Epson's tiny GPS receiver will make everything location aware
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Feb 12th 2009 6:58AM
posted Feb 12th 2009 6:58AM
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new technology ;-)
If it really makes it possible to put GPS into every phone and increase battery life during GPS sessions, its a great thing. But I wonder if its also 500% more expensive than those alternatives.
I'm a little freaked out. Just as I read the last sentence the radio blared out "Na na na na heeeyy goodbye"
It is the second biggest matchstick that i even see it.
Yeah, everything looks small next to a giant match!
... Wait, what? Second biggest?
You're Monkey Island reference amuses us greatly.
yorly?
Chips macht frei
Sssssh, guys.
DO NOT CALL the government to let them know!
Already did!
Oh and I'm sure you mind, but I also signed you up as the first test subject.
Errrrrm... you are aware that Infineon is a company, right?
Correct! It's a joint venture product announced by Epson AND Infineon, not the product name.
I needed this. My wife often will 'decide' it is of critical importance that an item lost for year must be found at this exact moment in time, even though it is not needed. If low powered enough i would tag every sheet of paper and item in the house and feed all the data to a real time Database with full query support. That way every item in the house could be tracked.
BTW: My desk at home is a big pile of paper, wires and other odds and ends and yet I when I need something out of the pile I know it is in the pile and the general area and depth in the pile. Really pisses the wife off.
More importantly, it's small enough (and hopefully cheap enough) that every device with a clock can now get its time from GPS, which means:
a) no more setting clocks after, say, a power outage
b) no more having 3 or 4 clock devices in a room with different times (think of a kitchen - stove, microwave, wall clock, and weather station in mine).
They already have stuff like this. Its the atomic clock radio broadcasts. I have a watch that picks up on it and they also sell wall clock with it. Keeps everything sync with the national atomic clock in CO, syncs somelike 4 times a day.
@kal326
I bet the price is ridiculous.
@Shinigami
Nope, I have a $15 Sony Dream Machine alarm clock and a $20 wall clock that does this. I have seen watches that do this from $100-$400. Not so extravagant.
Looks like that test thing from this week's Fringe. Can Oliva disable this one as well?
Give me a way to voluntarily disable it and I won't have problems with it. Otherwise, it might have a little "accident"...
Amen!
This stuff and google latitude are the perfect ground floor for high tech fascism...
But so long as we end up with video walls man, who cares right?
Seriously the adavancement with this tech scares me.
I'm moving to backwoods Maine.
Another fine product from the folks at Eurkeka!
Coming soon to drivers' license near you!
Licenses tags or tires too, if states like Oregon have their way. (You do realize that RFID tags have been placed in new tires in the US for almost 8 years now, thanks to the US Congress.) Oregon is upset by falling gasoline sales (which means decreased gas tax revenue). They're on the verge of mandating GPS in everyone's vehicle and imposing an annual "milage" tax based upon how many miles you've driven--they even want to tax out-of-state residents who drive anywhere on their roads. (Don't expect to see them abolish the gas tax if they actually impose this new tax. I suspect the new tax will simply be additional revenue.) I can see a new federal travel tax (and not just based on travel by auto--why not get walking, flying, sailing, biking? Heck, all 50 states might impose their own state travel tax. Ain't technology grand.
I didn't know they made oversized novelty matches similar to those "Texas Fly Swatters." Interesting.
Yes... because everyone should know where everyone is. Time to move to the mountains.
Soon, not even the Mountains will hide people.
Sorry to break the bad news to you, but I retired to a 520 million acre forest in the northern US Rockies and can attest that GPS works just fine in heavily-forested mountains. (Truthfully, there's no getting away from those damned satellites wherever you are on the planet. You're only hope of escaping constant surveillance is that other dead satellites orbiting the earth start crashing into them, like the incident on Tuesday. However, given the fact that Europe is putting up GPS satellites too, I think it might take space invaders to knock them all out--their numbers are growing so quickly.)
I was going to ask why you say epson when the chip says infinion, which is another company and not the name of the chip as you suggest, but I see it's a joint venture project
Still, epson and infinion are 2 companies and it's not "Epson's Infineon XPOSYS chip" but "Epson and Infinion's XPOSYS chip"
did someone spit in your coffee this morning?
u mean they will finally find Osama?! PHEW!
@OneLove
he ran out of coffee this morning
This means gps's in smaller products, Hurray Big Brother :D
This also means location of pretty much everything will be cake since these will end up in everything from cars to new electronics even if it isn't listed as a gps
wow. This is gonna make the next gen Garmin GPS watches (forrunner 505?) look just like 100% regular watches, but with all the gps in them, and longer battery life. I cant freaking wait.
correct me if i'm wrong, but these are GPS reciever chips, right? They don't tell people where you are...they tell YOU where you are. There would have to be some other sort of broadcaster pushing that info to a cell network, radio tower, etc. in order for anyone to track you. Try tracking someone who steals the Garmin out of your car...can't be done. Half the cell phones in the world have GPS now, but it doesn't let people track you unless you turn it on and have an app that periodically sends your location data back to be processed.
Exactly! I was wondering what everyone was getting so freaked out about.
Instead of the chip, I'm more interested to know how they write those English Letters there!!
Ruh-roh, this gives new meaning to "breast implants"...
Wow, that is truly amazing! Who who have imagined 20 years ago!
RT
www.anon-tools.us.tc
That's actually pretty terrifying.
my sediments exactly
tomo
I don't think Big Brother is watching us by himself anymore. ;o)