jeepx.net

This blog is a real find. If you are into LBS, Windows Mobile, Ajax, Ruby and all the cool development pathways ahead, just dive deep into db75.com. A great blog. Its author developed a neat package for Symbian/Nokia’s that reads data from a Bluetooth GPS receiver partnering with either a Nokia phone or Windows Mobile based devices. Released two years ago it only shows how savvy is his perspective of the market.

At this point I begin to wonder what should I get myself. I do like Windows Phones because touch screens and lots of colors and good resolution are definite pluses. Symbian’s OS in the other hand is a great contender but Nokia is the only way inside the States for their stuff.

Well, we always got Java and J2ME to get out of these traps.

Great material, lots still to read.

Tags: Pocket PC, Media, Nokia, Bluetooth by gpsguy
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In a second, deeper attempt quite a few bugs got uncovered from the current version of WirelessMon, build 1000. (Maybe I should try a new build which might have happened already in their build cycle).

I tried to adjust a map using the directions from this page. In fact, the idea of creating a “Wireless Coverage Map” using GPS and AP data is the whole point behind the Professional version of this product. So, for now $50 is the price ticket on this one.

Hexagons

One thing you will need to figure out is the size of an hexagon for a given map resolution. If you are using Level 5 Topo from USGS (1:24,000) for example that translates in one inch of map for each 2,000 feet of landscape. So, do the math or go visual.

Samples can be taken automatically and placed as colored hexagons over the map (you can also control their transparency). The greenest the strongest. Red indicates low power signal.

Map calibration is always tricky and here this is no exception. For example, if you hit the Set Point button and then try to move the map at their slide bars, notice how the cross icon in the mouse is gone. So, move the map to position before you hit the Set Point button.

Things like that make your life harder and people don’t go for hard. Hard to take in, I know. In another point I got a value outside the 180/-180 range in the longitude field and only got rid of it using -1 which seemed to be the only valid amount I could get accepted.

Another thing to notice is that you need to manually add the AP’s you want to see displayed. That also should be made automatic within a given interval, like the one used for Automatic Sampling. My 10 cents for v2.5.

QA works

WirelessMon 2.0 is an improvement over previous products that I’ve seen around, but still got a good fieldtest to run and improvements to add, for example why display the corresponding lon/lat of every single pixel when you are moving the mouse around the map? That makes anyone dizzy. Show only every nth whatever. Make it easier in the eyes. They get tired fast.

In general, a good improvement for a new release. Keep it up, take it easy and improve QA because it shows.

Tags: Tracking, Wireless by gpsguy
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If you are looking into wireless traffic analysis software check WirelessMon V2 by PassMark, which got acquired recently by the security giant, RSA. For simple things like checking if a connection is showing a lot more package errors while receiving data than you would have originally thought. Or for a through checkup of a wireless access point signal.

Maybe you are wondering if some wireless phone at the same 2,400Gz range isnt’t throwing your packets around, or if there is some interference from another wi-fi at close range.

Trivial or not, you can check them out with the evaluation copy of the Professional version which can be used for 30 days. Some features are disabled. But the Professional version 2.0 adds support for GPS and a Map tab where you can display an image. Like of a topographical map for a given region.

Set your GPS connection at the General Options dialog. After that you can obtain your current position for map calibration. You can set two points on a image by first clicking the Set Point 1 button and then pointing the mouse in the location on the map that corresponds to your current position. You can also type coordinates by hand.

Among the features provided by WirelessMon you will find the ability to log the data obtained through its scanning:

Index,Time,Percentage(%),Strength(db)
0,04:11:41:515 31-May-2006,18,-83,36.986718,-121.933305
…
10,04:11:56:515 31-May-2006,22,-80,36.986718,-121.933305

By default the app opens always on top and maximized so you need to remove the setting and move it around and then resize it manually. Bit too much work.

The product offers professional looking graphs of each available network adapter and wireless access point tracked. You can select among signal strength (% or db) and time, receive and send rates. You can also check all the network properties for the connection on the IP Connection tab.

You can use an access point icon to draw their location on a map. The product uses hexagons to show the signal strength of a given AP. The combined signals of all AP’s in an area will indicate which region has the best possible signal. Finally, the Statistics tab gives you just that, tons of data about averages of the current connection throughput.

The standard edition costs US$19 and the Professional US$49. Passmark website lists the two features missing in the Standard edition:

• “No GPS: GPS coordinates are not supported and cannot be used for logging or creating a signal strength map
• “No signal strength map: The map tab and options are disabled so a signal strength map can not be created, saved or printed.”

Conclusion

No GPS in the Standard package is a bit harsh, but after trying equivalent packages on PDA’s without much success, a Windows based version with a good feature set like this one and professional looking job seems like a good value, at least until proof in contrary.

Tags: Tracking, Wireless by gpsguy
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It will be this weekend June 3rd and 4th from 10 am to 4 pm. Check the announcement here and the Open House webpage. Hard not to find something to check from the exhibits list like the “Flythrough of San Andreas Fault System”, or “Geowall: 3-D Geologic Mapping in the Bay Area”.

Sounds like fun.

Tags: Maps by gpsguy
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Just like this weekend…?

Tags: Media, News by gpsguy
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Clearing the garage I found this article from CNet in the “read later” pile. It points to Croquet, a 3D Open Source development framework and to the possible ways the metaverse world can come to light to augment reality, wow.

Tracking down the article I looked up “3D maps” and came across 3pointD.com which got enough stimulus to blow quite a few neurons around the room.

Among the cool stuff 3pointD.com has been talking about, there was the IP-based Geolocation work from James Coster. It uses IP2Location as its IP database. But as James mentioned in the page where he explains his work in great detail, the precision is a bit off but a pretty interesting approach, nonethless.

Tags: LBS, Maps, Tracking by gpsguy
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Check this site for a list of compatible models and GPS related products available for the Blackberry. One of them is Naggie, a free (for now) application that will popup reminders based on your current location.

Tags: Hardware, Blackberry by gpsguy
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I was just trying another Google Earth GPS support module available here when I realized that GE should have a way to handle the data by itself. There are at least half a dozen packages using which seems the only available way which is working through KML imports.

Google does give it to you when you pay an extra US$20 per year (like I did with the original Keyhole Pro) by activating Google Earth Plus.

With the upgrade you get a working GPS dialog (but not on the Mac) and can try to connect to a Garmin or Magellan receiver. Not all models are supported in fact based on the messages from the BBS Forum only old models are suppported.

(Is that because Google decided not to upgrade the GPS support code introduced by the time of the original Keyhole team? Guessing here, but does look like it. Why would they do it now that Volks is probably paying for its development?)

But reading those messages it doesn’t look too promising to fork twenty bucks to try it out. And why not have a NMEA 0183 option available if you are supporting it?

Earth Explorer

nmeage, the KML workaround code couldn’t get a hold of the GPS stream from the Bluetooth connection and that wasn’t too fun. I remembered that Earth Explorer from Mother Earth was still installed and tried to find if it had GPS support. But no, neat interface but no GPS anywhere to be seen.

Earth Explorer does have a clean interface, you can’t zoom down much with the trial version and you won’t get photos if you do, but Digital Elevation Models (DEM) with 3D maps with 1 km resolution (not the higher 3-arc second data which is better, with approximatelly 90 meters resolution).

Is this the same DEM data used to create the terrain in a GE photo plane? Anyway, if you want to give it a try, prices of Earth Explorer start at $39.95 and in its Version 4.0 it runs on MacOSX and Windows.

You can double-click on a country name and get there, or city. There is a whole toolbar for you to mess with. It would be cool if the developers could add a filter of cities by country, instead of showing all at once.

If you add GPS support (NMEA Sentences) to it, things will get a lot better, specially because you can have the DEM files already loaded without the need for a working wireless connection to a server somewhere else.

Tags: Maps, GIS by gpsguy
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Wow, busy day on the news cycle probably because of the long weekend ahead where everyone and their dogs will be heading somewhere and if you will be moving in a car or something else, GPS makers & services want to get a piece of your action. So let’s break this down into some categories:

New Gadgets

Apple and Nike paired up to combine footwear and the iPod Nano on a sport action package. No GPS on this one, but they might add it sometime in the future. Go with the Garmin ForeRunner for that. For the Apple package you still need to wait a couple of months to put your hands on one. According to BusinessWeek:

“The iPod will also keep track of the duration, distance, and other information on each run. The data could then be uploaded to a Mac or PC, and from there to a Nike Web site called Nikeplus.com, where users can track progress, set goals, and share results”

Polaroid is coming up with an interesting gadget, the MGX-550 combines a GPS receiver, LCD touch screen and a DVD player that you can use to load and view maps or listen to music (through your FM radio) and watch movies. Not sure if I would need one of these but it is an interesting gadget from what used to be a photo camera manufacturer. But why not a GPS Camera instead? First seen at Digital Lifestyle.

CNet talks about a British research for a safer car that can make you slow down while on the road.

For a bigger adventure fly a Pixy Camera Plane equipped with GPS to take some cool pictures.

New Services

Rand McNally is launching MONA (Mobile Navigator) a turn-by-turn Java app for Motorola phones equipped with GPS receivers for US$9.99 a month.

Sprint is offering a kid locator service developed by WaveMarket which also offers other LBS products.

And LBS is going after the retail market thanks to the work of India-based companies like ActiveMedia.

Community

DailyRecord.com ran an article on how GPS is being used to help blind people go about their lives navigating safely with help of digital maps and voice guidance. For product information check Sendero Group, Humanware and Freedom Scientific.

GPS also being used to track mosquitos in Ada County, Boise, Idaho which is concerned about controlling the expansion of West Nile virus.

Firefighters from Hershey, Lebanon County, Pensilvania want GPS to help pinpoint the location of fires and resources quickly.

Boy Scouts are getting free SkyScouts donated by Celestron to play with. SkyScout is a neat gadget equipped with GPS that tells you which star or celestial object you are pointing to. A mobile planetarium.

USGS and NOAA are celebrating the 50th aniversary of Geomagnetic Research monitoring in real-time Earth’s magnetic field and running NOAA’s GPS stations. All this is pretty crucial to GPS operation:

“This is especially true during so-called ‘magnetic storms’. Because the ionosphere is heated and distorted during storms, long-range radio communication, which relies on sub-ionospheric reflection, can be difficult or impossible and global-positioning systems (GPS), which relies on radio transmission through the ionosphere, can be degraded.”

Business

TeleAtlas expands presence in Mexico by acquiring map data for that region.

Inrix, a Microsoft spin-off wants to help you avoid traffic jams using Bayesian models:

“Inrix’s proprietary Traffic Fusion Engine incorporates the power of advanced Bayesian analytics to combine GPS probe data with hundreds of other market-specific data sources enabling the most accurate real-time and predictive traffic information and broadest coverage available.”

And Microsoft added live traffic information of selected regions to Windows Live Local.

Have a safe weekend!

Tags: News by gpsguy
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After reading an amusing article on Google Trends at the SF Chronicle, I decided to give it a try using GPS related keywords and soon some trends started to come up.

The top ten countries searching for GPS are all located in Europe, with French speakers ahead of the pack. But Germans make the top 10 spots while using Navigation (combined with GPS or not) as a keyword on their searches.

If you restrict to data from the United States, Tampa and Orlando in Florida come ahead with Pleasanton (CA), Salt Lake City (UT) and San Francisco next.

Italians seem to look after AGPS way more than Taipei, Brisbane and Melbourne. All seven Italian metropolis come first. Australians also look up GPS Maps more than London and SF.

Location-based services made the news at the first quarter of 2004 and searches jumped straight up through the middle of that year. Bangalore is way ahead of everyone with Delhi, SanFran and Munich way behind.

TomTom is mostly searched at its home base, Amsterdam. With searches picking up after it partnered up with NavTeq to use their maps in Europe and North America.

Garmin is looked up twice as much than Magellan and Oslo comes before Denver and Stockholm, with Zurich, Helsinki and San Francisco following. Kansas City (MO), Denver (CO) and Salt Lake City (UT) come first in U.S.

Differential GPS seems to grab the interest of Google users in Seoul and Germany.

Now, who looked up for tracking mostly? Florida (Orlando, Tampa, Miami) and Texas (Dallas, Houston, Austin). But Vegas comes first when you combine it with GPS with Florida and Texas still in the radar now bringing also Atlanta and San Diego.

Cell phone tracking? You guessed it. Just add Phoenix, St Louis and Los Angeles to the flock. Notice the jump straight up around September 2004.

Well, you got the idea.

Tags: News by gpsguy
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