Explore our world geospatially - joesonic is blogging
Will the second iPhone Generation come with an integrated GPS module? The are a lot of rumours about the second iPhone out in the internet for serveral months. Now Engadget writes that the new iPhone has GPS included. I think we will get the answer directly from Mr. Jobs during his keynode at WWDC 2008 in June.
The tend in the mobile phone industry shows the increasing importance of locational services.
[via Engadget]
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The European Union (EU) has finnaly decided about financing the statellite navigationsystem Galileo. All in all until the year 2013, when the project should be finnisched, the EU will provide 3.4 billion Euros.
“Mit der Einigung des Rates haben die Mitgliedstaaten heute die letzte Hürde zur Realisierung von Galileo genommen. Jetzt ist die deutsche Raumfahrtindustrie am Zug” Bundesverkehrsminister Wolfgang Tiefensee
Translation: “With this agreement of the concil the member states have taken the last barrier for realization of the Galileo project”.
With this decision the political framework for Galileo are set. In July ESA will start with tendering and will finnish this in the end of this year. This will be a good change for high tech companies of the EU. In the end of this month the second experimental satellit “Giove B” will be shot into the outer space. This satellite will contain technology of the future Galileo statellites. Giove B will start on April 27th form the kazakh spaceport Baikonur. Origionally this satellite should have been sarted in spring 2006. The fist test satellite “Giove A” is in outer space since 2005. The sart was delayed conistently. Last time the delay was because of problems with the russian carrier rocket Sojus.
The actual roadmap for Galileo defines the end of the assembling of satellites until 2013. In the end Galileo will have 30 satellites and be more precise than the US-mavigation system GPS. The european projects now delays for several years behind the original roadmap.
[via derStandard]
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The chinese computer manifacturer Lenovo has introduced a new pocket PC. The gadget has a 4.8 inch touch screen and Linux as operating system.
Further specifications are: The IdeaPad should be one of the first mobile devices running with Intels Atom-Chip. Beside the touch screen an “optical mouse” is integrated for navigation. Connection to the internet is possible via UMTS or GPRS. Furthermore GPS is included which allow to use the device as mobile navigation system.
There was no statement about the commercial rollout of the IdeaPad.
[via derStandard.at]
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The portal swisstrains.ch is trying to provide real time train poistions on the internet. It is planned to record the locations of the trains via GPS and visualize the location on Google Maps.
Currently the site is in ALPHA-phase, we keep on developing. The current view is based on the Swiss traintimetable, and does not yet show the actual GPS-positions of the trains. But, as Swiss trains are almost always on time, most of the time the position is accurate.
In near Future this is a good tool especially if these can be visualized on your mobile phone. I think this is very usefull for Location Based Services (LBS) and Location Based Decision Support (LBDS).
[via www.swisstrains.ch]
Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.
The following post is an excerp of a news paper article about Google’s My Location Service, which was recently introduced and is now in beta.
Users of Blackberries and many other smartphones can now push a button and the Google mapping service will figure out more or less sort of where they are.
Google recently added a feature for some smartphones that don’t have built in GPS but can read the unique identifying number of the cell tower they are connected to (This technique is called cell tower positioning, there exists also ther methods like WiFi Positioning Systems (WPS)). By using this information, Google can display a map of the general area they are in. (Google isn’t the first to try this sort of thing.)
Google nicely tried to design the service to take into account its limitations. When you push the button, it draws a dot at the nearest cell tower and draws a circle around it to identify the area in which it thinks you are. The screen will tell you the margin of error, typically between 500 and 2000 feet.
How does it work?
First, Google figures out which cell towers are where by secretly enlisting the help of a million of its mobile maps users who happen to have phones with built-in GPS devices that are not locked by the carriers. These phones have been reporting to Google where they are, based on the GPS data and what cell tower they are connected to.
Google stated that they had thought through the rather creepy privacy implications of all this. Google’s standard approach is that it logs everything it does by the unique cookie of an Internet browser (or the equivalent unique ID of a mobile phone). For the location information from GPS and cell towers, Google has built a database with not a bit of personal user information, they say.
When pressed, however, he also admitted there is a loophole to this. The payoff for Google from building out its mapping service is to get people to conduct searches from their cellphones. This is a nice feature. Push a button on the map software, type “Starbucks” and it will display a map of the closest source of a latte fix, based on the cell tower or GPS data. The catch, is that this query, with your location, is entered in Google’s log files along with your phone’s unique ID.
For almost everyone, this won’t matter. But if your location is really a secret, don’t ask Google to help you find coffee.
UPDATE: Barry Schnitt, of Google’s PR department, wrote with some clarifications. The service, he said, is in beta and the accuracy will improve as it is used. He took issue with the word “secretly” about how Google gathers the GPS data because such use is disclosed in the privacy policy of the service. And he also doesn’t like the headline that implies that Google has a good guess where you are. Google, as the item says, knows your cellphone’s ID number but not your name.
UPDATE 2: Mr. Schnitt wrote back to say I was wrong and that the unique ID used by the Google Maps system can’t be connected to any ID for GMail, which uses a separate application. So unless the map application starts to ask you to identify yourself, Google doesn’t know where you are.
[New York Times Article, 28.11.2007]
Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.
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