Regardless of the validness of the project described, I think the greater question pertains to the open source vs. personal wealth vs. copyright and patenting. Because of the (intentional) lack of detail about the concept, perhaps we should focus on greater question.
You may be on to something here. GSM cell phones with built in modems, like the Nokia 8920, or the Ericson sh888 can use simple AT commands to send/store/retrieve sms. Both the fomented phones utilize irda for a serial interface.
I don't know of an irda equipped GPS, nor do I think such a thing would natively use AT commands. However using something like a Rio, Palm, Embedded Linux PDA or (god help us) PocketPc, equipped with a GPS, you could pass formatted SMS messages containing positional data to a from a cell phone with IRDA.
I know of a company that is making Compact Flash GPS units.
The SMS formatting could be simply, GPSCODE:2024841414:35.95666N:85.30729W:100M:Notati ons
GPSCODE would be the precursor for the program to look for, only those SMS message starting with this text would be downloaded and used.
2024841414 would be the ID for the sender, this could be a phone number, or optional ID text, because the sending phone number is captured in the SMS headers.
35.95666N, latitude
85.30729W longitude
100M, altitude .
Notations, any free text to all to the map point.
The software could send it's current position, of the cords for another place.... This formatting is human readable, meaning that if you did not have the software to decode the SMS message, you could just as easily manually plug those cords in a standard GPS.
Something like this occurred to me a few weeks ago. I was linking with up group of friends in an unfamiliar city, several of us where coming in from out of town, in a few different modes of transit. We started this round robin type of calling to try and find both each other and the place where we were going to finally end up that night. After about the fifth call from someone asking if I new a landmark which I didn't, or if I could give better direction to a landmark I did, it occurred to me that if we could transmit our locations to each other and pinpoint the final destination location this exercise would be much quicker and less confusing.
We have GPS to tell us locations; we have networks like GSM/GPRS to transmit voice and data, It doesn't seem like that great a step to build cell phone like devices that would allow both voice and location data to be sent our to other users. Even if it's not a map overly, just being able to tell distance and direction to a point would be helpful.
Of course releasing your location over GSM/GPRS would be at the users discretion.
Setting aside any privacy issues does anyone truly believe that a government ruled by Stram Themans (sp?) and Hillary Clintons could ever hope to administer something like this with any degree of efficiency? Is it to much to ask or ever hope that we should be left alone? Personally, I don't want anything more from our federal government. Perhaps this is one more thing to sped my tax money on, rather than letting me buy more unregistered guns:)
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Regardless of the validness of the project described, I think the greater question pertains to the open source vs. personal wealth vs. copyright and patenting. Because of the (intentional) lack of detail about the concept, perhaps we should focus on greater question.
I'm hopping that I'm miss reading your remarks, and that you are being facetious, rather than Sirius. :)
You may be on to something here. GSM cell phones with built in modems, like the Nokia 8920, or the Ericson sh888 can use simple AT commands to send/store/retrieve sms. Both the fomented phones utilize irda for a serial interface.
i ons
I don't know of an irda equipped GPS, nor do I think such a thing would natively use AT commands. However using something like a Rio, Palm, Embedded Linux PDA or (god help us) PocketPc, equipped with a GPS, you could pass formatted SMS messages containing positional data to a from a cell phone with IRDA.
I know of a company that is making Compact Flash GPS units.
The SMS formatting could be simply, GPSCODE:2024841414:35.95666N:85.30729W:100M:Notat
GPSCODE would be the precursor for the program to look for, only those SMS message starting with this text would be downloaded and used.
2024841414 would be the ID for the sender, this could be a phone number, or optional ID text, because the sending phone number is captured in the SMS headers.
35.95666N, latitude
85.30729W longitude
100M, altitude .
Notations, any free text to all to the map point.
The software could send it's current position, of the cords for another place....
This formatting is human readable, meaning that if you did not have the software to decode the SMS message, you could just as easily manually plug those cords in a standard GPS.
Looks like I've got a weekend project.
Something like this occurred to me a few weeks ago. I was linking with up group of friends in an unfamiliar city, several of us where coming in from out of town, in a few different modes of transit. We started this round robin type of calling to try and find both each other and the place where we were going to finally end up that night. After about the fifth call from someone asking if I new a landmark which I didn't, or if I could give better direction to a landmark I did, it occurred to me that if we could transmit our locations to each other and pinpoint the final destination location this exercise would be much quicker and less confusing.
We have GPS to tell us locations; we have networks like GSM/GPRS to transmit voice and data, It doesn't seem like that great a step to build cell phone like devices that would allow both voice and location data to be sent our to other users. Even if it's not a map overly, just being able to tell distance and direction to a point would be helpful.
Of course releasing your location over GSM/GPRS would be at the users discretion.
no...
:)
Setting aside any privacy issues does anyone truly believe that a government ruled by Stram Themans (sp?) and Hillary Clintons could ever hope to administer something like this with any degree of efficiency? Is it to much to ask or ever hope that we should be left alone? Personally, I don't want anything more from our federal government. Perhaps this is one more thing to sped my tax money on, rather than letting me buy more unregistered guns