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A Swedish art student who claimed to have created the "biggest drawing in the world" using a GPS device and an international package delivery service has admitted that the drawing is a hoax.

Erik Nordenankar had claimed that he placed a GPS device in a briefcase on March 17 and then sent the case on a 55-day trip around the world with DHL. He originally stated on his Web site that he had given DHL specific travel instructions on the route that the briefcase should take to yield the drawing. After the package allegedly traveled over 6 continents and 62 countries, it was returned to him in Stockholm, Sweden, where he downloaded the GPS coordinates that were recorded by the device to his computer to generate the image.

The technique is described this way: "My pen was a briefcase containing the GPS device, being sent around the world. The paths the briefcase took around the globe became the strokes of the drawing."

His Web site included two YouTube videos purporting to show the briefcase during its journey and delivery receipts for the package during its circumnavigation of the globe.

However, many visitors to the site pointed out that the route described in the drawing was unlikely to be followed by DHL pilots.

"Were the DHL pilots on acid?" asked one visitor.

Another visitor pointed out technical flaws in the project description.

"A GPS signal cannot penetrate dense materials," wrote a reader using the name Samppa79. "That briefcase looks dense enough to block the signal and the roof of a car or thick walls of an airplane blocks the rest."

Nordenankar has since posted this message to the bottom of the site--presumably because he doesn't want to spoil the surprise--admitting his hoax. "This is fictional work. DHL did not transport the GPS at any time."

A DHL spokesman told the Telegraph that the delivery company had allowed Nordenankar access to a warehouse in Stockholm for a school art project and that it was interested in discussing the hoax with him.

Update, 5/27, 5 p.m. PDT: The student has admitted that his tale is a hoax. Read the follow-up here.

A Swedish art student has posted online what he calls the "biggest drawing in the world," though the picture would seem to be more accurately described as a drawing on a rather modest scale that came into being through a round-the-world technique.

Perhaps that's why a sort of subtitle on Erik Nordenankar's Web site, just above the image, is this: "GPS Generated Self Portrait."

The technique is described this way: "My pen was a briefcase containing the GPS device, being sent around the world. The paths the briefcase took around the globe became the strokes of the drawing."

On the "biggest drawing" Web site, details are sparse, but Nordenankar does also thank package delivery service DHL for helping to make the portrait possible.

He writes that the briefcase began a 55-day circumnavigation on March 17, ending up earlier this month back where it started in Stockholm, Sweden. He then downloaded the GPS information--the trip covered 62 countries on six continents--to his computer and made the self-portrait in a single stroke.

I've sent e-mails to both Nordenankar and DHL for more information and will update this post as I learn more.

While the briefcase's travels may (or may not) have followed the adage that the shortest route between any two points is a straight line, the drawing itself involved more than a few loop-de-loops and curlicues.

You can see Nordenankar's drawing technique in action in the video here, one of two videos on the "biggest drawing" site, along with the full self-portrait.

Is it a hoax? The little bit of evidence I've found so far in poking around the Web suggests that it is not. For instance, there's a similarly hirsute Erik Nordenankar listed as a student at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm, Sweden--with an exam project described as none other than the "biggest drawing in the world."

Former Microsoft spin-off Inrix on Tuesday will launch a new, nationwide traffic-prediction platform.

A new routing service combined with traffic data available for more than 800,000 miles of U.S. roads and location-based information is all part of the Connected Services platform Inrix hopes Web and mobile application developers, gadget makers, and car companies will be driven to adopt.

Inrix CEO Bryan Mistele says he thinks the new platform will lower the barrier to entry for developers and device makers.

"By wrapping it all together, this can do for telematics and navigation what YouTube did for video," he said in an interview.

One of the keys to the accuracy of the service is the predictive ability. Inrix uses historical traffic data, real-time road conditions--gathered from more than 750,000 devices used in cabs, commercial vehicles, and some GPS-enabled consumer cell phones--as well as local information like weather, school schedules, concerts, and sporting events--essentially anything that will cause delays. (Interestingly, Mistele says school schedules are one of the biggest variables of traffic in most major markets.)

The routing service also gets a bit fancier by using more than just posted speed limits, which as Mistele points out, not many adhere to, either by choice (speeding) or not (traffic). Inrix's Third Generation Routing Service provides traffic and info on best route and how long it will take you to get there.

None of this is available directly to consumers, but it should make it a lot easier to get more inexpensive and full-featured personal navigation and GPS devices.

If you haven't already joined the rush to buy a handheld GPS device, you probably will soon. Or maybe your next new car will come with built-in navigation capabilities. It's increasingly likely, too, that your cell phone has GPS built in.

For all the attention on the millions of gadgets that use GPS, the heart of the Global Positioning System really is the network of satellites orbiting the globe and relaying signals to your Garmin. That network is now due for an upgrade, starting in the middle of the next decade.

Earlier this week, Lockheed Martin announced that it had been awarded a $1.4 billion contract from the U.S. Air Force to build the next-generation system, known as GPS III. The goal is to deliver better accuracy and availability for both civilian and military users of the navigation technology (which, after all, was born as a military innovation).

In the first round of the undertaking, lead contractor Lockheed, along with ITT and General Dynamics, will build eight GPS IIIA satellites, the first of which is due to go into orbit in 2014. Later increments--for which no dates were specified--will see the construction and deployment of eight GPS IIIB and 16 GPS IIIC satellites, with progressively advanced capabilities.

One advance that Lockheed is promising: eventually, all of the 32 satellites will be able to receive simultaneous updates from a single ground station through a cross-linked command and control architecture. The artificial constellation will also feature "a new spot beam capability for enhanced military (M-Code) coverage and increased resistance to hostile jamming."

The Air Force is set to launch its final two Lockheed-built GPS IIR satellites, one in June and the other in September. That will make for a total of 20 IIR satellites, which are more autonomous than earlier models, put into service over the span of about a decade. These last two are among eight IIR(M) models, which provide both M-Code and L2C (for civilian use) signals. The satellite launching in June also will transmit on a frequency called L5, intended primarily for aviation safety-of-life applications.

Whatever the new satellites deliver in specific functions, they'll certainly be sending signals to a wider audience. In January, the Swedish analyst firm Berg Insight said the number of GPS-enabled handsets is set to more than triple during the next five years, reaching an expected worldwide total of 560 million handsets by 2012.

The European rival to GPS, called Galileo, is expected to be fully operational by 2013.

A new BlackBerry Pearl has found its way to AT&T's doorstep this morning. Available starting today, the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8110 has integrated GPS and support for the carrier's AT&T Navigator service, which provides voice-guided turn-by-turn directions, 3D colors maps, traffic alerts, and more. Of course, if you want this luxury, you'll have to pay an additional $9.99 per month. While the GPS is great, you lose the Wi-Fi found on the recently released RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120. (Is it asking too much to have both?)

The rest of the Pearl 8110's features are pretty much in line with the latest models. There's Bluetooth 2.0, a 2-megapixel camera with video recording capabilities, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a microSD/SDHC expansion slot. The smartphone is also compatible with AT&T's push-to-talk service and AT&T Mobile Music. If this sounds like your cup of tea, the BlackBerry Pearl 8110 can be yours for $149.99 with a two-year contract and after discounts and rebates, and you have a choice of a red or a titanium model.

The link between online mapping services and global positioning devices is growing stronger.

Starting Tuesday, people using Google Maps to plan trips will be able to send location data to their Garmin GPS systems, the companies announced on Monday. The feature, called "Send-to-Garmin", will eliminate the need to re-key route information into GPS devices.

Likewise, Garmin has inked a deal with Mapquest to send mapping information from that online service to Garmin's GPS products. The service is expected to launch in April. Mapquest already lets people send mapping information to mobile phones.

Roughly one year ago, Garmin and Mapquest launched application programming interfaces intended to encourage developers to write applications linking GPS systems to online services.

Friend-finding cell phone service Loopt is now available on some Verizon Wireless phones.

Loopt is a service that uses GPS (Global Positioning System) chips in phones to pinpoint a subscriber's location; then users can broadcast that location information to friends or family, who can track them on a tiny map. Subscribers can sign up for alerts to find out when other Loopt friends are near. They're also able to tag photos and send them to friends with location information attached.

The company has been offering the service on some Sprint and Boost Mobile phones for more than a year. The service on Sprint costs $2.99 a month.

Starting in April, Verizon will offer the Loopt service for $3.99 a month. Verizon is offering the service on 20 popular data-enabled phones including the Chocolate by LG, the MotoRizr Z6tv, and the G'zOne Type-S. Customers will be able to get the application through Verizon's Get It Now virtual store.

Location-based services are expected to generate a lot of money for carriers in the future. Already, most major mobile operators are offering some kind of location-based service, such as GPS-enabled navigation or tracking. Helio, a mobile virtual-network operator, offers a tracking service that's similar to the one offered by Loopt. Other carriers, such as Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and Alltel, offer tracking services for parents who want to keep tabs on their kids.

But location services are also expected to be a big component of mobile social networking. In February, Yahoo announced that people could sign up for "proximity alerts" on its OneConnect service to let them know when friends using the service come within a certain distance of one another. And Loopt has been working with Facebook and MySpace.com to integrate its technology into those mobile Web sites.

So far, friend-finding services have had modest success. There are a couple of reasons for this. For one, the service needs to be offered on more phones and on more carrier networks. SMS (Short Message Service) text messaging was a novelty when people could only send messages to people who subscribed to the same carrier. But once they were able to text people on other carrier networks, the service exploded. The same could be true for friend-finding. The deal between Loopt and Verizon, the second-largest operator in the U.S., is a step in that direction. Loopt customers on Sprint's network will be able to track and be tracked by friends on Verizon's network and vice versa.

That said, Loopt and other friend-finding services still must overcome privacy concerns. A lot of people simply aren't comfortable with the idea of their location being broadcast to others.

Loopt says it has the privacy issues licked. Only people who have given permission to have their location broadcast will be tracked. And these users only share location information with their known friends via a private network. The company also says that the location-sharing feature can be turned on and off at any time on a friend-by-friend basis or for all friends.

In a separate announcement from Verizon Wireless, the company said Friday that it has integrated MySpace into its menu on the Mobile Web 2.0 home screen.

This will allow subscribers to click directly into the MySpace Mobile Web site from the menu, eliminating the need for customers to type in a URL in order to access the site. Verizon subscribers will also be able to edit MySpace profiles, view and add friends, post comments and blogs, and send and receive MySpace messages from their mobile phones.

It's been almost two years since Dash Navigation first announced its Dash Express portable navigation system, and we're happy to say that you can now finally get your hands on this device. The Dash Express is unlike any other portable navigation system on the market today because it offers two-way connectivity (cellular and Wi-Fi), giving drivers access to a whole new world of information via the Internet and the network of other Dash-connected users. You can conduct live (and more relevant) Web searches via Yahoo Local search; get real-time traffic data; wirelessly send addresses to the system; and much more. It really adds value to portable navigation devices, and it's the type of innovation that we think will take GPS to the next level--so much so that we even gave it a Best of CES 2007 award. So did it deliver? Was it worth the wait? Well now, you'll just have to read our full review to find out, won't ya?

In January 2008, Mio Technology and Navman formally merged under the Mio name, and we're now seeing the first products of that marriage: the Mio Moov line. The series birthed four little Mio newborns--the Mio Moov 200, the Moov 210, the Moov 300, and the Moov 310--and combines Navman's software with Mio's hardware.

Alas, these cuties aren't easy children. CNET's Bonnie Cha spent some time with the Mio Moov 310 Car GPS and had high hopes for a nice bonding experience. The Mio Moov 310 came with a promising bundle of navigation features, including text-to-speech functionality and a free year's subscription to the Traffic Messaging Channel, all for the bargain-basement $249.95. Unfortunately, the Moov 310 dillydallied like a reluctant teenager, suffering from sluggish performance and slow route calculations. Did its features make up for the poor behavior in the long run? Read the review.