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Google adds its replacement for addresses to Google Maps
Sure, exact coordinates are useful if you're treasure hunting, but if you're just trying to find something in a part of the world where addresses are uncommon or nonexistent, they're way too long. Google proposed a fix earlier this year with the rollout of free to use Open Location Codes, aka Plus+Codes. Now, those short codes (six or seven letters and numbers) are searchable on Google Maps. If you're further away from a particular area, you may need to include the town, city name or region code for them to work, but codes already exist for every location, and you can find them on the web at plus.codes. The codes specify an area instead of a point, and for more accuracy, you can add more digits. The way the system is setup, they can be encoded or decoded offline, so there's no problem even if you're in an area with little or no internet connection. Of course, someone other than Google will need to use them for this system to catch on (others like What3words are trying to do the same), but at least now you can see how it works right in Google Maps. [Image credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me create GPS address book locations
Dear Aunt TUAW, I want to set Siri geofenced reminders for my kids' bus stop and a few other locations. The problem is that I live in a rural area, and these places don't have street addresses. What can I do? I want to be able to remind my wife to pick up milk and butter after she's done picking up the kids. Can you help? Your loving nephew, Kaelin Dear Kaelin, Auntie has some bad news for you. As far as the TUAW team can reckon, the Contacts app doesn't support GPS locations. That means that you can't use geofenced reminders for arbitrary locations beyond "when I leave this location." If you try to drop a pin in Maps, you'll quickly discover that rural locations plus the GPS coordinates plus the address book don't add up to a coherent location solution. Maps tries to find a street address to match the coordinates, and that address may be miles away, especially if you try to mark a camp site in a large state park. Since Contacts is built on street addresses, not coordinates, your locations will be off -- sometimes way off. For now, Auntie recommends the "when I leave this location" workaround if it's you doing the errands, and encourages all her nieces and nephews to file a feature request with Apple. Hugs, Auntie T.
Apple details location information sharing
Apple had to do some explaining recently -- after a House of Representatives probe into the company's privacy policy came up, the company sent a twelve-page letter to the members of Congress, going into detail on what all of the legalese in the company's privacy policy actually means. The biggest takeaway is that Apple does collect location data from your iPhone -- every 24 hours, an encrypted batch of locations for cell towers, Wi-Fi access points, and GPS coordinates are hooked up to a zip code and sent back to Apple. This is all true -- we've heard from customers who've noticed the daily batch of information sent out over their iPhone's data plan. Why does Apple do all of this? The company claims that it's all necessary to account for "the ever-changing physical landscape, more innovative uses of mobile technology, and the increasing number of Apple's customers." Of course, if you don't want to be a part of this system, you can shut all of the location tracking down right inside the phone's preferences -- either phone-wide, or on a per-app basis depending on what version of iOS you are using. Version 3 and below requires a visit to each app, iOS 4 allows you to shut it off at the OS level. Just go to Settings>General>Location Services and turn location data on or off. The problem then, of course, is that you won't have access to those services while you use your phone. Apple also notes that it collects the same data from Macs who use location-based services (like automatically setting your time zone), and the iAd network also sends location information every time an ad is requested. In short, Apple knows where you are, and in return, you get the benefit of location-specific information. Worth it?
Exploring Azeroth with quest icons on the map
We've heard this argument before, and every time Blizzard makes a change to help players complete quests more quickly, it comes up again. And with the recent announcement that Blizzard will actually be adding quest targets to the ingame maps (again replicating another function of the popular Questhelper addon), players have again brought up the old argument: is the game too dumbed-down? Originally, when the game began (though I don't know anyone that didn't still use Wowhead to find quest coordinates even back then), you were sent "east" to find a tiny little brown backpack to click on, and in the next patch, not only will you see that brown backpack sparkling with flares as you get close, but you'll have it marked on your map the entire time.Larisa waxes nostalgic over at the Pink Pigtail Inn, and says that this is just farther down a sliding slope that leads to a ravine where we all just have two spells and need to kill three boars to level to 100. Kinless Chronicles straight out says "Patch 3.2 will play for you" with some funny tongue-in-cheek analysis. But since I do it so much anyway, I'll play the Devil's advocate here: let's face it, we all used the addons and coordinates while leveling up alts, if not even while leveling mains. It's easy to be nostalgic, but I never did like hunting around for that little pixel of brown you had to click on to finish a quest, and if you really do want to stumble around in the dark the old way, just don't look at your map and/or close the minimap down. I've recently played two other console games, Fable 2 and Dead Space, that also offer glowing line navigation straight to your quest targets, and I did feel a sense of exploration in both -- if I wanted to wander off the path, I was welcome to (and usually rewarded for it), while if I just wanted to get to where I was going, I could do that, too.
GPS coordinates lead demolition crew to destroy wrong house
Tired of blaming GPS on petty mishaps like the destruction of cars, a demolition crew in Georgia has managed to accidentally destroy an entirely wrong house based on GPS coordinates. Oddly enough, it wasn't even the first time they'd been by: the man who cuts the grass noticed that the power box was missing from the home and holes were punched into the walls about a month ago -- it was suspected as vandalism, but it now seems that the stealthy, directionless demolition company was to blame. The demolition company says it had "paperwork" authorizing the destruction, complete with the coordinates and a description of the home, which the owner's father had built with his own hands "brick by brick."[Thanks, Leonard]
Fujitsu unveils GPS receiver with integrated RFID tag
While we've got both GPS receivers and RFID tags handling very important duties around the world, Fujitsu has gone and unveiled a GPS unit with built-in RFID capabilities to provide the best of both worlds. The Tag Locator V2 sports the locating abilities we've come to know and love, promising accurate longitude / latitude measurements between "three and five meters, and bundles in an active RFID tag that operates on the 429MHz frequency band. Once the GPS receiver beams out the location data, the device then communicates the RFID information via "a unique ID," and can purportedly channel its data to any reader within 200 meters. Designed primarily to provide constant streams of precise data in airports, garages, and other locales that manage a plethora of equipment / vehicles (or lucrative PS3 boxes), the units should hit shipyards soon at ¥20,000 ($169) a pop.[Via RFID in Japan]
