Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re forever getting lost looking for Barratts, or feeling faint hunting down a Greggs to fill your mall-explorer’s belly, then Google Maps to the rescue. Mountain View’s already made it clear it doesn’t want walls to get between you and its mapping of the world, and now those hungry Android-using indoor Britons can get in on the action. There’s only a hair over 40 venues covered right now — a mix of museums, stations, malls and airports in the main — and most of them in London. With building owners being able to upload their own maps, however, this should / could expand quickly. Good news either way, though if you can get lost at London Bridge Station, then no amount of maps will likely help.

Google indoor maps comes to the UK, helps commuter meet pasty in record time originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 13:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s no shortage of navigation outdoors, and even a little bit of help indoors, but there’s been precious little aid for the blind indoors — leaving them little choice but to move cautiously or get outside help. Fujitsu and Japan’s NICT have crafted a system that gives the sightless a greater level of autonomy inside through ultrawideband-based impulse radio. A grid of UWB radios positioned around a room gauge the distances between each other and transmit the data to a PC, which then talks to the traveler’s Android phone. The device then gives spoken directions based on a 12-o’clock system and far subtler distances than GPS can manage: the positioning is accurate to within a foot. While the indoors navigation is only just getting a demo this week, it’s already being refined to detect objects in the room as well as to help even the fully sighted. If Fujitsu and NICT have their way, buildings ranging from hospitals to malls will have their own turn-by-turn navigation. For some, the freedom of movement could be a life-changer.

Fujitsu, NICT create indoor navigation for the blind using ultrawideband, Android phones, kind hearts originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Jul 2012 00:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Military drones rely heavily on GPS for navigation guidance while in the air. But in areas where a signal can’t be found, or where someone is using a GPS jammer, a drone will find itself in a troublesome predicament. Military sub-contractor BAE Systems has come up with a solution to that problem: A positioning system called NAVSOP that uses any wireless signal to find its location. More »

Drones continue to see large rollouts in various industries across the world, and now there’s one more thing to worry about on top of privacy issues and potential death from above. A team at the University of Texas has managed to find a vulnerability in drones that allows an attacker to gain control of the unmanned vehicle and change its course. Professor Todd Humphreys and the team spoof GPS receivers in order to take control of the drones.

Spoofers are a new problem for GPS-guided drones, allowing hackers to trick navigation systems with false information. Humphreys and the team have designed a device costing less than $1,000 that sends out a GPS signal stronger than the ones coming down from orbiting satellites. At first, the rogue signal mimics the official one in order to trick the drone, and once it’s accepted new commands can be sent to the UAV.

Naturally, Humphreys highlights the associated risks of such a device, saying that in the wrong hands drones could be turned into missiles. Right now drones can’t be used in US airspace on a wide basis, but Congress has asked the FAA to come up with regulations that would allows drones to fly over the United States by 2015. That could lead to usage in law enforcement, as well as by power companies and delivery firms.

The US government says its aware of the potential dangers of spoofing, and officials from the FAA and Department of Homeland Security have seen Humphreys’ demonstration first hand. The Department of Homeland Security reportedly has a program in place to try and solve the problem of GPS interference, but it’s aimed at trying to deal with jammed signals, not spoofed ones.

[via Fox News]

Researchers find drones vulnerable to GPS spoofing is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

There’s nothing worse than relying on a GPS unit with incorrect map information, so TomTom has opened up its Map Share community so that around 60 million units can take advantage of daily map changes for free. TomTom say that Map Share was previously restricted to a limited number of devices, but now just about everyone can get in on the action.

Any changes in the immediate area, such as new speed limits, blocked roads, or different street names, can now be modified directly on the device. If the user then chooses to do so, they can send the updates to TomTom and the Map Share community so that everyone reaps the benefits for free.

Major changes such as brand new roads or roundabout placements are logged with TomTom, validated, and added to maps on a quarterly basis. The collaborative approach to creating the maps apparently helps TomTom to create “maps [that] accurately reflect reality.”

Want a preview of Map Share? Take a peek at the video below to get a better idea of what it’s all about.

TomTom expands Map Share to all navigation devices is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.