Placebase - a rival to Google maps, at a price

Placebase have a released a near identical version of Google maps but are offering support and other things which professional developers often require. They say the API is similar and the mapping looks uncannily similar. Downside - it costs money, naturally. More here.

Tracking children with GPS - good or bad?

The BBC has an article here debating the issue of GPS tracking of people (in particular children/teenagers). This technology is being pushed heavily in America and is already popular in Japan. It's a difficult one...

Google maps v2 and wifi tracking

Google's world domination of the geospatial world continues apace although one thing is raising concern. On the plus side they've officially released version 2 of the Google Local maps api which looks neat and comes with some nice enhancements like an overview map. On the downside (to privacy groups anyway) their efforts to create wi-fi coverage through San Fransico looks set to be funded by location aware advertising. It'll send "relevant" adverts based on the location of whatever wireless access point someone is using. The accuracy is "about 100ft".

This has been on the cards for ages but it takes a large company to bring the privacy issues et.al. to the fore. People have to make money on this somehow - it will be interesting to see how the public reacts when using it for real. I wonder if it will be push advertising or pull advertising (like adwords)?

Trimble launch thumbnail size GPS receiver

Wow - this is small. Trimble have announced a GPS receiver measuring 19mm x 19mm x 2.5mm. Called Copernicus it's not standalone and would need to be integrated into other hardware (phones?). Also, it's only 12 channels so is not a real Sirf Star III contender. It's still a step towards the GPS in everything utopia.

Simcom E-GPS smartphone

Simcom have released the world's first "multimedia" handset (it's a Windows smartphone as far as I can tell) utilising Cambridge Positioning Systems E-GPS technology I mentioned a while back. LBSZone have the lowdown here. Where's that purchase requistion form...

Google maps to use SVG?

The great/annoying thing about the Web is you look at one news story/link and it opens up eight zillion related ones! Well, further to my previous post it looks like Google Maps might start using SVG (to display driving directions). AJAX + SVG - now we're talking. Naturally there are few browser compatibility issues to address but support from Google could give SVG the kick up the backside it needs. Now, if only they'd make it support the OGC web mapping interface in the spirit of interoperability.

SVG is dead - long live SVG?

I'm a big fan of SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and use it a lot at work for creating interactive mapping interfaces. SVG is basically an open version of Flash based on XML. Sure it can be slow at times and it's not as cutting edge as it used to be (what with the current AJAX revolution) but it's easy to develop for and Adobe do a neat free plug-in. Also the latest versions of Firefox have native (albeit limited) support.

Well, although it hasn't really taken off a company called evolGrafix (find them at http://gosvg.net) is allegedly creating a new plug-in which runs on IE, FF et.al. as well as Pocket PCs and Symbian phones. Sounds too good to be true? Well, they're been promising an alpha for a while now but it still hasn't materialised. If/when it does it should be great. Heres hoping...

Hospital tracking

Interesting article from the BBC about how organised criminals are pinching expensive medical equipment from hospitals ("to order").

Ekahau amongst others have equipment monitor software using wi-fi as seen here in this collaboration with Emergin. Still keen to do this myself - cheaper, better, etc.

u-Blox - more A-GPS news

u-Blox follow hot on the heels of Sirf to announce a new Assisted-GPS service for their range of products. They provide some results of tests they conducted in various indoor environments and they look pretty good. It uses WLAN/GPRS to transmit the data.

Don't click it, point it!

Geocomm report on a new technology which allows a user with a mobile phone (well, a few high-end ones I'm guessing) to literally point at buildings, adverts etc to get more info. It basically combines a Point of Interest database with a gyroscope/compass thing - quite neat though - not sure how well it works in the real world. It's currently limited to Japan.

Sirf offer a solution for GPS fix time-delay

Sirf (the people who make arguably the finest GPS chips) have released a new solution to reduce the admittedly annoying delay you get when trying to get a GPS fix from scratch. It's imaginitively called SiRFInstantFix and works by predicting the position of satellites, eliminating the need to wait for them to send out their current position (which only occurs every 30 seconds or so). Only thing is it requires weekly synchronisation with a server - not sure how that will work in reality.

Galileo to Earth - can you hear me? Yes we can.

BBC News reports that Galileo, the European equivalent of GPS, has successfully transmitted a signal to Earth (Hampshire, in fact). Boffins are currently analysing the content to make sure it's not gobbledygook. This is important otherwise it will lose its "ownership" of the particular frequencies it plans to use. The article says that navigation for navigation's sake won't push forward the industry but value-added services - funky ideas anyone?

Flash Earth - very cool

GIS Geoblog posted on a cool site - Flash Earth - which combines Yahoo and Google map data in a nice Flash interface - you can even rotate the map! Like a lot of mapping products, there's the "so what" factor but t's an excellent interface all the same. It's interesting to see the difference between the differnet mapping data. Google has more detailed imaging for the UK but nothing like GetMapping's aerial photographs.

Tele Atlas and Skyhook join forces

LBS Zone also report on Tele Atlas and Skyhook joining their detailed geographical information with a Wi-fi Positioning System (WPS). It makes the usual claim that WPS can reach parts of the urban jungle that GPS can't reach - no word on accuracy though.

It seems to be aimed at the emergency services market. I think the claim that

"The combination of Skyhook's WPS solutions and Tele Atlas street navigation and
geocoding data means mobile consumers of all stripes and emergency services
personnel can, without interruption, locate any place, product, or person."

needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Patient tracking

One of the main players in RTLS is Ekahau who recently trialled their wi-fi tracking system at a hospital in Nagoya, Japan under the guise of emergency management. It says during the trial they were able to track patients and equipment with 3-5m accuracy - pretty impressive. I wonder how long it took to train/calibrate the system though and how many access points they used? Asset tracking seems to be the main use of RTLS - perhaps because there are definite cost-savings to be made.