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Biggest GPS drawing in the whole wide world (thanks to DHL). Via AdLand.

iPhone OS 2.0 should include geotagging capabilities in its Photos and Maps apps. From AppleInsider.

Check xkcd on GeoHashing (or more seriously, Wikipedia).

CA Senate voting to legalize GPS on windshields. Via Engadget.

3D Maps on a LBS Game? Check Planet 9 Studio’s RayGun and its GeoFeeder server, via VentureBeat.

Marketing breaks another frontier in UK. Now mobile phones are being tracked so consumers habits can be “studied”. On the TimesOnline.

Tags: GeoTagging, Rumours by gpsguy
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Location-based apps shine among the 50 Android apps picked as finalists (slide show pdf).

Meanwhile, Verizon picks Limo and MobileCrunch show the differences between Limo and Android.

Talking Google, now Real Estate info on Google Maps.

Yahoo launches Internet Location Platform. Via APB, with Google’s Ed Parsons take on Yahoo’s WOEID (Where On Earth ID).

Where 2.0

John McKerrell blogged the conference and also a bit of WhereCamp 2008.

His coverage from Where includes a talk from Dan Catt about geotagged photos.

Dan’s blog: GeoBloggers covered also Yahoo’s WOEID, and his work with geotagging at Flickr including a slideshow of the Where presentation.

Where was also covered at APB and Radar.

Among the news Ublip, a tracking platform and Veriplace, a Location API with privacy concerns.

Dash API

Dash Opens its API, Via Programmable Web, Webware

Webware also put together a lazy list of Geo Sites.

Blackberry users with Garmin Mobile for life.

Butterfly GPS DIY project. Via Make

Boeing loses GPS contract for Lockheed Martin.

PC Mag covers Geotagging Gadgets.

Apple Patents Speculations by ArsTechnica, PhonesReview and IntoMobile.

Geotagging at Ovi’s upload site from Nokia which launches the first compass phone.

Tags: LBS, GeoTagging, Mashups by gpsguy
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If your digital camera has a SD slot, you may be able to use it for geotagging with the Wi-Fi SDIO Cards from Eye-Fi.

For about a hundred bucks you can add wireless capabilities to your current digital camera.

The magic behind the Eye-Fi SD cards is provided by the Atheros AR6001GL.

The AR6001GL combines a 2.4Ghz radio transceiver, the frequency range used for 802.11b/g wireless access points with upgradeable firmware.

The card carries 2Gbytes of Flash memory for your photos.

Insert one of the cards into your digital camera SD slot. By turning the camera on, the card will receive about 3.4 volts to start the bootstrap sequence.

By having software running on this SD card Eye-Fi makes it act in fact as an SDIO (Secure Digital Input Ouput) card, a bit smarter than plain storage.

“Activation/Setup”: Shake Well Before First Use

But before inserting it into the camera, you first need to activate the card and set known Wi-Fi locations with a list of the available SSID’s. (Supports static WEP 40/104/128, WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK).

The cards should connect automatically to hotspots from the WayPort network. (First year service included with Explore, $19 a year afterwards, probably a typo).

The card then starts by talking to a running PC connected to the same access point (Eye-Fi Home, see below), or by uploading the photos to websites like Flickr or the storage services of your choice (Eye-Fi Share).

Geotagging

If you are talking to an access point, even better if you happen to have access to a database with matching location of SSID’s & MAC addresses of Wi-Fi hotspots, like the one Eye-Fi licensed from Skyhook Wireless.

Obviously we are talking about pictures taken somewhere close by and/or around a wi-fi spot. Yosemite or that deserted beach won’t quite make it.

Three Eye-Fi SD cards are being offered currently:

Home (~$80): uploads to computer,
Share (~$100): same plus uploads to web service,
Explore (~$130): same plus geotagging firmware marking your EXIF tags of your pictures with the corresponding Access Point latitute/longitude (and maybe altitude?).

DPreview tried the Eye-Fi Share SD card last November.

The Geotagging version (Explore) is the one announced this week.

Tags: Under the Hood, GeoTagging, Wireless by gpsguy
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Artist gives its whereabouts away. Via Mercury News

Geograffiti: Leave voice mail at some place, using the MyVoxApi. It extends the bulletin-board idea from HereCast. Via Mashable, MobileCrunch.

Also from Mashable, Seero Widget for GPS-enabled video streaming.

deCarta getting another round of cash.

MediaScrape: News on the Map.

Ohararp SMD GPS Video Tutorial on Instructables.

LinuxJournal published a tip from Peter Verthez about running Garmin’s MapSource under Wine on Linux.

One more piece in the Dash puzzle: Where 2 Get, route planning provider.

Tags: GPS & Art, GeoTagging, Mashups by gpsguy
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Garmin offering nuviPhone to AT&T.

Dash video from Web 2.0.

Sun working on a Open Source Phone, the jPhone. From an interview to Engadget.

Theoretical memristors developed at HP Labs. Via Wired

Geotagging

Microsoft released a free tool for geotagging.

It requires .Net Framework 3.0, validation and runs on XP and Vista systems.

Initial download of 2.8Mbytes follows extra 31Mbytes for the .Net runtimes.

You can tag photos with “track route files from the most popular formats (NMEA, GPX, and KML)”.

MS also published a tutorial on Geotagging with its Expression Media 2, a “professional asset management tool to visually catalog and organize all your digital assets for effortless retrieval and presentation.”

A similar package from Microsoft that uses .Net Framework 1.1 is available here.

Tags: Traffic, GeoTagging, Java by gpsguy
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Got a Helio Mysto? Try checking for movies at Fandango’s with MS TellMe. Works with GPS-equipped Blackberries too. (Via PC Mag and Washington Post)

iPhone users can try Geopedia. And new drop of the SDK posted during the week.

Ogleearth listed a series of sites that publish/map GPS tracks among them GPSies.

Curious about what’s inside a Garmin nuvi 750? Check EETimes “Under The Hood“.

Make pointing to a Open GPS Tracker:
http://www.opengpstracker.org/.

[BTW, Maker Faire is this weekend.]

Parallel Kingdom, GPS-based RPG game coming up for iPhone and Android phones.

Among the startup’s announced at Web 2.0 check the Location-based Social Network BrightKit and concept bekind Elkin (via Wired).

Lightpole shining its light along the week: VentureBeat, CNET

Nokia has a free beta geotagging software available for download: Location Tagger.

[Update] Second Galileo satellite launched.

Tags: LBS, Under the Hood, GeoTagging by gpsguy
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Hans Strang, Geotate’s CEO gave a pretty interesting interview on LetsGoDigital, about SnapSpot, a geotagging firmware product (NXP spun-off Geotate to concentrate on its core chipset design business).

The trick behind Geotate’s approach in its low-power consumption is that it only stores GPS data from a particular location without processing it, letting that happen by the time the customer uploads its pictures to a PC.

According to the interview, in order to do that the camera has to turn itself off (and not cause radio signal interference) for about 200ms while Geotate’s software grabs the corresponding GPS data.

Nikon SLR’s

If you want to spend some money before cameras with Geotate’s software reach the market in the next semester, look for Nikon models with the MC-35 connector like the:

• D1H (~US$1,5K),
• D1x (~$2,5K),
• D2Hs (~$3,4K, but not the D2H which lacks GPS support),
• D200 (~$1,5K),
• D300 (~$1,7K),
• D2x, D2Xs, and
• D3 (~$5,5K).

Now get a GPS receiver that connects through the MC-35 to the camera’s body. If you want to try making your own check:

• EpicBlog’s version for the D200.
• There is a similar DIY project at DPreview.
• And a third and fourth project ideas here and here.
• Finally, this setup uses a GlobalSat BR-355.

But if you don’t want to try your hand in none of the projects above, you can get a GPS receiver that connects to the MC-35 plug directly with either one of these:

• GeoPic II from U.K.-based Custom Idea;
• DP-GPS N1 from Solmeta;
• N2 diGPS from Dawn Technology in Hong Kong (review).

Plus

Meanwhile HoudahGeo announced, a geotagging software for MacOSX.

And a new site for geotagged panoramicas with Panoye (via AppScout).

Tags: GPS & Photography, GeoTagging by gpsguy
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The ModBook from Axiotron uses Wacom-based touch screen technology. For about the price of a MacBookPro, cool gadget for geotagging (US & Canada currently).

gpsxd & gps2gex still make a good free choice on tracking apps.

Tags: GeoTagging, Mac OSX by gpsguy
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ATP releases a SD card writer with geotagging capabilities.

Or if you have enough cash, get the Nikon D300.

This Crave interview shows Canon’s viewpoint on GPS.

Nokia has a free Location Tagger for photo geocoding

GE will be launching a low-cost model sometime during Summer: GE E1050g (via ThinkCamera)

Meanwhile from PMA, Geotate from Taiwan promises a cheap GPS camera, from CNET Asia.

To allow for these developments, British start-up Air working on breakthrough semiconductor technology lowering power consumption 100x for GPS chipsets in digital cameras (article).

Tags: GPS & Photography, GeoTagging, DIY by gpsguy
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Want to send targeted location ads, alerts? Check for SquareLoop running on Sprint.

Would you take mobile ad’s?

AllPointsBlog talks about GPS-based Pizza Tracking through Papa’s John TrackMyPizza.

FindWhere buys Dutch-based Livecontacts (Navteq Global LBS Challenge finalist) customer base and platform. Available for Nokia phones, Symbian-based devices and uses GSM location.

“Livecontacts allows you to pinpoint your location and find out what’s nearby.”

GPSed: “a real-time GPS trip tracking and social networking application for GPS, digital photography, and mobile users”. For Nokia N95, 6110 Navigator, Blackberry 88×0 (Perl), 8310 (Curve) and portable Garmin, Magellans through GPX, PLT (?) and KML file formats. Plus geocoding Windows-based utility Take’n'Pin to geotag pictures to be uploaded to Flickr, Picasa and previewed on Google Maps.

Myrimis: “real-life location based social network” using Nanonavi software from Nanomatic (too many brands, confusing story).

SunsetGPSLogger from Vodaphone R&D: Requires Windows Mobile 5/6-based Smartphone/Pocket PC and any Bluetooth/built-in GPS receiver, .NET Compact Framework 2.0 runtime and above.

E911 Privacy Concerns: CNet touches the subject in a clear and precise way. It is a legal matter now.

Tags: LBS, GeoTagging, Connecting the Dots by gpsguy
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