This site has been calling my attention lately. It posts regularly (but not daily) a “Map of the Day”. Here is the link to the Maps Archive. Most of them are NY related. Like if biking through Brooklyn and Manhathan appeases to your senses, here then.
Imagine on this cloudy day the path the Sun in doing by moving towards West.
Pick its calming guidance. Like telling you, “Son nothing to worry about. Just go about your business, be fair and it will all work out ok. Look within yourself and make sure you can be honest with your deeds. And thank Mother [Earth] for still be feeding us with Life.”
“Build a seed for this Season. Looking at your sins and going through them, relieving yourself and learning from them. Plant this seed. Take care of its growth and see your future in it.”
IEEE’s Spectrum Magazine spelled out on its March issue, the model of cellphone that reportedly caused several planes to loose their GPS fix. It is the Samsung SPH-N300. A page on BestBuy website says that the “Samsung’s new dual-band SPH-N300 is the first phone in the U.S. to meet the Federal Communications Commission mandate for Enhanced 911 capabilities.”
And going back a bit one other thing I need to mention: Cabrilho was a Portuguese Sailor & Navigator, whose services the Spanish Court contracted to survey the coast of what is today’s San Diego.
If you go across the Coronado Bridge visit the top of the Park with his name, you will find a statue, at the top of the hill. That was a gift from Portugal and it has the correct spelling of his name on it.
During the 50’s, the President signed an order picking today’s spelling.
Now that I brought this to the table, let me just say a few things:
1. Now, a Brazilian can buy gas without fear of having to pay tomorrow 3 times more of what [s]he did a month ago. Brasil became self-sufficient in its production and extraction of gas. Now it needs to learn how to refine it in bigger quantities. And please, if someone start to tell that the idea, development and implementation of engines that run on ethanal didn’t start in Brasil better be prepared to argue very well on his/her beliefs.
2. It even happens with fissile fuel: Brazil wants to be capable and independent in the production of nuclear fuel. We, as a country, are P-A-C-I-F-I-C-I-S-T-S. I have to spell it out like that so you don’t get it wrong. The idea is money. Or are you concerned that we might even be able to pay out our debts and not keep feeding your interests??
3. FIFA’s Futebol (the real thing if you know what I mean) World Cup starts in a month and a half, so state your business or get out of the way of my TV! But in respect to one of the greatest coaches Brasil had, I will keep my mouth shut for now
Tchau Telê.
I’m not even going to talk about all of the teen, kid & whatever else tracking news that popped up in my screen in the last couple of weeks. My point about this whole issue is: keep track of those who actually need tracking. Seniors, older people that get lost and can’t find their way home. Look at examples in Japan and Ohio. Trust your kid, be with them. Here another, similar opinion on the issue.
Workers are also being included in the current tracking list, like this article shows about New York workers. There is a lot at stake here. Be aware. Don’t let the atmosphere of fear scare you. Remember your freedom, keep it, close. Otherwise, just call it by its name: this is called trespassing, like we learn how not to do in our prayers and the Bible.
I might be a bit paranoid when seeing these things, but as a Brazilian that grew up during its worst dictatorship times (btw, didn’t you had anything with that?), it is quite easy for me to notice some of the signs I kept of one. It always ended with “National Security” being used everytime someone in the government wanted to close an argument.
Cycles, right?
Last said about water deserves a follow-up: specially today when the afternoon Sun heats us on his way West. Heat that I haven’t felt for more than six months on this most wintry season for at least the last 12 years in this part of California.
“Fire up your Sun. Burn O’ fire, Man of the 21st Century. Forget the opression, understand the Way become one with our Sun.”
Is Man just a kaleioscope of those basic four (4) Elements? So if you keep the cycle of burning, nebulosis & creation going on forever, you get this never ending… Samsara.
We are only one planet. Time to heal. Forgive ourselves and those we trespassed against. Let’s look straight into each other eyes and be friends. Once and for all. It is like the first Family finally decided to invite the Woman of Christ to the table and have a great time.
Symbian is a funny OS. Using a freeware like FExplorer you can see that the internal file system of the Nokia 3660 has four “drives”, like disk drives or mounted systems if you want to get to it. [BTW, FExplorer website is up & running again. Take care Dominique!]
C (writable Flash Memory), D (RAM), E (Disk/Memory Card), Z (ROM). LBS put a good overview of the Symbian Series 60.
At Nokia’s website this is the start point for Location Based Development. It is all there.
Here is a link to the Nokia White Paper for the Location API for Java.
Deep down in the C++ docs you will find this to confirm that this is indeed, Assisted-GPS:
“Location Acquisition C++ API uses only Mobile Location FW Location Server to provide location services to the client applications with both synchronous and asynchronous method calls. However, even if Location Server does not exist on the system, certain parts of the Location Acquisition API (such as position data classes) can still be used. Valid for Symbian OS 7.0s or later.”
A-GPS Phones
Nokia launched the 6255i about a year ago with “AGPS for E911 services”. A-GPS is also provided by the models 2270, 2280 and 2285. And more recently models 3585i, 3586i, 3587i, and 3589i.
Coding Challange
With all these pointers you might even consider Nokia’s Challange, the current one still on-going. You might need to rush.
Bluetooth phones and Fitness Extras
And if you are looking for Nokia models that work with a Bluetooth GPS here is the list: N90, N80, 9500, 9300, 7610, 6682, 6670, 6620, 6600.
Finally, if you are into fitness check the “Nokia Fitness Monitor and Nokia Xpress-on(TM) GPS”.
I raised the issue a while back, before the BlueTooth adventure. I did look up TruePosition, which has a product called TrueNorth System that includes Cingular among its clients for PDE services for their GSM network.
From the website you get that TrueNorth provides “Position Determining Equipment (PDE), Serving Mobile Location Centre (SMLC) and Gateway Mobile Location Centre (GMLC) hardware and software […] providing E-CID, A-GPS, U-TDOA and AOA.”
U-TDOA is the one acronymn to look up from the list to understand the triangulation technique used here. And just to see how the pieces are putting themselves together: “TrueNorth is a subsidiary of Liberty Media Group with offices in U.K. and Sweden.” [NYSE: L, LMC.B]
Pulver
From an old issue of the Pulver Report: “Cingular is using E-OTD and CGI-TA (Cell Global Identity-Timing Advance, a low-accuracy fallback, accurate to about a kilometer) for GSM and is using TDOA for analog and TDMA.”
And more interestingly:
“Cingular is deploying location technology solely to meet the FCC E911 mandate. They do not have plans to offer location-based services. One possible reason […] suggested for this is that Phase II accuracy requirements are not particularly suitable for most services. For example, 100/300 m or even 50/150 m is insufficient for high-accuracy applications like turn-by-turn directions”.
BTW, Jeff Pulver currently publishes a VOIP Report and is the one behind Vonage. Now he is doing the same for video.
After Crackpot it seems Britains are still wondering if GPS is that reliable after all. Here is more food for thought.
Gizmodo saw it first.