Gmapped GPS on the DS: Two, two, two hacks in one
posted August 3rd 2005 8:27PM
We've seen a lot of hacks for Google Maps since Google released the Gmaps API last month. And we've seen a few for the Nintendo DS as well. Now, Alexei Karpenko, who developed the PassMe serial interface for the DS, has brought the two together with a hack that he says enables Google-mapped GPS on the DS. According to Karpenko, a small script lets the DS download specified maps via its internal WiFi card. Data is stored on a CF card crammed into a GBA Movie Player unit. GPS is provided via a PassMe-connected Lassen iQ GPS module from Trimble, and voila — GPS-enabled Google Maps on the DS. Clearly, this isn't something a casual gamer is going to hook up in an idle moment. But it strikes us as a nice — and maybe even useful — combo of hack-friendly software and hardware.
my grandpa did the original "two, two, two mints in one" commercial.
If they have WiFi working, why is there a $1700 bounty? http://sc.tri-bit.com/DS_Wi-fi_Bounty
Other than that, this is the king of all hacks.
my grandpa did the original "two, two, two mints in one" commercial.
if you click the link, it says nothing of wifi. that must be a mistake.
THIS IS THE FIRST USEFUL ABILITY OF THE OTHERWISE USELESS NINTENDO DS I HAVE SEEN TO DATE !
I think it would be much cooler if PSP had a GPS add on with UMD gps map date.
Why is the Nintendo DS useless?
Sure, if the PSP had a GPS add-on, that would make it the only useful ability of the otherwise useless PSP.
Aparently because it's Nintendo, therefore useless. Of course it's not useless! It plays games, and it plays good games. It serves it's purpose, and does it without shooting the game out, and without 5000 dead pixels. I have only seen one game on PSP that I would ever want, and I already own it, on my Gamecube no less. THPS2. Thats it. For my DS however, I already love Ridge Racer, Mario 64, and the back library of GBA games. I'm already awaiting Metroid Prime, Mario Kart, and Advance wars DS with glee, but I still don't see anything on PSP that I'm looking forward. Seems the DS wins in my book, and obviously the wallets of many others, because it is outselling PSP in both america and japan. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Jonathan.
Can I use this om my Gameboy Micro?
jonathan is dumb
I can't believe how crappy the DS looks. Glad I didn't buy one.
Have fun playing GBA games and Nintendogs...
Now THAT is cool. Little messy, though.
lol its jonathan. check the link on his name.
jsut another reason i want a ds - you can play SCUMM games on them too now. played kirby on one the other day and got addicted...played a psp and was absolutely non-plussed. its nothing special, the ds feels like someone took some time creating onvoling games, rather than porting them from a identical system.
that and the psp will NEVER have animal crossing...that + wifi (village sharing etc) is worth the totally reasonable price of a ds. i want so bad :x
Sorry Dirk, too busy playing Kirby's Canvas Curse, the best game on any handheld gaming system EVER.
Everything is useless if you don't have one.
PSP: useless.
Ferrari: useless.
Private jet: useless.
Jonathan's mom: like a swiss army knife!
#11 and 12 obviously wasted their money on psps
Taken from the artical
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EDIT: Note that maps are downloaded to the CF card using the computer. DS WiFi is not reverse engineered yet.
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NINTENDO DS is the latest FAILURE from Nintendo which only saw decent sales due to the fact the SONY PSP shipped in Spring 05' rather than Christmas 04' in America.
The DS is PROOF that nintendo has lost its edge in the gaming market -following similar failues such as, the Power Glove, U Force, the failed nintendo CD (which became the Playstation), VIRTUAL BOY, Ultra 64 and now the OBSOLETE gamecube (which has a handle on top by the way) *snicker*.
Nintendo's only saving grace is that it markets itself as a non-violent, family oriented toy while rivals, Microsoft and Sony blaze away with sex, violence, and debauchery.
NINTENDO DS is GARBAGE. If it wasn't so hard I'd wipe my ass with it.
#6 Why is DS useless?
(1) cause it was made by Nintendo
(2) cause it is made in China
(3) cause Nintneod hasn't produced a single game yet worth buying the whole system for.
#8 SHOW ME THE SALES FIGURES THAT SAY DS is outselling PSP.
PSP costs $250 while CRAPPY DS costs $149. that means you'd have to damn near sell 2 DS's (to equal the cost SONY gets selling a single PSP and 2 accessories).
#14 - You guys are giving me plenty of hits visiting my webpage. Keep up the good work.
BTW, the next time I make a mean, rude or distasteful comment, I'll be sure to use a fake name. LOL
#16 You're mother is about as loose as a Local Area Network.
#17 I find it disspointing you're still playing video games. did your MOMMY buy it for you? CHILD !
YOU GUYS.
Why is it that every time Engadget reports on the DS homebrew scene, it turns into a flamewar in a matter of four posts? :(
...and for all I know, this hack doesn't even work well.
I have a cadillac EXT with built in DVD navigation and I know that every now and then, the information is either unavailable or unreliable due to changes in road circumstances. That is why I'm gonna trade my truck in for the new Escalade 2007 which will have live update TRAFFIC NAV.
The Nintendo DS is JUNK and this hack is only useful for someone who'd bother to take other devices apart to attempt to make it work.
I doubt the average kid with one (or engadget poster living in his momma's basement who swears by the DS) will have either the money or technological expertise to put this piece of crap together.
All you PSP haters out there can just keep on hating. Nintendo is gonna end up like SEGA if they keep making GARBAGE like the DS.
BTW - the Nintendo revolution looks like CRAP compared to the Ps3 and Xbox360. If I could get a nintendo revolution, I'd use it for target practise with my Sig.
hrm, more trolling from some PSP fanboy.. judging by the type of vehicle that jonathan chooses, he really live up to the troll image, thus need a big vehicle to haul that big fat lump of meat around.
get a life, stop trolling. go back to your dungeon.
(1) cause it was made by Nintendo
Um... this is a worthless reason.
(2) cause it is made in China
Yea okay china sucks, but I'd bet some money that both sony and microsoft have their products made in china too.
(3) cause Nintneod hasn't produced a single game yet worth buying the whole system for.
That's not entirely true there are a few good games out there. Also, the PSP has very few (probably less than the DS) good games out there.
One more thing, I own a PSP, and I love it. The reason I love it is because I can do a lot of things with it, such as emulation and watch movies. I don't understand why people are boohooing something like this for the DS.
By the way, some of you have said that this doesnt work well, lets compare it to some psp "hacks". Almost all of them don't work very well either. Emulators for example are constantly getting better, but they aren't close to being finished.
So shutup, the more functionality people get out of their products the better, end of story.
Jonathan,
Here are the weekly sales numbers for Nintendo DS and Sony PSP for the past 2 monthes.
Week of July 24th - July 30th
DS 41,982
PSP 19,043
Week of July 17th - July 23rd
DS 35,083
PSP 21,901
Week of July 10th - July 16th
DS 32,789
PSP 20,862
Week of July 3rd - July 9th
DS 31,376
PSP 20,416
Week of June 26th - July 2nd
DS 32,765
PSP 21,476
Week of June 19th - June 25th
DS 34,939
PSP 23,225
Week of June 12th - June 18th
DS 39,687
PSP 21,996
Week of June 5th - June 11th
DS 29,808
PSP 24,122
Total Sales of June and July
DS 245,610
PSP 151,555
Now as you can see, the DS is ahead by almost 100,000 units, and the gap is widening. Also, although Nintendo doesn't sell very many Gamecubes, they made more money last year than all of Sony combined. Sony music, Sony movies, Sony electronics, Sony games, all combined made less money then Nintendo.
Enjoy living in your fantasy world where numbers of units shipped is what matters, not how much money companies make.
Those sales were in Japan by the way, home turf for Sony and Nintendo.
OK The Nintendo Ds is selling so many more units in the US and Japan than the PSP why does anyone say the PSP is Better it has no good games, its expensive, and you have to buy memory cards to hold music,movies, and game data. The DS of course has
Kirby canvas curse, Mario 64, others and a super bright future (Metroid, New mario bros, Wifi, mario kart) OH yeah an awesome touch screen.
#22 DONT BE UPSET cause your POOR. My car cost more than your basement apartment in your mom's house and I could easily buy and sell your sorry ass.
I own my own house and I have my own business and I travel ALOT (to Asia and to Europe).
I'm fluent in Chinese and Korean and I hold a master's degree in Physics.
WHAT THE HELL YOU GOT SKIPPY?
#24 You aren't experienced enough to actually post the original location of your sales figures for all of us to read?
BY THE WAY, DO THE MATH !
245,610 DS X $149 = $36,595,890
151,555 PSP X $249 = $37,737,195
LOL, YOU PROVED ME RIGHT !
Sony was able to OUTSELL Nintendo simply because its unit is more expensive by $100 more!
The number of people with the system DON'T matter. all that matters is that SONY's NOPAT (net operating profit after taxes) is higher than Nintendo's.
think about it this way... while Nintendo tools around trying to figure out how to make a blockbuster game *SNICKER* such as Metroid Hunters, wich isn't out yet, SONY:
(1) Is selling their ridiculously overpriced Memory sticks which average over $50 a piece for the 512 or the 1GB
(2) Is selling UMD movies at $20 - $30 a pop
granted, I think the UMD movies are dumb but they are still revenue.
(3) is selling games at damn near the price of an actual PS2 game.
Keep in mind that UMD disks cost a mere 7 Yuan (Chinese Renminbi money) which is less than a dollar to make in China but are sold for around $46 US dollars more than 500% profit.
UMD movies and games cost less to produce than the Nintendo DS semiconductor chip which its games are on.
NO MATTER HOW YOU SLICE IT, SONY is outselling NINTENDO CORP, Nintendo DS and its shares.
SONY PSP has more than twice the number of games DS has available and TRIPLE that number in UMD movie shares as well as overpriced accessories merely leave DS in the TOILET.
Let's not forget that Sony sells plenty of electronics , WALKMAN, ERICSON cellular phones and even develops WEAPON components for most of the world's military powers i.e. missile cameras, satellite circuit boards and networks.
MEANWHILE, Nintendo is making Italian men who jump on mushroom heads !
You know I'm right because the sales figures show you I am. No matter what you try to show me, SONY RULES !
I don't know what everyone's fighting and winging about. The DS has a couple of good games out and the PSP has a couple of good games out, if one of them goes of the market THEN you can start sayin: "haha DS/PSP sucks" but both of the consoles are still relatively new with barely any games out yet and even when it is the right time to start fighting about which console is better, it's still just going to be sony fanboys versus nintendo fanboys, no one is going to win because no one is going to change their side, the whole fight is pointless, you should leave the fighting up to the presidents of the companies.
PSP's in japan sell for 185 not 250.
Sorry you lose.
Also Sony loses money on every PSP sold, while Nintendo doesn't.
#27. no one gives a shit how much money you got or what languages you can speak... why the hell did you bring that up???
#24 After looking at your post again, I realized, you must be either BRAINDEAD or a NASA design engineer behind the construction of the space shuttle's ceramic tiles.
-----"Enjoy living in your fantasy world where numbers of units shipped is what matters, not how much money companies make."---------
If Nintendo sells 10 DS's, it makes $1490
If Sony sells 10 PSP's it makes $2490
Of course you must factor in the cost of production but, even IF PSP COSTED MORE TO PRODUCE, its media DOES NOT.
A Nintendo DS semiconductor chip (game) costs more to produce and package than the simplistic SONY UMD disk which would theoretically have to be less in cost of production than the typical DVD RW disk which costs less than .25 cents to produce per disk due to the fact it is smaller.
SONY makes plenty of money on liscensing fees and overpriced media (such as memory sticks) which has been its primary business strategy. That is how SONY is certain it will make up the losses it will suffer during the release of the PS3 after the XBOX is released.
When Ps3 is released, XBOX will drop its price and SONY will have to follow. But since SONY has a larger market share in Japan and America than XBOX, it will easily recupe after the first 2 years of its release.
SONY PUT SEGA's stock in the TOILET and NINTENDO is NEXT !
Nintendo is gonna end up producing games for PS3 and XBOX at the rate they are going.
And let's not mention blind brand loyalty...
If you want to see the real story of who's making more money why don't you go check their financial reports before making things up Jonathan.
I repeat again, since you refused to listen. PSP is $185 in Japan, not $250
$185
#everyone who's said something about finance
You can't tell how much money they're making unless you know how much it costs to maufacture and all that other crap... face it, this argument is not going to end, ever.
#30 YOU STILL HAVEN'T PRODUCED your sales figures source.
Show me the sales figures for PSP in America and Europe.
$249 is the price of a PSP in America.
Show me proof of the cost of a PSP in Japan. Or, when my friend comes back online, I'll ask her. She lives in Shinjuku Tokyo.
You just tossed up some numbers.
Anyone who knows anything about numbers knows that by the time they get to you they are WRONG and OUTDATED.
LETS SIT BACK AND SEE how many PSP's SOCOM sells when its released with its headset unit for voice over IP internet play.
Oh by the way...where exactly is METROID PRIME HUNTERS?
ITS IN DEVELOPMENT HELL THAT's WHERE !
Nintendo DS's touch screen barely works for god sakes and the buttons are made for 6 year olds.
BTW, how long did you have to behave in school for your mom to buy you your DS?
#36 Have you even used a DS touch screen??? It works perfectly! Can't exactly say that about all the PSP buttons and pixels can you.
#24 After looking at your post again, I realized, you must be either BRAINDEAD or a NASA design engineer behind the construction of the space shuttle's ceramic tiles.
-----"Enjoy living in your fantasy world where numbers of units shipped is what matters, not how much money companies make."---------
If Nintendo sells 10 DS's, it makes $1490
If Sony sells 10 PSP's it makes $2490
Of course you must factor in the cost of production but, even IF PSP COSTED MORE TO PRODUCE, its media DOES NOT.
A Nintendo DS semiconductor chip (game) costs more to produce and package than the simplistic SONY UMD disk which would theoretically have to be less in cost of production than the typical DVD RW disk which costs less than .25 cents to produce per disk due to the fact it is smaller.
SONY makes plenty of money on liscensing fees and overpriced media (such as memory sticks) which has been its primary business strategy. That is how SONY is certain it will make up the losses it will suffer during the release of the PS3 after the XBOX is released.
When Ps3 is released, XBOX will drop its price and SONY will have to follow. But since SONY has a larger market share in Japan and America than XBOX, it will easily recupe after the first 2 years of its release.
SONY PUT SEGA's stock in the TOILET and NINTENDO is NEXT !
Nintendo is gonna end up producing games for PS3 and XBOX at the rate they are going.
And let's not mention blind brand loyalty...
I used a DS touch screen when I first played Metroid Prime Hunters. I made Samus roll into a ball and shot a couple of the floating things.
during this time I realized how POOR the DS's graphics were, how SMALL the keypad and buttons were and how DISTRACTING it is to look at two sceens simultaneously. At this point I took the DS unit and threw it against the wall smashing it into pieces so I could harvest the screws.
I figured if the unit was WORTHLESS, I may as well try and find a purpose for some of that poor Chinese kid's hard work. Poor Wang Chung only got .33 cents to produce the DS unit I had just obliterated.
HOWEVER, when I got my hands on the PSP, I was awed at how pretty it was, how expensive it felt and how incredible the graphics were. I also like the ability to watch UMD movies and listen to MP3's on it which are things the NINTENDO DS CAN'T DO.
I'm not going to continue ranting about the PSP's superiority and Nintendo's inferiority (as a company and as a product), however, I think that all you little kids out there who had your parents buy this for you should be forced to get a job and work to afford it.
#39 Distracting? You were distracted by the map that had basically nothing on it? You threw a DS at a wall instead of selling it? Expensive feel? What are you on about? Yeh the graphics are great and chew up all the battery power in about 2 hours!!! Yes you can watch movies, UMD movies, so now you have to go and buy all your movies again so you can watch them on a small screen, it'd be cheaper to buy a portable DVD player!!! I know Nintendo DS can't do all that crap, that's why it's SO much cheaper!!! You can't call us little kids and then tell us to get jobs, that's just stupid, and if you're not a kid.. you're an adult.. still playing with video games...
#30 BTW
Showing me the sales figures for the past 2 MONTHS looks like a ploy to throw the argument on your side. I have a BETTER IDEA.
Show me the sales figures for the PSP side by side with the figures for DS starting from DECEMBER 2004.
Since you love japanese sales so much (which mean nothing in America) you can do that for us all RIGHT?
HOW MANY TOTAL UNITS OF EACH SYSTEM HAVE BEEN SOLD.
Showing us just 2 months, (without actually showing us your source) doesn't tell us anything.
At first I thought you only showed us 2 months because you were comparing PSP sales since the systems lauch in March and then followthrough till July. But now I can see you're trying to LIE and MISREPRESENT THE NUMBERS.
No matter how you try to represent your data, your entire defense is a SMOKESCREEN. I won't be swayed by your RED HERRING argument strategy or by the Ad Hominem attacks by other moronic posters living in their moma's basements either.
Even if sony lost to DS in pure system sales it could EASILY be considered to have made that up when you factor in the high costs of media for the system compared to the cheap production cost.
NUMBERS DON'T LIE !
ASSHOLES TRYING TO MANIPULATE NUMBERS DO!
ADULTS make up the largest portion of video game sales simply because
#1 THEY HAVE JOBS
#2 THEY HAVE OTHERWISE DISPOSABLE INCOME
#3 ONLY adults can buy Matrue video games which are in-turn produced to be purchased for adults ages 18 and up due to current sales laws.
You've never actually been to my house so you wouldn't know what I have or what I do. For all you know, I bought a PSP simply to play UMD movies.
A PSP is better than a portable DVD player due to its smaller size, larger widescreen format and pocket portability.
Newer DVD players that liscence the technology will be able to play UMD movies that is, until Blu Ray and HD DVD replace the existing DVD standard. You're either gonna end up rebuying most of your DVD's anyway or simply buying newer formats incompatible with your current portable DVD player anyway.
That is the LAW of PERPETUAL OBSOLESCENCE.
BTW,
PSP can play movies which are computer converted to Memory Stick. And I'm not sure if you knew this but SONY is starting a PSP TV service where you can watch wifi TV using ad-hoc networking LAN's.
Wow, you guys are idiots. I mean, arguing sales point on the handhelds? They're both cool. If you like one or the other, go with it. Damn trolls...
And on top of that, I'm not sure what kind of applications you're putting your handhelds through, but they're certainly some exageration going on here.
Suck it down.
So how about that new Mighty Mouse! Is it the new Revolution controller or what?
Personally, I prefer Blast Processing to the Super FX chip. What do you think, schoolyard chums ?
This is so funny...
I have a PSP to start, and i was going to get a DS, but my friend had gotten a PSP and showed me everything about it,
it looks better, Graphics are better, constant support from the producer, 3rd party games (lol),
i dont know what you guys mean by PSP is useless, it has SO many functions, and a web browser coming too...
I can't remember why i wanted a DS to begin with, and now that i see the lists you guys are making of why it rules, i laugh my ass off...
Alot of the games mentioned are remakes, almost direct ports from the N64, granted, alot of PSP games are that of PS2, but damn, the PS2 is WAY superior to the N64. Nintendogs is for people who cant care for real animals (USA), and to the Japanese handy, because their small living spaces make real animals hard to care for...
Truly, this feels like a PS2 and Xbox war, i have both, but still...The ps2 came out first, so naturally it will have better sells early, xbox has better graphics, that kind of stuff.
The only game i would like to play for DS is canvas curse, just because i am a Kirby fan from GBA and my SuperNes, but come on people, CC is just like Yoshi touch and go, which really, is just a simple tech demo..
Pretty much all the DS games are tech demos to me, the pac man game, well, i guess thats cool, but to draw pacman, and control 2 axis on his movements, for 30 or however much, is to expensive, 10-15 bucks is a good price for that.
Yah, the DS may have a touch screen, which all is uses are pretty un-innovative, even if they thing itself is innovative,
and Lumines, Mercury, WipeOut, those are the ones i have now, ill get alot more soon, these games rule
Lmao about the Ridge racer comment, that looks like someone was high and on the crapper when they were making it, for PSP however, not so much, a very good game on PSP.
Battery life is only an issue if your on really long trips, i went on a 8 hour trip and almost got the whole way thru without it dieing, but i had backlight on medium, besides, on my way home when i had to recharge, it took about 45min-1hour 15 minutes to charge it FULLY,
The simplicity of its use, the range of features, the QUALITY of games, quality of graphics, quality of support, and sheer power, all contribute to the PSP being the set in stone winner to me.
The reasons i am not buying a DS, however, are because its Touchscreen and "revolutionary" features are all unoriginal (all the uses are pretty much the same game to game), games are OLD ass remakes, not many homebrew stuff, like my JPEGEbook converter, making studying on the go easy, and how the whole product was pretty much "touch screen OMG!!!1!!" "old 64 games OMFG!!!"
All the half assed features and non devotion to make the "New experiance" that was promised is shameful.
PSP wins as a wellbuilt solid gameing and ALSO media machine, especially with the firmware updates, and DS fails like the child of a drunken SuperNes and N64, with the failure Dreamcast as its Godfather.
Too bad.
For the record, I'm a DS owner.
This is ridiculous. Both are great systems. As for the debate... what, was the Joystiq thread getting too boring? (www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000727049810/)
On the case for UMDs vs system sales: http://www.psp411.com/show/news/251/0/PSP_games_selling_poorly_in_Japan.html
As for December sales numbers, see the following: http://www.psp411.com/show/news/110/0/PSP_sales_outpace_the_DS_in_Japan.html
YTD sales, courtesy of that Joystiq thread: http://www.dsrevolution.com/article.php?articleid=441
As times, however, the PSP has been selling double or more than the DS (in this case, quadruple): http://www.psp411.com/show/news/311/1/PSP_outsells_DS_in_May.html
Unfortunately, it's not an optimistic sign when Sony revises the estimated number of units they manufacture down six million units: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=164&Itemid=2
My point? You can go on and on about one system doing better than the other. If you're on this site, you know damn well what the DS and the PSP are and what they're capable of. We don't need you to support either side.
Jonathan:
[X] You are a troll
[X] You are a weirdo
[X] Your arguments are stupid
[X] Your homepage sucks
[ ] You are intelligent
[X] You should be banned from the internet
...