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GPS Slowly Changing How Things Are Done
Hemos forwarded me a link to a story at Fast Company about how GPS is changing the way people do business. Several good examples are used, from farmers in Alabama to anti-theft devices. Some notes on GPS' military origins as well. Also worth noting is how GPS, like computers, wasn't adopted overnight, but rather over time as applications were found.
my first first post?
Muslims should be denied the right to do business.
What material is urine composed of?
Urine is normally composed of water and wasted products filtered form
the body. The kidney produces urine. The other main function of the
kidney is to regulate fluid balance in the body. It performs this
function by using a selective osmosis system. Basically, the way it
works is that electrolytes (dissolved salts like sodium, potassium,
calcium, carbonate, chloride) are pumped back into or out of urine and
blood so that in the end, just the right amounts of electrolyte and
water exit the kidney blood vein. The rest ends up in urine.
Interestingly, normal urine is sterile and has no bacteria.
Urine contains 95% water and 5% solids. More than 1000 different
mineral salts and compounds are estimated to be in urine. So far, our
scientific community knows of about 200 elements. Some substances are:
vitamins, amino acids, antibodies, enzymes, hormones, antigens,
interleukins, proteins, immunoglobulins, gastric secretory depressants,
tolergens, immunogens, uric acid, urea, proteoses, directin, H-11 (a
growth inhibitory factor in human cancer), and urokinase. Believe it or
not, scientists have know for years that urine is antibacterial,
anti-protozoal, anti-fungal, anti-viral, and anti-tuberculostatic!
"I'm working late tonight, don't wait up..."
..err, I meant to say, cool!
"Oh really? Then how come your cell phone is in Joe's Tavern with your secretary's pager bobbing over your coordinates?"
"...*dialtone*..."
.unsigged
I have a Garmin GPS V and LOVE it. The turn-by-turn routing has been a huge help. We started looking to buy a house and would print out a ton of MLS listings. Without the GPS we'd have to spend a lot of time planning our route. With the GPS we just punch in the address of the next house and off we go. Very accurate.
This type of GPS is ILLEGAL. If you use GPS you must YOU MUST PURCHASE GPS. We are going to see that this website is taken down immediately. We will log IP addresses of anyone who visits this site and we WILL find you and prosecute you to the maximum extent permissible under the LAW.
Posted from the nero-online.org Troll Library
Following my work researching The Linux Gay Conspiracy, I am saddened to announced that I have discovered yet another orgy of perverted heterophobic values. My claim lies with the Slashdot mangement.
First, what kind of name is Slashdot? This is obviously a code word in the homosexual community for something perverted.
Slashdot is an anagram of LAD SHOTS, which refers to Slashdot's pedophile agenda and T ASS HOLD, which refers to some gay sexual posistion that Michael and CmdrTaco enjoy.
The 'editors' of Slashdot, as they call themselves, are homosexual swingers with cleverly disguised nicknames.
CmdrTaco (aka "Rob" Malda) is the "head" honcho of Slashdot. Cmdr obviously refers to his desire to dominate over his gay partners, and Taco is obviously a sly reference to his colon. Update: It is well known that Taco claims to be married to Kate Fent. No one really believes that 'she' is actually his wife. We have proof that this 'she' is actually a he. It turns out that Kathleen Fent is an anagram of KHAN FELT EN ET. So this Kate of his is really Khan who "felt in it". I will not describe what that means as I am sure you can imagine yourself.
Michael Sims, who goes as 'michael' on Slashdot, is a well known thug and advancer of homosexual agenda. His name is an anagram of ASS CHIME MIL which obviously refers to his desire to flaunt his lower organ.Update: It turns out that Michael Sims is also an anagram of ASS LICE, HMM, I?. That is so sick that words cannot describe the horror.
Father Randy "Pudge" O'Day is Slashdot's Mac propagandist. Macintosh computers are well known as the Gay computer due to their homosexual colors and stylings. An email exchange between 'Pudge' and Apple HQ have been leaked by a former Apple employee who converted to heterosexuality. These two emails (here and here) have been repeatedly posted on Slashdot, but are quickly censored by Slashdot moderators who do not want the public to know about its agenda.Update form Subject Line Troll - it appears the O'Day is just a few letter changes away from I'm Gay and rhymes with O'Day. Is anyone surprised that Mr. Pudge is a fudge packing Mac hippie?
Simoniker, a recent addition to Slashdot has been uncovered as Mr. Goatse himself. Simoniker is a frequent poster to the Games section of Slashdot, obviously because he enjoies modded versions of Quake 3 and UT2K3 as a homosexual warrior who likes to 'overcome' his opponents with his exagerated sized love member. In addition, Simoniker is an anagram of KEN I RIM SO (Ken is probably his current boyfriend) and MEN I IRK SO (which refers to his frustratingly troubled gay relationships, probably due to his rather large asshole).Update from AC: I'M ON ERIK'S... "Eriks what? We can only imagine" -AC.
CowboyNeal. How could I forget him? CowboyNeal is Slashdot's Poll Editor. His rampant homosexuality is obvious. "Cowboy Kneel" is what his name actually means. His odd sexuality needs no further explanation.
Please reply with additional information, contributions, and corrections. I will include any additional information and credit you with it in my further releases of this report.
Maybe SCO can use GPS to locate *nix code in Linux. So far they sure don't seem to have found much of it otherwise.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
search ebay for the visor prism, - color palm handspring unit - $150 with shipping - used - 65000 colors
nice organizer with handspring expansion slot
--------------------
staples, etc. - handspring unit GPS magellan - 12 channel - $49 - new on clearance - software for moving map, location, speed, etc.
-------
this unit with good mapping software for $29 rivals dedicated color moving map GPS units costing thousands.
----
get the spint phone module from ebay for $20 for the visor handspring and now it is a phone too.
Comparable to DirectTV (see slashdot article about them). The signals would be scrambled unless you paid $9.99 per month for a "license fee". They could use the stupidest encryption around, and anybody who broke it would be put in jail and fined. Scramblin it for a military purpose makes sense, but scrambling it to protect "intellectual property" is just stupid. Unit cost for one more person to use it is zero. Like America's Army game, an example of good use of government to keep things sane. A libertarian might argue for donation-based entities, but either way it gets done.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Can someone send the US some GPS coordinates for iraqi WMD's, they seem to have misplaced their coordinates.
Fuck you, Misti!
So all these evil invading aliens have to do is kill the GPS satellites first and a great deal of our cockroach businesses come to a halt.
We worked on a turn-key project over a year ago (before matters got screwed by an acquisition), and one aspect of the product was to track GPS position and record it every so often with a few other real-time parameters, such as speed, direction, and average MPH. The project completed the first product phase of deployment, but actually using the GPS data (while recording WAS working) was slated for phase 2. Unfortunately, I think the whole thing got mothballed because the company receiving the product was not technically inclined one bit. Such a waste of effort. It would have helped cut their yearly expenses down a lot.
As a long-time sailor, I have heard more stories than I can count about vessels lost or damaged because skippers entered bad coordinates for a buoy or harbor entrance. Are rogue tractors next?
"For the moment, they've managed to resist the hottest new GPS tool: tractors that steer themselves. The price is still too high, but the idea is appealing, because with an auto-steer tractor, they would be able to work at night."
without paying an outrageous monthly fee akin to protection money, or calling a company to do it for me for a fee, then gps will have arrived for me.
One stolen car, recovered by my family, not police.
One van, stolen twice, recovered by my family twice, not police.
One 4x4, stolen, never recovered, $10,000 loss, insurance settlement was a joke after months of haggling and threatening to sue.
My father and I use GPS receivers as often as possible. We are both Geocachers.
For those of you that don't know what Geocaching is, here is a quote from the geocaching.com FAQ:
"What is Geocaching?
Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache. "
First of all it's not illegal, and it's free for anyone to use, since the governement decrypted the satellite signals a few years ago. Second, who is "we"? If you were some kind of legitamite business or agency, then why not give your agencys name? You make me laugh at your childish postings
Wardriving is a perfect example of how GPS has changed the way we look at computer security, especially where wireless LANs are concerned.
Check out wifimaps.com to see if your wlan has been scanned.
I saw a headline about a GPS service for cell-phones; a cool toy! I read more, and was disillusioned by "for emergency purposes only." Turns out, the GPS information is only seen by emergency persons if you call 911. Sucks, eh?
Can someone enlighten me as to why a farmer driving a tractor would need to know their location to a 1' accuracy?
Then perhaps the French would have stayed in France to fight!
It seems right around the time that Germany decided to waltz into Paris, the entire French army suddenly got "lost" and left the country. All they needed was GPS and they dould have found their way back and fought.
Oh well.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Then perhaps the French would have stayed in France to fight!
It seems right around the time that Germany decided to waltz into Paris, the entire French army suddenly got "lost" and left the country. All they needed was GPS and they dould have found their way back and fought.
Oh well.
The mind boggles. How many people are going to accept a system that lets their insurance company track everywhere they drive? Yes, I'm surely more obsessive about this kind of thing than Joe Average, but surely you don't have to be a privacy nut to have some issues with this.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I just lived in one of the highest car theft regions of the nation, in a middle to upper middle class neighborhood. I believe for a few or more years, it was number one in the nation.
I not aware of too many neighborhoods in the US where the average one and two family houses run in the neighborhood of $450,000 to $750,000 with individual houses on some streets running $1,000,000+ for a one family, and where a three bedroom apartment rents for $2,000+ a month in what is considered a suburban area.
Very nice post though. Why don't you log on, and stand behind your words?
And since you seem to have dificulty with reading comprehension, let's go over it again. One van, one car, one 4x4. And they were vehicles worth stealing, or they wouldn't have been stolen.
Someone has a bug up their ass about commercial entities.
"Comparable to DirectTV (see slashdot article about them). The signals would be scrambled unless you paid $9.99 per month for a "license fee". "
As compared to the US military who could have simply sayed no to commercial usage...
"They could use the stupidest encryption around, and anybody who broke it would be put in jail and fined. Scramblin it for a military purpose makes sense, but scrambling it to protect "intellectual property" is just stupid. "
and then throwing your ass in Leavenworth because you broke the encryption, and gave away plans to "enemy combatents".
"Unit cost for one more person to use it is zero. Like America's Army game, an example of good use of government to keep things sane. "
Unless they said no to commercial usage then you'd have to sing a different tune about how the evil government wouldn't let you do what you wanted with the signal you "paid for" with your tax money.
BTW Even with the government saying yes to commercial use. It was commercialism that brought the cost down enough, we all can have a "/." story about it.
"Driving on the same tracks (more or less) every time minimized this. "
And as a former farmer you don't need GPS to do this. Also we can drive at night just fine.
* Are you gay?
* Are you a nigger?
* Are you a GAY NIGGER?
If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
Why not sign up now? It's quick and easy, only 2 simple steps!
First, you have to obtain a copy of "GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE" [imdb.com] and watch it.
Second, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!
If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.
-A Proud and Gay Nigger
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YHL
HAND
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
That's "GNU Public Slayings".
What will ever happen to human progress if we start all being nice to each other?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I hate to sound pessimistic but since when is something this glaringly obvious considered "worth noting"?
Or maybe, given the topic, my pessimistic little note should be restated to ask how accurate would your GPS unit have to be to measure the size of the rock you'd have to be living under to not know that GPS wasn't adopted overnight?
Goodness. I'm starting to sound as biter as those people who post about the newsworthiness of new articles.
What material is urine composed of?
Urine is normally composed of water and wasted products filtered form
the body. The kidney produces urine. The other main function of the
kidney is to regulate fluid balance in the body. It performs this
function by using a selective osmosis system. Basically, the way it
works is that electrolytes (dissolved salts like sodium, potassium,
calcium, carbonate, chloride) are pumped back into or out of urine and
blood so that in the end, just the right amounts of electrolyte and
water exit the kidney blood vein. The rest ends up in urine.
Interestingly, normal urine is sterile and has no bacteria.
Urine contains 95% water and 5% solids. More than 1000 different
mineral salts and compounds are estimated to be in urine. So far, our
scientific community knows of about 200 elements. Some substances are:
vitamins, amino acids, antibodies, enzymes, hormones, antigens,
interleukins, proteins, immunoglobulins, gastric secretory depressants,
tolergens, immunogens, uric acid, urea, proteoses, directin, H-11 (a
growth inhibitory factor in human cancer), and urokinase. Believe it or
not, scientists have know for years that urine is antibacterial,
anti-protozoal, anti-fungal, anti-viral, and anti-tuberculostatic!
I don't have an account?
Unlike most of the posters here I would guess?
And probably unlike the guy bringing class warfare into a gps statement/observation/wish?
290 comment limit per day is enough for 29 usable ip addresses, with 10 per for ac's, don't you think?
SPAM much?
Now we're modding spam up?! My faith in intelligent moderators is now validated.
"It is not theft as there is no tangible property involved. "
Yet in both cases you benifit without the exchange of money to those who make something worth "borrowing". Funny how life works.
"About your second comment, it cost $10 bucks for cable, my cable bill is over $35 for the same service. Come again about the natural evolution is to become cheaper."
Another failed student of Econ 101. It's natural behaviour is to gravitate to whatever people are willing to pay for it. Don't want to pay $35/month then don't. Enough do that and the price drops. Simple as that.
Kathleen Fent = KNEEL, THEN FAT
Just doing my part...
Like utility infrastructure. I work at a water company, and before a contractor burries pipeline, we use RTK (realtime kinematic) GPS to record its location down to 0.04' (or 1cm). So when line locators need to mark facilities its much more accurate. Normal GPS isnt that accurate, but we use base stations and radios to send correction data in real time out to the GPS collection devices.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Score: -1, No content
Dumb-ass moderators today
I dont give a shit if you have a GPS for sale. We do not need to start a trend of Spam on Slashdot. Its bad enough as it is with trolls an all.
Several good examples are used, from farmers in Alabama to anti-theft devices.
Up here in Canada, farmers have been using it to level their fields for years now. Canada is usually pretty quick to pick up new technologies.
"...because with an auto-steer tractor, they would be able to work at night."
Most tractors these days have headlights. Some of the larger tractors come with enough lights from the factory that it almost feels like daylight when they're all on.
You're not going to see a lot of GPS guided tractors any time soon. There are too many random factors to consider, like random patches of soft soil (mud or sand), animals (my grandfather accidentally ran a lame deer through a combine once... Ick.), debris in the field (rocks, tree limbs, etc), etc.
We'd need optical recognition systems to be good enough to steer around the junk you don't plan for using GPS. Also, some stuff you don't want to steer around, you want to remove it from your path.
GPS is useful with farming, though. Plotting soil samples, and then using that data when applying fertilizer is faily nice.
One of the principle uses of GPS which I have seen in farming is doing year to year yield mapping. Thats where you have sophisticated equipment on your harvester that does realtime yield analysis (ie. figures out how much corn/soy/etc. you are pulling off the specific patch of land you are harvesting) and associates that number with the GPS coordinates the harvester is currently at. That way not only does a farmer know their per acre yield but knows where each of their good/bad yield spots are quantitatively and can either cross reference that with soil maps or other data to determine the reason for the different yields and if possible increase yeilds.
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
One university's avionics department put a GPS receiver in each wingtip of an airplane and used them as a bank angle indicator. They just compared the altitude of one wingtip with the altitude of another wingtip.
If you have a ham radio license, you can hook your GPS to a transmitter and experiment with tracking yourself and things. The telemetry standard used for this also allows flagging your position with status information (e.g. "on duty") and weather information. See http://www.findu.com to track hams who are doing this, or google for "APRS".
Ever notice that human technological evolution closely mirrors our desire to more efficiently have sex with our neighbor? Or at least take her for a ride for less than the cost of taking her out? TGP [thumbnail gallery posts] is a major advance for economical, global hormone production. Instead of a nice car, fat wallet, good looks and flowers, you need one little quick click to get some happiness. Browse porn sites more, spend less. With most sexual technological advances, they have civilian applications. TGP is a shining example. My favorite is the web browser. It was first built to help college students share "information" so mankind could .... in the ass faster.
What will ever happen to human progress if we get control of our raging hormones?
Just mark your car, ride miles away, and when you're ready to go back, just follow the arrow. No parking near landmarks to remember where the car is.
Reminds me of a contest the military is sponsoring. Basically they want a driverless ground vehicle. I thought GPS would solve the navigation part of the problem. But the military warns that GPS alone is insufficient for navigation. Can't remember the reason though.
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/
Considering the robot has to drive the car, avoid obstacles and find it's destination. I'll be very impressed if anyone succeeds.
But then again a lot of work has already been done on this sort of thing.
http://www.path.berkeley.edu/
For anyone griping about how much taxpayers have paid for GPS;
30 _years_ of GPS development... $9B
1 Iraq War... $100B
Go figure.
I'd laugh, if only that wasn't close to home. See, I had a GREAT cache hidden near the Sacramento International Airport, and then that whole 9/11 thing happened and the Sacramento County Sheriff department started patrolling the area around the airport.
Imagine my surprise when cop cars & some guy in a black truck come rolling up on my ass all A-Team style when I pulled over and got out of my car to go check on the cache.
After my heart jumped up into my throat, I showed them the cache, and while they agreed that it was a really neat hiding place, it was not a good idea to continue the cache in that location.
Sad thing is that we used to go drinking in the exact same field years before. No longer. =/
"Imagine," he says, "the end of property crime. Everything that has any value and could be stolen -- a car, a laptop, a piece of construction equipment" (not to mention every ship, plane, truck trailer, and toddler) -- "everything like that will know its location and be able to report it. We can go even further: You tell your laptop that it should only find itself at your office or your home. And if it finds itself in a car trunk, it wakes up, notices that it's in the wrong place, calls your cell phone, and says, 'Hi, this is your laptop. I'm at this location on this map you see. Is that okay?'"
That instantly made me think of the Phrack article on the Low Cost and Portable GPS Jammer. Never know when that baby's going to come in handy.
If these walls could talk they'd probly still ignore me. --MF DOOM
What do you do when the GPS unit breaks or the batteries crap out? Become buzzard food?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Hehe - i know - those new fangled incandescent lights and all...
t (a current farmer)
You can add your "buddies", and then do things like "where is joe" (down to around 2 blocks) or "find nearest friend" amongst them all. Still haven't really found a practicle use for it, but I guess that's also part of the point of the article: Give users the option, and eventually they'll figure out innovative uses for it.
Why does it seem like to me that GPS transmitters (the BIG ones) are always in the butthole of nowhere. Like 1hr off the main road on a dirt road, make a right at the dog tied up to the tree? Interference? Some GPS guru please let me know.
I hate sigs.
got to love that GPS kid locator commercial.
It seems that more thought actually went into the GPS farming than into many recent computer patents, like Apple's "fast user switching" or any of the other process patents mentioned on Slashdot. Are farmers just not patenting because they aren't in technology? (Or is this process actually patented and it just wasn't mentioned...)
I've got a T68i that lets me do that, and it is most certainly not a GPS phone. It is a GSM phone, not sure if you're confusing your acronyms...
Can one "stack" the phone module and the GPS module in the Handspring units, or must one be removed to use the other?
Can anybody explain to me why these farmers get 1 feet of accuracy while I have to struggle with 18 feet maxium accuracy?
J.
I really think 160x160 screens suck for mapping, even in color. Moving up to 320x320, like on some of the Clies that can be had quite cheaply (esp. factory refurbs), adds so much more usability to the maps.
I dont know how many people are aware of it but qualcomm has a suite of products that track trucks and report gps info, engine info, cargo info over satellite or terrestial networks, look for little white domes on the top of the truck cabs those are the receiver/broadcast units. This was recently featured on the history channel. They also have an emercency panic button that wills send an alert to a dispatch center and local law enforcement over satellite
One of the things that I love about GPS data is that they've pretty much decided on a standard -- the NMEA data format. When I first got my Navman GPS for my iPAQ, I thought it was cool. I thought that the included navigation software was cool, and I thought that seeing my exact coordinates was cool. That could have been the end of it, and I would have been happy.
However, most GPS devices dump their data out in a standard CSV format. This makes it very easy for 3rd party software developers to treat a GPS device as a commodity. Rather than dealing specifically with Garman / Navman / etc, they just read the standard. It's great.
It also makes it trivial to write your own apps that interface with a saved data file. I wrote a really small app to overlay a car trip on a map, including red dots where I stopped. Now you can really say, "I'm serious -- look at how bad traffic was!" I've heard of other innovative programs, too, like correlating the timestamp on a picture from a digital camera with the GPS log to give you the coordinates where the picture was taken.
The most useful GPS data is the "RMC" string:
If you're interested, the data format is here.
It all goes downhill from first post
There's a ton of MS source code geocached, you just need to visit the right websites to find it.
Longitude: -122.13099913, Latitude: 47.63839512
It all goes downhill from first post
"Tuning in a satellite broadcast does not use part of a finite resource, it does not reduce the amount of broadcast available for sale."
Until the above thinking takes over like the disease it is. Then the companies can't make any money. Kind of hard to watch a "unlimited resource" that no longer exist because no money is coming in. Or were you under the impression that everything from the dollar signs back was also free to the company that's producing the product that's good enough to watch, but not to pay for?
GPS is a system of satellites. Those big towers in the middle of nowhere are probably high tension power. Maybe cell towers. Maybe just the alien signal transmitters, activating the servo implanted in your ignorant ass.
I want a PDA-like thingy with these features:
1. Cell phone
2. Runs Linux
3. Instant messaging
4. Computer (PDA, web browser)
5. GPS-capable
6. Easy link-up to desktop
7. Under $500 because I know I will drop and sit on it on occasion.
When will this be available for the huddled masses like me? I don't even need color.
Table-ized A.I.
We had to pay $60,000 for a rack mount GPS unit for the research ship I was on. We only got 2 or 3 satellite fixes and even then that was for only a handful of hours a day because the constellation wasn't complete. But by cracky we loved it! It was good enough then and by god ... by god... what we wouldn't have done for one of those modern sub $200 contraptions. Oh yea and a full constellation of satellites.
Navigation for scientific research (gravity & magnetic surveys) was interesting. We'd post process and combine a few hours of GPS a day, Transit Sat Nav (crude sat fixes + dead reconing), plus ARGO ranging navigation. The cool thing about ARGO was that it required shore stations where someone had to be by the transmitter for several weeks. And since the cruises were in the Carribean and off Brasil, sitting around a shore station (aka "the beach") for several weeks was pretttty fine.
...are not to be messed with. Years ago one of the guys at a switch I worked at thought that his wife was messing around on him. He knew the name of the guy and found out that this fellow had a cell phone. From his company. And of course so did his wife.
;)
The switch tech agreed to help him out one night when she was "out with the girls." Now, there was no GPS at the time but they were able to track the two phones by judging the signal strength and the tower that the phones were registering on. Wifey wasn't were she was supposed to be, surprise, surprise...
As they sat side by side in the restaurant both of their phones rang at the same time. When they answered the call was between their two phones. Not being rocket scientists it actually took a them a few minutes to figure out what had happened.
That was years ago, imagine the power these guys have NOW with GPS!
The moral of the story? DON'T PISS OFF A GEEK!!! They are more powerful than you could ever imagine...
I just looked at this post again, and it was modded Funny. Funny? It's a legitimate question! Oh well, I should know better than to expect rational moderations on slashdot.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Have a look at the Gotive
threadeds blog
DanCar Autosikring
The base units tracking software carries out conversations with the vehicles alarm unit (which contains a GPS module) over SMS and uses M$ MapPoint to display the current position. Also the state of things like tilt alarm, crash alarm, temperature, tire pressures, well it all depends on what other modules are plugged in really.
It can be used to track several vehicles in real time (accepted the SMS message round trip being about 15 seconds usually if in country, and about a minute if the vehicle is in another country)
It's been available for a few years now, it used to use AutoRoute but I got fed up with the SendKey nonsense so it uses MapPoint now.
threadeds blog
DanCar do a unit with your requirements.
When an alarm is triggered it will phone up and a voice synth will tell you what is wrong, alternatively an SMS message, or both, to as many as ten different numbers.
You can then use some pc software to follow the car in real time on a map.
threadeds blog
Was anything ever adopted overnight? Why? No software, users. Surely it makes sense to let `early adopters` waste cash on stuff and wait to see if it takes off.
Also worth noting is how GPS, like computers, wasn't adopted overnight, but rather over time as applications were found.
something I post a couple days ago
--
Your "family" seems amazingly well connected to the crimnal underworld. Perhaps because you spend a lot of time in the company of such people (and other dodgy areas) that your cars keep getting nicked?
Handspring unit GPS magellan - 12 channel - $49
Good mapping software for $29
Sprint phone module from ebay for $20
Calling your friends from a ditch because your GPS was wrong: priceless.
Funny talking about GPS, precition and other good stuff and still using feet and miles in his essay...
I worked on a video game called EverTech (yeah, obviously a rip). It was basicly a MUDD game, with a top down view of campus (or anywhere else in the world), and in order to play in the game you had to roam around using GPS. Of course we only worked on it for a semester and were never given any real support hardware wise...
A bunch of people sounded interested in playing if we ever finished it.
"Are farmers just not patenting because they aren't in technology? (Or is this process actually patented and it just wasn't mentioned...)"
Despite the "other" response, as a former farmer the reason a regular farmer hasn't patented it. Is because we're in the farming business, not the patent business.
"So be it. If a company can't figure out a way to charge for their service, then they go out of business."
Aside from the fact you missed the point (imagine that?). All you're saying is if companies can't overcome the publics carnal nature[1] then they deserve to go out of business. What a piss-poor world you're going to end up living in. Bad thing is you're going to be dragging the rest of us down with you.
"I pay for it, and yet see nothing wrong with tuning it in without paying. Ponder that one for a while."
Why should I ponder people excercising the worst side of themselves? People have been doing that since Cain killed Abel, and they've been going ever since.
[1] Encryption is a form of this. People still don't get the hint. Up next a death ray that zero's in on "pirates". Wonder if anyone will get the hint?
..and its not that expensive.My dad used to have the service on a truck he sold some time ago.
Its very common nowadays for people to hire this services down here.
I guess its cheap because of high demand and because car robberies here are extremely common.
So now the robbers are opting to kidnap you with your vehicle to prevent you calling the GPS company or the cops...
Also some people have told me that the robbers can just take the car and quickly move it to an underground parking garage for a while or into a container to prevent location.Dont know the veracity of that though...
You can download a Java App to track your cell phone at www.gadgeteer.org I have a free service running that recieves UDP packets sent by the phone and creates a web page with a link to mapquest showing your current location
Free cell phone tracking
What'd they do with the other 536 colors?
TT
I may have to rethink that since GPS is a great tool to make things cheaper, faster, and better and it came from the evil military budget.
At least it's from the USA, and not from *cough*, *cough*, France.
You would know the answer if you bothered to read the article:
The system has cost $9 billion to develop, launch, and sustain over 30 years... Today, the GPS industry in North America is estimated at $4 billion a year.
Not a bad investment of your tax dollars and mine.
http://www.aprs.org/
http://www.aprs.net/ and http://www.findu.com/ have some neat APRS interfaces.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If your activities depend upon GPS (are not simply assisted or made more convenient by it) what happens when/if GPS fails?
I.e., if 911 emergency services depend upon GPS and map/direction assist systems in order to find your burning house, what happens if GPS fails for some reason?
I know GPS is built to be redundant, but business (or other activities) that _depend_ on GPS should have a "manual" backup when possible.
First off, GPS is a military thing that civilians have piggybacked on.
Secondly, those freeloading, "mooching" foreigners have started developing their own GPS systems, and the US has actually balked at this happening. Out of passing curiosity, why do you think that's happening? (Careful not to concentrate on this question too hard -- you don't want cognitive dissonance to blow any noggin gaskets.)
Remind me to try to sell you something sometime. You've bought a world view that's based on ridiculously oversimple "government is bad!" rhetoric. I'd place money that you have no idea what your real, individual tax burden is, but that doesn't seem to keep you saying they take a third. You're offering ten bucks a month for GPS when, say, the whole of NASA very likely doesn't get that much of your tax dollar -- they take about $1 out of every $1000 in the federal budget, to give you some idea how that works out. That's one lavish GPS system. I'd love to be a used car salesman when you walk through the door...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.