subcommittee
Going where no GPS has gone before
Tags: bankruptcy, FCC, geospatial, GPS, Lightsquared, location
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Wednesday, April 4th, 2012
WASHINGTON — Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight, documents show.
The practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too, with a handful of carriers marketing a catalog of “surveillance fees” to police departments to determine a suspect’s location, trace phone calls and texts or provide other services. Some departments log dozens of traces a month for both emergencies and routine investigations.
–The New York Times, March 31, 2012
Tags: cellphones, federal, geospatial, GIS, GPS, law enforcement tracking, lbs, location, mobile, police departments, surveillance, The New York Times
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Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
The City of Boston and a company called Innocentive recently teamed up to develop a smartphone app that allows drivers in the city to help track and predict where potholes develop. Much like the one developed by CitySourced, the Street Bump app keeps track of bumps while driving, as well as their location, and then sends this data on to the city so that it can address repairs quicker and hopefully, more efficiently.
-crowdsourcing.org
Tags: City of Boston, Citysourced, crowdsourcing, geospatial, GIS, GPS, Innocentive, lbs, location, potholes, Street Bump app
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Friday, February 17th, 2012
Residents of Longview, TX (reported on earlier this week – “There’s an app for that – citizen pothole reporting”) with smartphones can get a new mobile app called “CitySend“ created by CitySourced (didn’t credit that company in the first blog) to inform public works officials of their public issues. The mobile app, unveiled by Longview GIS Manager Justin Cure, allows users to take photos, record video and audio of a problem, and automatically provide GPS coordinates. After the report is submitted, users can track all reported problems on a map as well.
Tags: app, CitySend, Citysourced, geospatial, GPS, lbs, location, Longview, mapping, mobile, tracking, TX
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Thursday, January 26th, 2012
In an article in the National Journal yesterday, it was reported that the company LightSquared had come before the Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee because “Tests indicate that LightSquared’s proposals would interfere with global positioning systems. LightSquared says it has solved the interference problems, but representatives of nine federal agencies concluded on Jan. 13 that no practical measures can allow LightSquared to overcome interference with GPS.
The finding, a significant blow to LightSquared’s case, prompted a furious response from the beleaguered wireless startup, which accused the government panel of “a systematic disregard for fairness and transparency.”
Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee said he has met with representatives from both GPS companies and LightSquared in hopes of figuring out if there is an “engineering answer here.” He said he got two different answers.
The FCC says it will not give LightSquared final approval until tests show that the network can be safely built, but the agency has come under fire for its handling of the process.” –
Walden Questions FCC handling of Lightsquared
[GISCafe Voice November 21, 2011]
Tags: controversy, Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee, engineering, FCC, geospatial, global positioning systems, GPS, Lightsquared
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