Perhaps you might be one of those who believes that there should be a very remote and unremitting island, somewhere in the Northern Baltic Sea, reserved for all those who act in an utterly inconsiderate manner.
You know these people well: those who sneeze and don't cover their mouths; those who come to your house for dinner and don't bring a bottle or a smile; and those, at least for members of the rescue services, who have bought a personal locator beacon.
According the the Associated Press, as these beacons have become cheaper, there appear to have been more cases of people setting them off to alert rescue helicopters of imminent disaster.
Imminent disaster such as post-thunderstorm stress disorder or rather salty water drinking syndrome.
You may think this cannot be true. But here is a story the AP offers from the National Park Service in Arizona.
A few dads took their sons for a hike somewhere around the Grand Canyon. They ran out of water, so they activated their beacon. Soon, rescuers found the party. Oh, what joy they experienced to discover that the dads and boys had found a stream. Help was not needed after all.
After a couple of beers, might someone alert the services for a refill?
(Credit: CC Besighyawn/Flickr)However, they set their beacon off again a few hours later. Had a dad been devoured by a Bigfoot? Had a son become lunch for a bear? No, the hiking half-formed were worried that they might soon suffer dehydration because the water they had found tasted salty.
Which was a shame, as the rescue services were so concerned that they sent out a helicopter that was rather well equipped with night vision capabilities.
Your throat may temporarily cease to function when I tell you that this experience did not deter the fathers and sons from having faith in their beacon. The next day, they set it off again. Which caused the authorities to have them removed and cited for being utter and total morons who should never be allowed near the ACG section of Niketown ever again.
I'm sorry, that might not be quite accurate. The actual words were "creating a hazardous condition."
This might be an extreme incident. However, someone did once activate their beacon when they were frightened by a thunderstorm, the type of event that caused the top man at the California Search and Rescue operations to create a rather fine name for these personal locator beacons: Yuppie 911.
Matt Scharper, who co-ordinates rescue efforts in California, told the AP: "With the Yuppie 911, you send a message to a satellite and the government pulls your butt out of something you shouldn't have been in in the first place."
The people who risk their lives by flying helicopters and allowing themselves to sometimes get far too close to people with the mind and body odor of a desperate rodent, think that inexperienced hikers are buying these beacons--they can be had for as little as $129.99--in the belief that they can negotiate terrain that is far beyond their minds and bodies.
But what can you do? How do you know that a piece of technology is in the hands of a decent citizen or an utter offal-muncher?
Surely some brilliant engineer might solve this conundrum. Otherwise, let's vote for a two-strike rule and it's off to the northern Baltic with you. Sans personal locator beacon.
If you need a GPS device to get around, it's becoming more likely you'll get yourself a mobile phone with built-in satellite mapping than buy a standalone personal navigation device.
According to market research firm iSuppli, by 2011, virtually all smartphones will sport built-in GPS functionality, and by 2014 there might be no more market left for PNDs.
The Palm Pre is one smartphone that offers viable GPS navigation solutions.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)While this is a grand statement, it's quite credible. Just a year or two ago, it was hard to find a phone with built-in GPS functionality that actually worked reliably. Now look at my iPhone 3GS. I have all three major GPS applications on it, including TomTom, Navigon, and iGo My Way, and each can turn the phone into a dependable navigator. In addition, I am now testing the fourth one, CoPilot Live from ALK Technologies.
While I may be unusual--mostly because nobody needs more than one GPS app on his or her phone--the truth is that more and more phones offer the same feature and more people are using their phones as their primary GPS navigator while driving.
The Palm Pre, for example, also offers a great GPS navigator provided by TelNav, and my co-worker Joseph Kaminiski sure has made good use of it. Prior to the Pre, Joseph used the Treo 800 for the same purpose.
Nonetheless, for now, the market for PNDs is still going strong. According to iSuppli, PNDs will continue to lead the navigation market in 2009, with some 114 million sets predicted to be in use by the end of the year, compared with 57.8 million navigation-enabled smart phones.
New smartphone models are becoming increasingly suitable for use as navigators due to their larger displays, bigger internal storage, faster processors, and most importantly, the increased number of developers creating apps for them. As a matter of fact, all current navigation solutions on smartphones are applications developed by third parties.
iSuppli predicted that thanks to such factors, the number of people who use the iPhone alone as a navigator will increase from just 2 million in 2009 to 20 million by 2013.
Personally, however, I still believe there will be a market left for personal navigation devices. Though I have been making good use of my phone for getting me places, I still like a standalone GPS device for my car as sometimes while driving, my iPhone needs to be used as what it's designed to be: a phone.
But before getting into the technology, here are some important statistics to put this problem into context.
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
Stranger abduction is rare
A 2002 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice found that, in one year, 797,500 children were reported missing. That's a lot, but most of those weren't abducted. Of those, 203,900 were family abductions, which means the abductor was related to the child, often a noncustodial parent. Some 58,200 were "nonfamily abductions," but that doesn't necessarily mean strangers were responsible. And 115 children, a tiny fraction of those reported missing, were victims of what the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) calls "stereotypical kidnapping," which involves "someone child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently."
(Disclosure: I serve as an unpaid member of NCMEC's board of directors.)
The potential loss of 115 children a year is a national tragedy, but to put it into perspective, there are 74 million children and teens in America; the odds of it happening are about 1 in 644,000, or about the same risk as being struck by lightning.
Still, it does happen and just because most abductions are carried out by family members or acquaintances doesn't mean that they're not potentially tragic. But it does mean that "stranger danger" is not the biggest threat to our children. In fact, because so many children are exploited by acquaintances and family members, NCMEC has stopped using that term and now refers to it as a "misguided message," because "children don't get it, adults don't practice it (and) it doesn't go far enough in protecting children from potential danger." Plus, when a child is in trouble, sometimes their protector can be a stranger such as a police officer, a mall security guard, or a passerby.
Reasons for concern
Having said, this, there is still a logical reason for parents and guardians to consider equipping their children with a device that can help locate them in an emergency. For one thing, these devices can bring peace of mind. Parents worry about their kids for a lot of reasons beyond being taken by a stranger. Have they wandered off? Did they get into an accident? Could they be lost? And it's not just little kids we worry about. Parents of teenagers are rightfully concerned when they're kids are away from home, especially if they're riding or driving in cars. To be honest, my kids are now in their 20s and I still worry about them.
Technologies
There are various technologies that can help protect children ranging from devices that send out a local alarm that can be heard from a couple of hundred feet away to very sophisticated dedicated GPS tracking devices.
It won't locate your kid or transmit a signal, but the AmberWatch (about $23) is a wristwatch that puts out a 115-decibel signal that, according to its manufacturer, can be heard up to 100 yards away. The alarm is activated by the child by pushing both buttons on either side of the device. It's actually a real watch with time, date, and stopwatch functions and comes in pink and blue. A search for child locator alarm systems will find plenty of similar products.
These products can be useful for finding a child who was wandered off in a mall or perhaps on a trail, as long as the child knows to sound the alarm before they have gone too far. They could play a roll in help to thwart an abduction if the child activates the alarm before the abductor gets them into a car or remote location. But screaming often accomplishes the same goal, which is why NCMEC advises parents to instruct kids to "scream and make a scene if anyone tries to grab them or force them, in any way, to go with them."
Although this and other products use the term "Amber," they are not associated nor endorsed by the Department of Justice's AMBER Alert program. The Justice Department restricts the use of the Amber Alert logo but not the term "Amber."
Dedicated GPS Devices
There are several products on the market that use GPS to track your child along with a cellular device to notify parents where they are. With all such devices, their ability to determine a location is dependent on getting a GPS and cellular signal. GPS may not work indoors, around tall buildings, in forests, or other locations without a clear view of the sky. Cellular, as we all know, is also depended on location. Also, these devices work only as long as their battery does.
AmberAltert GPS
(Credit: AmberAlert GPS)Amber Alert GPS 2G costs $379 product plus $9.99 to $19.99 a month for the service. It measures 1.77 inches long by 1.68 inches wide by .78 inches deep and is designed to fit into a backpack or be worn around a child's wrist. It can be programmed via the Web or a cell phone to send you text messages and e-mails with your child's location and a link to a map. You can also use it to create a "safe zone" or virtual boundary. If your kid wanders out of that zone you and up to four other trusted adults get a text messages and e-mail alerts every 5 minutes until you cancel. It also gives you a "bread crumb" location trail so you can see where your kid has been.
The device also has an SOS button that your kid can use to send a help message if they are in any kind of danger. A speed alert lets you know if the device is moving above a set speed. That way you can tell if your kid is in a car and, if so, how fast it's moving. The mere fact that your kid is moving faster than a walk could be a reason for concern if they're not supposed to be in a car or public transportation. Parents of teens can use it to make sure they're not speeding. There is even a temperature alert to help protect against young children being left in hot (or cold) cars. The device's battery is rated to last 12 hours between charges.
Another product is the WorldTracker Enduro. It measures 2.6 inches long by 1.4 inches wide by .79 inches deep and has a GPS receiver and a GSM SIM card to transmit its report to a Web site or send a notification to a parent by e-mail or text message. It too features real-time tracking and allows a parent to be alerted if a child leaves a virtual safe zone. It also tracks the speed and altitude of the device, but a feature that will alert a parent if a child exceeds a certain speed is "in the works," according to a company spokesperson. The Enduro has a rechargeable lithium ion battery that, according to the company, tracks for up to a week on a single charge. It costs $295 plus $49.99 a month for service that includes unlimited tracking. You can also use your own T-mobile or AT&T SIM card and pay $20 a month for the service in addition to your cellular plan.
Other companies in this space include Whereify Wireless, U.K.-based lok8u, and TrackMyKids.
Cell phone services
All cell phones sold in North America have GPS tracking capability so that 911 operators can locate users in an emergency. That same technology can also be used to track the location of the phone either as a child locator or a friend tracker.
AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon offer add-on services that allow parents to track the location of their kids cell phone. AT&T FamilyMap and Verizon Chaperone cost $9.99 a month, while Sprint Family Locator is $5 a month. All of these services allow you to see real-time location on a map and get automatic location alerts.
With all these devices your kid, of course, needs to have the cell phone with him or her and turned on.
In addition to what's offered by the phone carriers, there are some third-party services that can track and report location. These include Loopt, Glympse, and Google's free Latitude service. None of these services is marketed as child locators. Latitude only gives an approximate location on a map and doesn't attempt to pinpoint a street address. It would be better than nothing in an emergency but not nearly as precise as the dedicated child locator services. Glympse, which works with Android phones and soon iPhones and BlackBerrys, is a permission-based system that allows the phone user to send an e-mail or text message that gives someone the ability to track them for a specific period of time--never more than four consecutive hours. Once you get a "Gympse" you can see that person's location on a map and, if on the move, you can see their path and their speed. It's a great way to track teens who would have to agree to be tracked such as a condition for borrowing the car, but it's not really well suited for tracking young children.
Loopt is designed to help friends locate each other, but it could be used to locate a child.
The Nokia Booklet 3G is a full-fledged Windows Netbook.
(Credit: Nokia)Not a week goes by without another electronics giant deciding to hop on the overcrowded Netbook bandwagon. Still, it's unusual when a phone manufacturer decides to cross over. Nokia, long rumored to be getting into 3G mini-laptops or "smartbooks," has finally announced a very real 10-inch Netbook.
Called the Booklet 3G, it has a clear design relationship with its phone line, while still being an honest-to-goodness laptop (as opposed to some sort of smartphone hybrid). Running an Atom Z530 processor instead of the more common N270, it also has:
- An HDMI port
- Wi-Fi
- 3G (obviously)
- An SD card reader
- A-GPS and maps integration
- A Webcam
- Bluetooth
- And, according to Nokia, a 12-hour battery life
The Booklet 3G also runs Windows--as to whether it's Windows 7, Nokia isn't announcing yet, but that's a pretty safe assumption with Microsoft's OS just around the bend.
The other unique feature worth discussing is the Booklet's integration with Nokia's Ovi tools, including the company's maps, music store, and cloud-based Ovi Suite. Nokia isn't revealing yet how much software it'll be adding to the Windows cocktail, but it would be a great idea to add as much of their mobility-assisting software as possible.
No price or launch date has been announced yet. Nokia plans to reveal a lot more on September 2.
Would you buy one of these?
(Credit:
TomTom)
A hundred-dollar makeover can turn your iPhone into a GPS device.
GPS specialist TomTom announced Monday that its new $99.99 iPhone app is now up for sale at the iTunes store.
TomTom for the iPhone comes with features typically found in standard GPS units, including voice directions and full maps of the U.S. and Canada. Maps for Europe, Australia, and New Zealand are available at varying prices.
The app uses a new technology called IQ Routes, said the company. Instead of suggesting the quickest route based on travel time, IQ Routes taps into the actual experiences of other TomTom drivers to determine the fastest route to take. TomTom said this technology lets people reach their destinations quicker up to 35 percent of the time.
In addition, the software can suggest alternative routes if a turn is missed or a road is blocked, the company said.
"With TomTom for iPhone, millions of iPhone users can now benefit from the same easy-to-use and intuitive interface, turn-by-turn spoken navigation and unique routing technology that our 30 million portable navigation device users rely on every day," said Corinne Vigreux, managing director of TomTom.
The company will also offer a car kit, so that drivers can attach their iPhones to the front window or dash.
(Credit:
TomTom)
The new app runs on the iPhone 3G or 3GS and requires iPhone OS 3.0. Compatibility with the iPod Touch and older iPhone models should come soon, said TomTom.
TomTom first announced its new iPhone app at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference on June 8 (see video demo).
TomTom's new app will battle for a spot on your dashboard with several other iPhone navigation products--AT&T's $9.99-per-month Navigator, the similarly priced Gokivo app from Networks in Motion, and Navigon's MobileNavigator, now on sale for a flat fee of $69.99 until August 31.
CSR has unveiled a new GPS architecture that it says will let portable devices be constantly location-aware without draining their batteries.
The architecture, SiRFstarIV, was announced on Tuesday along with the first product to use it, CSR's GSD4t receiver for mobile phones and other portable devices.
Mobile phones increasingly have GPS (Global Positioning System) as a feature, for navigation and other location-based services. However, current GPS architecture is a major contributor to battery drain--a situation CSR is hoping to fix.
The U.K.-based company, which has generally concentrated more on Bluetooth chip design, bought GPS architecture firm SiRF in February. As part of the deal, SiRF's founder, Kanwar Chadha, joined CSR as chief marketing officer. CSR was formerly Cambridge Silicon Radio.
Chadha told ZDNet UK on Tuesday that smartphones using current GPS platforms deliver a worse experience than dedicated personal navigation devices with the same technology. He attributed this lag in smartphones to three factors: battery consumption, the time it takes to get a fix on GPS satellites (as the GPS has to turn on and off to save power), and interference from other electronics inside the devices.
"GPS was not designed to be navigation-centric," Chadha said. "If you try to make location available all the time, you drain the battery very quickly. Other radios, the LCD display and the processor also interfere with the GPS signal."
This situation was a driver for the creation of SiRFstarIV, which is "not on all the time, and not off all the time," Chadha said.
The platform instead uses an "aware" state, which "keeps the necessary information to do a very fast calculation from the satellite [and is] alive all the time but in a very low micropower mode," he explained. This approach means the device's GPS does not need to be continually turned on and off to conserve power--hence the speed with which it can get a satellite fix.
Chadha said the SiRFstarIV platform uses between 50-500 microamps. That power consumption level is substantially lower than that found in existing GPS platforms, which burn up power in the milliamps.
The company also looked at the other drags on GPS performance in smartphones for the new architecture.
"The second thing we did is [to] put in a new technology which scans for all the noisy signals that interfere with GPS, and eliminates interferers before they can hit the GPS signal," Chadha said.
The GSD4t receiver is now available in sample quantities to manufacturers of mobile phones and other portable devices, with full-scale production scheduled for October. According to Chadha, the first handsets using SiRFstarIV should become available in early 2010.
David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.
Slower consumer spending and lower demand from retailers led to Garmin's "most challenging quarter" since going public in 2000, the GPS device maker's CEO said Wednesday.
Total revenue for Garmin's first quarter, which ended March 29, dropped to $437 million, down 34 percent from $664 million in the first quarter of 2008.
Earnings per share sunk to 24 cents from 67 cents in the year-ago quarter, marking a 24 percent drop. That compares with expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters of 42 cents per share on revenue of $531.6 million. Excluding the impact from foreign-exchange rates, earnings per share decreased 64 percent year over year, to 25 cents from 69 cents.
Garmin records a year-over-year drop in first-quarter earnings.
(Credit: Garmin)Garmin's geographical units each saw weaker results. North American revenue fell to $265 million, compared with $411 million in the same quarter of 2008, down 36 percent. Sales in Europe dropped to $144 million from $211 million, down 32 percent. Revenue in Asia was $28 million, compared with $42 million, down 33 percent.
... Read moreBARCELONA - Skyhook Wireless announced on Monday at the GSMA Mobile World Congress here that Texas Instruments will use its hybrid positioning technology in its mobile chips, so that cell phones can provide more accurate location information.
Skyhook has developed a hybrid technology that uses GPS satellite technology and Wi-Fi to help provide geolocation services. Skyhook's technology is used today on Apple's iPhone, among other services and devices.
The way it works is that Skyhook will use Wi-Fi access points to triangulate and get a fix on known Wi-Fi hot spots. The company has a database of where Wi-Fi hot spots all over the country are located. Specifically, it uses the Mac address, a unique identifier that every piece of hardware on the Internet must have, to identify the router, and it matches that identifier with the location. Using multiple signals in the same geographic location, the Skyhook technology is able to pinpoint a location.
The company has also integrated GPS into its technology, so that it can be used to get an even more accurate location-fix on phones that have GPS receivers. GPS allows Skyhook to cover more ground with its geolocation technology. And it also provides location information more quickly than GPS alone. Because GPS uses three or four low-orbiting satellites to pinpoint a location, it can take a few seconds before it's able to calculate a location. Skyhook's Wi-Fi technology can get location information much faster.
The Skyhook XPS hybrid software will be used in TI's current and future NaviLin 6.0 and WiLink 6.0 solutions.
Google on Thursday released an application called My Tracks that turns the T-Mobile G1 Android phone into a full-fledged GPS receiver.
The free software can record tracks showing where you've been, display them on a map, show elevation gains and losses, and share data with various online services.
As a geography buff, I have to confess that this one of the first applications that actually got me excited. I carry a Garmin standalone GPS device so I can geotag my photos and keep track of my trips, but My Tracks one-ups it in several ways.
For one thing, it's a phone and therefore much more likely to be toted at all times, not just on dedicated occasions. But more important, it's an Internet-enabled device, which means it shows my position on Google Maps--either map mode or satellite image mode, not just the feeble and expensive Garmin Maps--as long as it can find the Internet. Track data can be saved not just as a GPX file, but also uploaded and shared with Google Maps. And statistics can be uploaded into Google Docs spreadsheets or even Twittered (for example using the Twidroid application).
... Read more
TeleNav GPS Navigator on the T-Mobile G1
(Credit: TeleNav)On Thursday, TeleNav announced that starting February 24, it will make its location-based service, TeleNav GPS Navigator, available to T-Mobile G1 owners, bringing real-time turn-by-turn navigation to the Google Android smartphone.
In addition to turn-by-turn driving directions, TeleNav GPS Navigator offers traffic alerts with one-click rerouting, business searches (with more than 10 million listings), gas prices, weather updates, and restaurant reviews.
Speech recognition is also supported, meaning that you'll be able to press a button on the G1, dictate an address or business, and TeleNav will then route to the destination. Alternatively, you can preplan trips through TeleNav's Web site and send it to your phone.
TeleNav is no stranger to the business, providing its navigation services to a number of GPS-enabled smartphones and carriers, including Sprint and AT&T. Developing an application for Android and G1 owners was an important step for the company, according to TeleNav co-founder and Senior Director of Marketing Sal Dhanani.
The service will initially be available only through TeleNav but will then make its way to Android Market later this year. G1 users can go to TeleNav's Web site to sign up for a 30-day free trial of the service; afterward, it will cost $9.99 per month for unlimited use.
