GPS

Here's what I can tell you about the drinking water situation in the tiny Rwandan village of Mwite. The few closest spring catchments--basically cement basins with a pipe of flowing water--are working, but not producing as much water as they should. The catchment further to the west, a handmade system nearly a century old, is no longer functioning, so the best bet will probably require a walk to the northernmost safe water source in the area, the newest cement-encased spring catchment, built in 2007.

I didn't speak to anyone in Rwanda for this story, or to anyone who had recently been to Mwite, north of the capital city of Kigali, but I can confidently relay details about the water situation in that far-flung rural village thanks to...what else? An Android-based app.

The agencies and nonprofit organizations that work to ensure that places like Mwite have clean drinking water will tell you that infrastructure is just one challenge, among others being highlighted today on World Water Day. After the pipes and pumps are installed, there's the never-ending task of monitoring and maintaining thousands of sites spread across the challenging terrain of places like Rwanda, Liberia, or Bolivia.

For years, teams would go into the field with pounds of paper questionnaires, cameras, and maybe an expensive GPS, and gather data on individual sites--all of which would then be stuffed in a file cabinet somewhere back in the capital city, spending most of its time collecting dust.

Today's high-end smartphones combine all those monitoring tools into a single, inexpensive, convenient device that not only collects data on water projects but can also analyze, map, and share it--tasks that would have in many cases taken an unthinkable amount of time just a year ago.

That's when Water for People, a Denver-based nonprofit working on water and sanitation projects in 11 countries, started thinking about an easier way to monitor its projects. The group brought in developer Dru Borden of Gallatin Systems to design an application that could handle survey results, photos, and geolocation data in a single package. The result is Field Level Operations Watch, better known as FLOW. Water for People deployed a team equipped with smartphones loaded with FLOW for the first time in Rwanda last August. … Read more

Before you tweet a photo of your delicious, homemade dish, check your settings--your phone might be embedding coordinates in your photos, leaving your location open to prying eyes.

Using the built-in GPS, phone camera applications can embed the latitude and longitude of a location in photos. Coordinates aren't shown in your photo library, but if you post a geotagged pic online, someone with an evil motive can easily extract the photo's EXIF data and find out where you live, eat, or hang out.

Creepy, right? This is a big security risk, especially for parents who post photos of … Read more

What's it like to run 26 miles? I hope I never find out, but I'm comfortable watching others suffer through the ordeal. Especially runner geeks like Joseph Tame. He's built an iPhone harness that enables viewers to sweat with him through every mile of the 2011 Tokyo Marathon.

The nutty contraption has two iPhones to shoot video, two to run GPS and networking software, an iPad displaying Twitter messages, an Android handset, three mobile Wi-Fi routers, and monitors recording heart rate, ambient temperature and CO2 levels. All of it will be streamed live via Ustream.

Constructed of a backpack, composite rods, and Ikan Recoil camera mounts, the "iRun" rig is designed to stay firmly attached to Tame when he runs the marathon on February 27 along with more than 30,000 other participants. It weighs around 6.6 pounds.

Tame has run the marathon before with iPhone streaming, but the iRun is his most elaborate piece of gear so far. … Read more

One of the first and biggest hurdles any third-party navigation app will need to clear on Google's Android platform is Google itself. While this may not be the case with other mobile OSes, Android (or at least devices running version 1.6 or better) comes more or less bundled with Google's free Google Maps with Navigation app. So, why would a user go out of their way to check out another navigation app? So, of course, this is the first question I asked when evaluating the Sygic Aura GPS navigation app. … Read more

By now we've come to terms with the fact that the Sony Ericson Xperia Play is not the PSP Phone that we were all wishing for, but we still think it's worth comparing it against the game-centric Sony NGP, announced just a few short weeks ago.

The Xperia Play is the first PlayStation-certified smartphone on the market, which means it will be capable of downloading content from the PlayStation Store. Its 1Ghz Snapdragon processor promises 60-frames-per-second performance without wiping out the battery.

We're not sure if the Xperia Play can satisfy the gamer who wants the latest and greatest from the portable gaming scene, but the Xperia Play will probably offer the closest approximation to it of any smartphone around. The real question is whether consumers will find the need to own an Xperia Play in addition to a portable system like the NGP or 3DS.

For a head-to-head look at the Xperia Play and NGP, consult our spreadsheet below.

… Read more

There's a big question being explored right now about the intersection of health and social media: Does the tracking and sharing of personal fitness and diet data motivate us to get, and stay, healthy?

A host of Web sites and mobile apps are banking on the answer being yes. FitDay provides a free diet journal; Daily Burn offers logs to track diet, exercise, and weight; an Awareness app promises to upgrade one's mental software; and dozens of other sites and apps cater to specific types of diets, exercises, and desired outcomes.

So the just-launched Humana fit social network, designed to help users live healthier, more active lives, is going to have to offer some pretty stellar features to stand out.… Read more

Mapquest rolled out a new feature for football fans that transforms turn-by-turn into play-by-play directions.

By selecting "Play by Play" from the Featured Sites tab on Mapquest's Web site, mundane GPS directions become strategic maneuvers to help you get from kickoff to end zone. The navigation site will also release City's Best guides for travel tips and places to watch the big game.

And if you're lucky enough to be using the Mapquest Play-by-Play directions to get to Cowboys Stadium, you may want to check the "avoid highways" option if you're in … Read more

Sure, your GPS guides you to gas stations, hotels, and restaurants, but how about the world's largest light bulb? Or a drive-through tree? Or the famous Cadillac Ranch in Texas? RoadsideAmerica.com is now selling a $20 guide to these types of sights that integrates with Garmin GPS devices.

The RoadsideAmerica.com Attractions and Oddities guide is a set of over 5,000 add-on points of interest that can be downloaded directly to a Garmin navigation device. The guide points out roadside attractions in all 50 states, complete with photos and categories.

RoadsideAmerica.com has been cataloging strange sites … Read more

Fitness chain Crunch today unveils its first app, which is free, for iPhone and Android users to more easily find locations, see class schedules, and avoid the lines by checking in remotely.

Not that Crunch gyms, of which there are roughly two dozen throughout New York, California, Florida, and Oregon, are boasting terribly long lines these days. Founded in 1989 by former stockbroker Doug Levine, the chain was bought by Bally in 2001 and filed for bankruptcy in May 2009, at which point it was acquired by New Evolution Fitness Company, which in turn was co-founded by one of the … Read more