Hasta La Gadget!

It seems a safe bet that any contemporary Easy Rider reboot would be vastly different from its predecessor. For one thing, there’s the whole GPS thing to contend with — and surely there’d be a little friendly product placement in the form of the TomTom Rider (New Orleans isn’t gonna find itself, after all). The company has updated its long-running motorcycle GPS line to feature a new 4.3-inch “glove-friendly” weatherproof display and the ability to create, upload and share routes via Bluetooth. Bluetooth functionality also makes it possible to get in-helmet audio directions, so you don’t have to stare down at that screen the whole time (when you should be looking at the, you know, road). And for those who don’t like the straight and narrow path, there’s the Winding Roads to help you find routes with more bends. The Rider is currently listed at £329.99 ($511) for pre-order.

Filed under: GPS

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Source: TomTom

Millions of vehicles, smartphones, and other devices in use all around the world support GPS navigation capability today. People rely on this GPS capability every day to get around in unfamiliar cities and to find better routes in cities they are familiar with. A group of Spanish researchers has recently claimed that they have discovered a way to help improve GPS accuracy in cities by as much as 90%.

GPS can be difficult or impossible to use in major cities where satellite signals can be blocked by tall buildings. Many people who live in rural communities have a similar problem with GPS signals being blocked by tall trees and foliage. A group of Spanish researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid has developed a prototype device to improve GPS signal quality.

The device is able to add data from accelerometers and gyroscopes to the conventional GPS signal thereby reducing the margin of error in the system. Researcher David Martin claims that he and his team were able to improve the determination of the vehicles position in critical cases at a rate of between 50 and 90% depending on how degraded the GPS signal to the navigation device is. The standard margin of error for commercial GPS receivers in cars is roughly 15 m in an open field.

In an urban setting where buildings block signals, accuracy can be off more than 50 m. Using the new prototype device, the researchers say that that margin of error within an urban setting can be reduced to one or 2 m. The prototype device uses a low-cost Inertial Measurement Unit using three accelerometers and three gyroscopes that are able to measure changes in velocity and vehicle maneuvers and direction. That data is then merged and used to correct errors in the GPS position data. There is no indication of when or if this technology might come to market.

[via TG Daily]

Spanish scientists claim to have significantly improved GPS accuracy is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Everyone who has driven with a GPS in a big city knows that there are spotty places where the GPS signal reception is difficult because the device loses line of sight, or because buildings are reflecting and bouncing  the GPS signal around. The end result is a dramatic loss of accuracy which can mean the missing a critical turn. Scientists from Spain have devised a way to improve the positioning accuracy by a wide margin. “We have managed to improve the determination of a vehicle’s position in critical cases by between 50 and 90%,” said researcher David Martin to BBC. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Airline Industry Is Safest Today, Griff’s Back to the Future 2 ‘Pit Bull’ Hoverboard On Sale For $13k,

We’re seeing more and more tiny Bluetooth devices that are good at keeping track of useful information, such as your heart rate, electric consumption or the whereabouts of your wallet. The DropTag on the other hand tracks a closely guarded secret: whether or not a delivery package was mishandled before it got to its recipient.

Invented by Cambridge Consultants, the DropTag has an accelerometer that can sense, track and relay if the package was dropped or vigorously shaken. As you’ll see in the video below, it will work with mobile apps that could interpret the data in a simple way – it’ll just say if your package is in good or bad condition – as well as display more detailed graphs and timelines.

Cambridge Consultants is also looking at adding more sensors – such as one that measures temperature – to the DropTag to increase its functionality. But the company is also adamant in keeping its final price down, both for ordinary folks like you and me and for enterprise users, which is why they want to make the DropTag to last for weeks on a single coin-cell battery and be reusable. Delivery guys may have met their match.

[via Cambridge Consultants via OhGizmo!]

Before Apple released their own free mapping solution, a lot of iOS users resorted to third-party apps that offered free GPS turn-by-turn navigation, and Waze was one of the few that many users turned to. Now that Google Maps and Apple Maps are available, Waze has been becoming less important for travelers. However, the company has reported that in 2012 alone, 500 million map edits were made by 65,000 users.

Furthermore, the app’s 36 million users shared a total of 90 million “reports,” which include things like speed traps, road hazards, and accidents. In total, Waze recorded over 6 billion miles of driving from its 36 million users. That’s a lot of gas — approximately $850 million worth based on an average 25 MPG and a gas price average of $3.54 according to the EIA.

What’s perhaps even more astonishing, is that the app has reached 110 countries. Plus, back in December, the company revealed that map issues are practically fixing themselves thanks to community-driven editing capabilities. On average, map editors are resolving nearly 70% of problems in any given 30-day period, and almost all user-reported map errors are fixed within a week.

Back in October, Waze revealed that their map-editing community was growing extremely quickly, with a 40% month-over-month increase in new editors. The app’s newest feature, which now includes gas stations and their latest prices, have become increasingly popular amongst users, and for good reason. The first month of the feature being live resulted in over 50,000 gas stations being added.

Waze saw 500m map edits by 65k users in 2012 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.