GPS
Latest
GPS top hat uses directional sound to show the way
Never mind pulling out your phone to get directions to the pub... how about some fine headwear? A team of Cornell University students has developed a GPS-enabled top hat that relies solely on directional sound for navigation. It uses a mix of amplitude and phase shifting to make it seem like audio cues are coming from the direction you're supposed to be going. The prototype may look ludicrous, but it's both hands-free and language-free -- you don't need to wait for instructions before turning down a side street.
Watch a GPS-assisted boat motor keep ships steady
Driving a motorboat can be scary if you're a newcomer. Despite all that power, you're still at the mercy of the wind and waves -- it can be hard to keep your boat steady when you're docking or waiting for a bridge. Mercury Marine may just save your hide (and your hull), however. It just showed off the results of its smarter Verado outboard motors, which use Skyhook's GPS technology to keep your boat steady and on course. The effect, as you'll see below, is almost eerie: a craft that would drift on its own suddenly stays put thanks to the pivoting engines.
Magellan's new dash cam gives you a 340-degree view
GPS specialist Magellan has announced a number of new dash cams, including a high-end model with a hyper-wide field of view. The RoadMate 7670T-LM is a navigation system that also offers dual HD cameras, each with 170-degree wide-angle lenses. The idea is that you mount one at the front of the car and one at the rear to offer a video feed with a "340-degree field of view."
Researchers use satellite launch blunder to test relativity
Pop quiz, hotshot. You've just launched a pair of GPS satellites into the wrong orbit, rendering them useless for navigation. What do you do? If you're the European Space Agency (ESA), you re-purpose them to precisely test Albert Einstein's theory that clocks slow down near heavy objects. Since the Galileo satellites were placed in elliptical, rather than circular orbits by Russian Soyuz rockets, they pass closer to Earth at certain points. Our planet bends the fabric of space-time, so the super-precise atomic clocks on-board the satnavs will theoretically slow during those times, then speed up again when the craft move away.
Verizon's new kid-tracking smartwatches look all grown up
GizmoPal 2 and GizmoGadget aren't going to win any prizes for cool product naming, but the kid-friendly smartwatches come with noble intentions. Both products let you geofence your progeny, so you can get an instant alert if they wander farther than you'd like -- a staple feature of devices in the junior category of course. Both also let the wearer communicate with parents. GizmoPal 2 is more limited, allowing only Jnr to send pre-recorded messages and emoji -- perhaps no bad thing for younger children. Adults can, however, call the watch directly. On the plus side, GizmoPal 2 looks less like a child's hospital band than last time. Bigger kids will want the GizmoGadget, which has the way cooler ability to send messages and calls instantly between devices and a touchscreen display. Both are also waterproof to one meter for 30 minutes.
BeeLine brings easy GPS navigation to your bike
It's easy to get navigation on your bike through dedicated GPS or a smartphone cradle, but that doesn't mean that navigation is easy. How are you supposed to pay attention to turn-by-turn directions when you're busy dodging potholes? BeeLine thinks it can help. It's crowdfunding a navigation device that purposefully simplifies your directions down to an arrow and the distance left to go -- it's like a compass that points only to your destination. You don't have to squint at the display to figure out where you're going, and there's no pressure to follow a specific path when you're content to take a leisurely route. The puck-like design is small enough to clip on to your keys (and thus less likely to be stolen), and its e-paper screen helps the battery last for a month's worth of riding.
Waze's maps and traffic app gets a cleaner and smarter design
Waze is one of the most popular maps and traffic apps on iOS and Android. For good reason, too: It's fast, intuitive and, often times, more accurate than the highly rated Google Maps. Today, Waze's making its mobile application even better, thanks to an overhaul designed to offer a cleaner, prettier user interface and quicker access to useful actions. With a single tap, you can now send directions, location or estimated time of arrival to your contacts. You can also get traffic-based reminders, making it easier to get to any destination on time -- as long as your calendar is synced with Waze. Last but not least, this new version of the app "significantly" reduces battery consumption, according to the company; if true, that'll definitely be appreciated by users who rely on the app for their daily commutes or casual trips. The 4.0 update is already available for iOS, while Android's expected to get it "soon."
NYC considering GPS-based meters for taxis, on top of nixing TVs
We've already heard that New York City is considering killing those annoying backseat Taxi TV screens, now it looks like the digital fare meter, along with the mechanical method for tracking ride distance, may also be on the way out. Regulators last night approved a pilot program for a new GPS-based distance tracking system for cabs, which would display fare information on a large tablet, the Wall Street Journal reports. That device would also house the cab's credit card reader and GPS system, and it could also deliver the same news and entertainment programming as the current cab TV sets. Ultimately, it would replace five separate pieces of gear cabs currently require. The year-long pilot program will only hit around 1,000 cabs, out of the city's 13,600 yellow taxis. Previously, regulators were considering testing it in around 4,000 cabs, but it scaled the program back after concerns from advocates for the visually impaired, who use the current TV sets for alerts. (Of course, that's also something a more modern tablet could eventually help with.)
Anti-drone rifle shoots down UAVs with radio waves
While the US military continues to develop new and awesome ways of blowing aerial drones to smithereens, not many of these systems can easily be adapted to use in the civilian realm. That's why Battelle has developed the DroneDefender, a shoulder-mounted rifle that knocks UAVs offline with a barrage of radio waves.
Nauto's dash cam promises to make old cars a little smarter
As much as we would love a self-driving ride with fancy pedestrian detection technology, nobody thought to add it to our '96 Dodge Stratus. Thankfully a new startup called Nauto is hoping to remedy this issue with a plug-in kit that, when it launches, will provide you with some of the perks that come with buying a new car. Effectively, the Nauto is a dash camera that monitors the surrounding vehicles as well as your face, keeping track of your eye movements and making sure you're being safe.
TomTom's newest fitness watch plays music too
As sales of satellite navigation units slowly dry up, TomTom is making the gentle transition into a fitness and wearables company. That's why the firm decided to smash up its existing range of bulky running watches in favor of a ground-up rebuild. The result is that TomTom is launching the Spark, which looks pretty much like the previous generation of devices, albeit after a very good diet. The most notable addition to the range this year is Bluetooth music playback, although that's made matters a little more confusing than in previous years.
Stephen Colbert is the latest celebrity to guide you on Waze
Stephen Colbert is going from talking about tech to getting involved with it. He's joining the ranks of comedian Kevin Hart and former Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger as a celebrity voice for Waze, the crowd-sourced mobile GPS app. Based on the video below, his audible suggestions don't go quite the distance we'd hoped in terms of hilarity but that's probably for the best. I mean, explaining to a cop that the reason you totaled your car was because The Late Show's new helmsman said there was a bear in the road and you needed to punch its face with your bumper probably wouldn't go over well -- for you or CBS's legal department. Sadly the former Colbert Report host's' voice will only be available through September 22nd. [Image credit: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP]
China gives its homegrown GPS rival another big push
Alibaba has teamed up with Norinco, a Chinese arms manufacturer, to roll out global positioning services using China's homegrown alternative to GPS. The two companies have sunk roughly $310 million into a new joint venture that'll harness Beidou's navigation satellites to provide mapping data to local businesses. It's another big step on the road to the country ending its reliance upon GPS, and comes two years after the service was opened up to heavy-duty transport vehicles and smartphones. It may not affect us outside of Asia-Pacific just yet, but with Beidou set to become available for all global users by 2020, it's worth keeping an eye on how good this new-fangled offering turns out to be. [Image Credit: ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images]
Google Maps on iOS won't blind you at night anymore
When you're using Google Maps in the dark, the iOS app's blinding bright white display can kill your night vision. Good thing then that a new update addresses that and adds a few other welcome improvements. Now you can label waypoints on your map and in search suggestions according to the patch notes, and even alter captions for photos that you've added as well. Of course, there's the usual bug fixes along for the ride as well, but it's not like those will keep you from going blind on your way home from the bonfire you checked into via Facebook.
The German car industry is buying Nokia's Here maps
Nokia is selling its Here maps service to a group of German car makers for €2.8 billion (roughly $3.07 billion). The consortium is comprised of Mercedes' owner Daimler, BMW, and Audi. As the latter is a VW subsidiary, the buyers essentially represent the entire German car industry -- or at least all the big hitters. It was previously reported that Uber was interested in purchasing the service, but the car companies clearly brought the most attractive offer to Nokia's table.
Security researcher: Globalstar GPS at risk of hackers
As is the case with seemingly anything that connects to the internet these days, a security researcher has found that GPS devices which connect to the Globalstar satellite network are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle hacking. According to Synack Inc researcher Colby Moore, who is presenting his findings next week at BlackHat, transmissions within this system are not encrypted. This means they can be intercepted and altered between the sender and recipient -- not good when you're trying to find survivors after a natural disaster. What's more, Moore states that the flaw is a fault in the system's architecture and one that is nearly impossible to patch.
Audi, BMW and Daimler are poised to buy Nokia's Here mapping
What little hope Uber had of buying Nokia's Here mapping service just went out the window. A Wall Street Journal source claims that Audi, BMW and Daimler have tentatively agreed to buy Here for the equivalent of $2.7 billion. A final agreement could be ready within the "next few days," the tipster says. The German automakers won't hoard the navigation technology all to themselves, though. Instead, they'll reportedly give other vehicle brands a chance to claim their own stake and democratize the platform. While Here already has a presence in about 80 percent of the industry, this would make it a true mainstay for in-car mapping -- companies wouldn't have much incentive to license map data from the likes of Google or TomTom.
Garmin's Vivoactive fitness tracker isn't for everyone -- and that's okay
There may never be a wearable equivalent of the iPhone -- a must-have gadget that sparks a fundamental change in how we live. Instead, the future of wearables is all about niche products that may be right for some, but won't necessarily be everyone's cup of tea. That's my main takeaway after spending a few weeks with Garmin's Vivoactive ($250), which is yet another one of its wearable gadgets for people who make working out a way of life. Honestly, though, it's a thought I've had percolating for a while now, especially after Jawbone's disappointing Up3. The Vivoactive isn't a great smartwatch or activity tracker for most people, but for someone who demands a GPS-enabled wearable for tracking their runs, swims and just about anything involving movement, it might be ideal.
GPS gets a satellite launch for its 20th birthday
GPS was declared fully operational two decades ago, and what better way to celebrate your 20th birthday than with a rockin' party satellite launch. The US Air Force's Space Command (probably) toasted with military-grade champagne after firing a shiny new GPS satellite into orbit on an Atlas V rocket from Florida. GPS IIF-10 is the seventieth piece of navigation hardware that's been sent into space as part of the program that's been running sine 1978 and has been available for everyone to use since 1995.
Garmin's Varia radar warns cyclists about traffic they can't see
Six months. That's apparently how long it takes to buy a company, retool their product, and sell it under a new name. Garmin's new Varia Rearview Bike Radar is a rear light that scans up to 140m behind a bicycle for traffic. It then hands that data on to either a compatible Garmin Edge system or a standalone handlebar-mounted unit with an array of lights to warn riders of what's behind them and how fast it's approaching. If you're a keen cyclist, this idea may sound a little familiar. Startup iKubu made a little splash last year with Backtracker, which was essentially the same thing but a little rougher around the edges. Garmin bought the company back in January, and apparently wasted no time turning the Backtracker into what you see above.
