GPS World

Category: Opinions

  • Privacy and the Devil Pact

    In the public dialogue about mobile privacy concerns, I’ve yet to hear a plea to turn back the clock to when mobile apps were supported by subscription fees. Surprisingly, many consumers don’t understand the devil pact that free services come with a loss of privacy. With the exception of enterprise offerings, subscription fees have shrunk or disappeared for most location-based services. At the Institute for Communication Technology Management at the University of Southern California, Allison Cera of Lucent-Alcatel talked about the intersection of technology and identity. More than half of the people in her study felt they shouldn’t have to provide information about themselves just to get the most out of online services. Among the most connected technology users, the expectation of privacy was lower.

    As companies rework privacy agreements, it’s interesting that Cera’s research indicates people prefer a simpler privacy policy that is easier to understand, over one that provides more comprehensive protection. In addition to simplicity, people prefer uniformity. Almost 90 percent want to see Internet and mobile service providers, social networking sites, and search engines all governed by the same laws and regulations regarding the collecting, analyzing, and sharing of online data.

    Google knows all? Google has experienced heat from lawmakers and consumers over its efforts to consolidate user privacy standards and share data among its offerings. Google announced plans to connect user data across desktop and mobile services including Google+, Gmail and YouTube. “Our new privacy policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services,” blogged Alma Whitten of Google. “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

    You know where I’ve been. Would consumers exchange transparency into whereabouts and driving behavior for a cheaper insurance premium?  TomTom is providing the technology behind a new insurance product, which bases premiums on driving behavior. TomTom has teamed up with insurance broker Motaquote for the launch of Fair Pay Insurance, a product that rewards “good” drivers with lower premiums. Drivers who sign up for Fair Pay receive a TomTom navigation device. They will also have a LINK tracking unit fitted in their vehicles, allowing driver behavior and habits to be monitored by the insurer. This information can also be viewed by the policy-holder in their driver dashboard.

    A kick without GPS. Mobile location-based advertising, dependent on geo-locating shoppers, hasn’t ramped up as fast as the industry diviners predicted, but shopkick, a location-based shopping app has gotten traction. The company asserts that it helped drive $110 million of in-store revenue to its retail partners in 2011.  shopkick rewards shoppers for walking into stores and interacting with products.  The solution is not GPS based, as indoor signals remain problematic. Instead, the shopkick phone app detects its presence in a particular store by “hearing” a signal that is emitted from a store-based device. The store is able to send the shopper a reward that can be redeemed for loot.

    Pressure mounts for LightSquared. Sprint has given LightSquared until mid-March to obtain FCC clearance for its LTE network.  Recent government tests showed that LightSquared interfered with GPS, even under a new deployment plan that the company promoted as a fix to the issue.  Lightsquared’s assertion that GPS receivers are “not entitled to any interference protection whatsoever” is open for public comment at the FCC until March 13. Harbinger Capital, the hedge fund that backs LightSquared, reported a 47% decline in its biggest fund.

    Love on the Road. Valentine’s Day was yesterday, and love is in bloom. TomTom undertook a mission to find love on the asphalt by seeking roads in the U.S. that are considered romantically named.  Texas was a stand out with 102 miles of romantically named roads.  Who would’ve thought that the lone star state was such a softie? The most common romantic road names are Rose Road, Lover’s Lane, Valentine Road, Darling Road and Love Street.  TomTom counted roads throughout the U.S. containing the words: Couples, Cupid, Darling, Forget-Me-Not, Kiss, Love, Lover, Romance, Rose, Smooch, Sweetheart, Valentine. Smooch Street?

  • The World of GNSS: What’s Next?

    As the world of GNSS moves forward and begins to absorb the new signals which are coming on line, it might be helpful to consider where we are going with all this. Maybe its time to ask ourselves to hold on a second — where is this all leading and what do we actually need? Let’s take a quick look at where we’ve been with GPS and GLONASS and what’s in store for these systems and what the impact might be for us users. Then if we consider the changes coming with Galileo, COMPASS, QZSS and the augmentation and regional system around the world, how can we as consumers cope with what’s coming and what impact will these things have on us? And what direction should manufacturers take to accommodate and lead consumers?

     

    When GPS first became operational, at least the surveyors breathed a sigh of relief and recognized that their work had become easier. No need to get out of bed in the middle of the night to catch a better configuration of satellites, which would only be around for two or three hours in the early hours of the morning. Now we had 24/7 coverage; while DOPs would ebb and flow a little, we still had pretty good position measurements just about any time.

    Then the Russians also grew GLONASS into an operational system and we had the luxury of two constellations to work with; that is, if we could find dual-function receivers with high enough precision. Sure enough, a couple of manufacturers began to sell GPS/GLONASS receivers and we had virtually doubled the number of visible satellites in the sky, which allowed us to work when we wanted. And RTK using two constellations seemed like precision heaven!

    Unfortunately GLONASS decayed, and designers and researchers worked a lot harder to extract the maximum they could get out of GPS alone. But now GLONASS is back, and even though we have some individual satellite idiosyncrasies to manage, and frequency diversity complexity means we have quite an overhead in RF bandwidth and added interference rejection — well, getting twice the number of satellites is worth it. And most manufacturers have come up with later generations of dual-function receivers that have very good, if not excellent, performance.

    Novatel . Credit: Tony Murfin
    NovAtel OEMV-1G GPS/GLONASS receiver.     

    Ashtech . Credit: Tony Murfin
    Ashtech MB 500GPS/GLONASS receiver.

    Septentrio . Credit: Tony Murfin
    Septentrio AsterRx-m GPS/GLONASS receiver.

    So what’s next? Should manufacturers wait for Galileo to get a usable constellation before they start trying to persuade customers that they need a new receiver that can get even better performance than the dual-function GPS/GLONASS receivers a number of users just bought? Or are these receivers just good enough? What about COMPASS?

    And those customers in Asia who can even see one or more COMPASS GEOs and/or “wobbly-GEO” satellites, and who might have the prospect of receiving added QZSS signals, or even IRNSS regional signal spill-over into their geographic areas — what should manufacturers provide to those customers? And what happens when COMPASS becomes truly global?

    Poem-fig . Credit: Tony Murfin
    Asian multi-constellation illustration, courtesy of Hiroaki Tateshita – JAXA (Click to enlarge).

    Well, it all depends on what the customer wants, right? That might apply for iPhones and their clones, for high fashion clothes, or for 60-inch plasma TVs, or the huge choice in high-performance cars — but GNSS seems a little different. “Accuracy is addictive,” someone said — well, higher performance GNSS receivers do create their own demand in the marketplace, and if you have something that is better, people seem to be prepared to pay for it.

    And there was a phase, which we might actually still be in, where all the manufacturers claimed that they had Galileo, and receivers were already upgradable so you could get what’s coming when you bought your next-generation receivers. Buy the latest receivers and be ready for when there are enough satellites to also get Galileo. Not sure that worked as a sales strategy, because what’s hot now are GPS/GLONASS receivers, which work better than anything else we’ve had before.

    Could be Galileo didn’t come on line when we expected it, so manufacturers backed off the “buy now, upgrade later” strategy. But Galileo is now “around,” and in the coming couple of years, we might just have enough SVs to make the investment worth making in a receiver with Galileo capability. But do you buy Galileo now, or will COMPASS get there first? And in Asia, wouldn’t it be more useful to use a few COMPASS extra SVs now?

    This is exactly the same dilemma that the GNSS developers, designers and manufacturers now face. Admittedly the Galileo Open Service ICD is available and contains sufficient detail, which is more than you can say for the somewhat skimpy COMPASS ICD. And developers are now building Digital Signal Processing (DSP) ASICs which have “generic” reconfigurable channels — but RF front-end hardware and signal processing software are commodities that require serious R&D effort. And these generic DSP channels and their associated software decoding algorithms may not be generic enough for all the things that you may discover in the more esoteric Binary Offset Carrier BOC (x,y) or Multiplexed BOC (x,y) modulation schemes which have still to come on line.

    And what schemes might be hidden deep inside the COMPASS signal structure when we get to see more details — what modulation might we find on other frequency signals?

    You can download the Japanese QZSS ICD from the JAXA website, but as the disclaimer says, the data transmitted from the QZS-1 satellite ’is provided without any warranty, including but not limited to accuracy, usefulness, Positioning Signal continuity, and fitness for a particular purpose of use of the Signals.’ I seem to remember similar disclaimers in the released Galileo ICD. The phrase “including but not limited to” is great legal terminology that basically says you are on your own if you should be so bold as to make a receiver using the information provided in the ICD — basically anything could happen to you, including maybe even being zapped by Martian death rays… The legal guys can caveat just about anything! But I couldn’t find any disclaimers in the released draft COMPASS ICD — it’s just missing essential stuff like the navigation messages.

    So, as a manufacturer, you need to balance the real desire you have to sell so many receivers that you control the entire GNSS marketplace, with the knowledge that if you use compatibility with the new constellations as your sales gimmick, there may be some risks. As consumers, we need to be aware that although these new constellations will be great to have to improve GNSS performance, the data to which manufacturers currently have access to make receivers that include Galileo, COMPASS, QZSS or even other developing augmentation or regional systems, this data is still somewhat preliminary — which means it could change — or assumptions have to be made to fill the gaps. So manufacturers have to be very smart, and use flexible hardware design approaches which allow them to update receivers through future software changes. This might not always be the most optimum approach for signal processing, which may be more efficient when optimized and implemented in silicon; tuning on mature/stable signals might eliminate or simplify components and high-powered processors might run a little less intensely with software work-arounds.

    So, as usual it’s a compromise — if you want to have the early implementation to gain a competitive advantage for your application, you may get ahead and win market share, but just be aware that more efficient, possibly less costly offerings may be available later, and then you’ll have to buy that too to keep up.

    The analogy could be — go ahead and buy that hybrid gas/electric car now because you want to save the environment. But be aware that there is a huge amount of research ongoing into how to make lighter, more efficient and more compact vehicle batteries, and there will be even more fuel-efficient vehicles in the future — its just how soon will they be available? And should you wait to get more benefits? Most people want better stuff now — so GNSS manufactures will offer more GNSS for your buck, even though right now the advantages are somewhat limited. And when we’ve waited and we know if Galileo or COMPASS is the way to go, its not outside the realms of possibility that we may have to ultimately replace what we buy today. That’s the price of progress.

    In the meantime, GPS/GLONASS receivers are very good and getting better as manufacturers refine and improve things. So as far as multi-constellation receivers go — we already have ‘em.

    Tony Murfin
    GNSS Aerospace

  • Bringing Visualization to Transportation Research Board Meeting

    By Art Kalinski

    Two weeks ago I gave a presentation, at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) annual meeting. This is one of those mega-meetings attended by almost anyone involved in the transportation related professions. TRB is part of the National Research Council jointly administered by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. TRB’s active members include more than 7,000 engineers, scientists, and other transportation researchers. The program is supported by state transportation departments and federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Transportation.

    The TRB annual meeting is huge — 11,000 attendees spread out among eight D.C. area hotels in four main venues. TRB is involved in every possible aspect of transportation: public transportation including highways, mass transit, aviation and marine, and freight movement by rail, water and pipelines. With more than 4,000 presentations, it reminded me a lot of the ESRI Users Conference — absolutely impossible to see and hear it all.

    The presentations ran the gamut from political and financial, engineering and construction to advanced research into safety, human factors, energy and the environment. As you would expect there were many presentations that were Greek to me, as I’m sure some of the geospatial ones were Greek to other attendees. There were a lot of engineering/construction-related sessions. A significant number of advanced research presentations dealt with statistical analysis of factors related to highway safety, including a heavy emphasis on the mind-eye interaction. Even the poster sessions were tough to comprehend, with a lot of statistical analysis covering human factors related to safe highways. Although I had calculus and calculus-based statistical courses, it hurts my head to see a lot of integral signs in a poster. The learning curve to understand the work is just too tough in a “drive-by” viewing.

    Several sessions dealt with FAA GIS and the NextGen air control system in particular. See the column on Airport GIS for more details and to understand where we are headed in aviation. The GIS-related presentations were concentrated in a track under the broader concept of Virtual Design and Construction (VDC). These sessions were organized by Lance Parve, MSCE of the Wisconsin DOT, Charles Hixon of Bergmann Associates and Kevin Gilson of Parsons Brinckerhoff. They did an exceptional job of tying together visualization, GIS, CAD and BIM with a focus on interoperability in final construction.

     

    My attendance was prompted by a presentation I did in August at the once-every-5-year TRB Visualization Symposium. The conference committee invited three presenters out of 120 to speak at the TRB Annual Meeting, so I was pleased to be one of the three. I spoke about the benefits of oblique imagery and related 3D models for planning, public safety and public involvement meetings.

    I wrapped up my presentation by highlighting the superb example of a 3D web application for public involvement visualization built by Fairfax County under the leadership of Tom Conry.

    Visit the Fairfax County visualization website to experience this interactive site first hand.

     

    Combining GIS and GPS technology, David Brown of Delcan explained how his firm kept track of quality control inspection results using Trimble GeoXT GIS GPS Data Collectors. His team of inspectors recorded each inspection point and inspection results in a GIS. The collection and creation of the GIS database was accomplished quickly and efficiently using the GeoXTs to capture the location and inspection values in one step. They also used cameras to record problems and bar codes/readers to speed data entry. At left is a GIS plot of all the data points. The GIS analysis tools helped identify clusters of poor samples that signaled the start of quality issuesso they could be corrected early in the construction process.

    There were sessions on LiDAR point cloud captures and converters to 3D models. A very impressive example was TopoDOT by Certainty 3D is a MicroStation application for extracting topography and digital models from point clouds. The system tool suite extracts ground topography quickly and accurately from airborne, mobile or terrestrial point clouds and calibrated images. It then extracts breaklines, elevations, cross-sections, and other DTM componentsaccording to project requirements.

    Not surprising is that the common thread was a path to BIM models. Civil engineers have adopted BIM models aggressively and all this technology has led to VDC (Virtual Design and Construction) a technology wave that is revolutionizing the construction industry. In March 2011, I wrote about how even Granite Counter Tops were being measured, digitized and the digital design models fed directly into the digital controlled stone cutting machines to fabricate the tops quickly and accurately. The same kind of process is revolutionizing civil engineering.

    Back in the Paleozoic era, when I was in college, I worked part time in a machine shop. Traditional machining was done by moving rotating cutting tool across metal blanks to create objects described in mechanical drawings.The machinist did this by manually turning operating wheels that adjusted the cutting tool to fabricate the part according to the design blueprint. Early automation at that time, called Numerical Control, used digitally controlled motors to move the same cutting tools according to predefined paths to make the same parts. There was considerable time spent manually programming the machines to do the jobs. Current technology, just like the granite cutting system, goes directly from the digital design to fabrication of the finished product.

    The same process is being done on a mega scale with bulldozers and other heavy earth-moving machines. You may remember that a number of years ago farmers started using aerial CIR imagery to map soil and water conditions of their land. They then used GPS to do precision farming by metering the optimal distribution of fertilizer based on mapped water content and the location of their tractor relative to the GIS data. The same kind of GPS machine control has been perfected by companies like Trimble and John Deere.

    On the right is a bulldozer that is accomplishing its work no differently than a machine shop milling machine or precision farming tractor. There are GPS receivers mounted on each end of the dozer’s blade. The operator in the cab can be guided by the CAD image or turn over steering and blade depth control to the automated system. There is no longer a need to place wood marker stakes and constantly survey the progress of the excavation. The bull dozer operator is clearing the land at double speed guided by GPS and a GIS/CAD/BIM 3D model.

    It’s strange seeing this kind of automation and precision in heavy earth moving equipment, but this type of technology is making inroads into all phases of construction. So next time you pass a major construction site, see how many GPS receivers you can spot and appreciate the GIS link.

  • Government and Fleet Markets Find Steady Growth

    It’s not a market that will help users find friends or places to eat, but it seems to be one that keeps movin’ along. The government and enterprise market for location-based services seems to be steady, if not growing, as evidenced by nearly 9,000 attendees at the recent Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Topics included the 20th Anniversary of the government’s intelligent transportation systems program.

     

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Standing out among the thousands of college professors, scientists and engineers were a core of companies who have made inroads into intelligent transportation systems and other government markets here at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, held January 22-26.

    Such companies as TomTom have tried to harness the government market for the past few years with real-time traffic information. The traffic information companies contend that the government market will be big for policy makers, who need detailed support tools to make money-saving decisions for local traffic management programs.

    At TRB, TomTom announced a partnership with Delcan Corp. to provide historical traffic data for the Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP 2). The program is managed by the TRB.

    “We’ve been using our real-time traffic information, and our historic products, to work with them on traffic management and planning,” said Nick Cohn, TomTom senior business development manager.

    By using GPS-based measurements from the TomTom historical traffic database, Delcan and its partners will develop models for travel time reliability analysis and research as part of the program, the company said. TomTom says its traffic database, which uses traffic measurements, costs less money and is time-saving — compared to survey methods.

    Last year at TRB, TomTom announced a partnership with PTV where the company was able to deliver TomTom traffic content, via TomTom Traffic Stats, to its customers in the transportation sector.

    20th Anniversary of ITS Well Attended

    An introspective session at TRB was the Intelligent Transportation Systems 20th Anniversary, which was attended by industry veterans who were around when the first U.S. Transportation Department directives calling for ITS were issued. Most of the panel members agreed that when ITS was being thrown around as something that may replace Cold War contracting dollars with new markets, no one really tried to predict how technology would shape autos and communication.

    While panel members agreed that EZ-Pass was one of the big ITS accomplishments over the last 20 years, some acknowledged that GPS and the Internet and cell-phone development were never really focused on (as at least two weren’t even developed). They agreed that the automotive industry took over the market, not the government.

    “Fortunes were made — and lost. Mostly lost,” said Mort Downey, former DOT deputy secretary. Downey said the big deal in getting ITS off the ground was President Clinton’s decision to turn off GPS’ selective availability.

    Michael Noblitt of IBM’s Global Business Services remembers that the telematics market really was developed by aftermarket manufacturers. “It was an exciting time. Privacy was traded for convenience and service. Consumers now see [telematics] as valuable,” he said.

    Rich Schuman of Inrix, who was the second employee of the entity now know as ITS America, presented a timeline of technology events and tied them to intelligent transportation initiatives. “It’s a chaotic world — don’t try to find it. Focus on business incentives and leave technology to the bigger market,” he said.

    Industry old-timers remember that the ITS America and ITS World Congress meetings were the only places to get market information in the 1990s because of auto manufacturers and the two largest digital map makers at the time, Navteq and Tele Atlas/Etak, were the major players. Both meetings have seen a resurgence in the number of auto makers and traffic companies exhibiting to compete for their share of the government market.

    ALK Doing Well in European App Stores

    At TRB, LBS Insider caught up with Alain Kornhauser, ALK Technologies founder, who talked about his role in the company and what markets have been good for them in the past year. ALK has been in several publications as having the iPhone and Andriod “top app” for its CoPilot Live, which is doing well in Europe, Kornhauser said.

    “We’ve done well in respect to app stores. We also participated in the recent Iowa Caucuses when we offered directions to candidates for all 94 of the state’s counties,” he said.

    Kornhauser said that Barry Glick, former MapQuest executive who was hired last year as CEO, runs the company’s day-to-day operations. In December, ALK established a new group, Enterprise Solutions, which combined its PC MILER, CoPilot Truck and CoPilot Live Professional product lines plus supporting map data, software tools and professional services. The Enterprise Solutions Group is led by Michael Kornhauser, senior vice president and Alain’s son, who reports directly to Glick.

    While competing against free navigation applications, publications are saying that CoPilot Live has a niche because it has a friendlier interface and better directions to gas stations, restaurants and other points of interest.

    Industry pioneer Kornhauser, who was involved in autonomous vehicle testing, said that ITS was a success because of the private industry, without government impact or influence. “They didn’t stand in the way,” he said.

    Kornhauser, a long-time Princeton University professor and head of its transportation program, said he likes being an entrepreneur. “I also like the [location] space,” he said.

    In other LBS news:

    • Join us for GPS World magazine’s LBS Market in 2012 webinar, “LBS 2012 — Show Me the Money,” on Feb. 22 at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. Speakers will include several industry executives. Register for free.
    • Audiovox Electronics Corp launched its Car Connection and Care Connection products, both of which Audiovox considers LBS-capable, that will use Sprint’s Nationwide Network in the U.S.A. Car Connection is a new plug-in on-board diagnostic (OBDII) device that will allow consumers to monitor, manage and maintain not only their own but other family drivers’ habits. Care Connection is a wearable personal tracking system that features two-way voice communication to locate children, teen drivers and aging parents.
    • Persistent Systems purchased Openwave’s Mobile Location-Based business, to offer what its says will be the first enterprise carrier-based LBS. The company says the big market opportunity is that businesses want asset tracking, geo sensing and couponing.

     

  • Rugged GPS-Enabled Windows Laptops

    I brushed the snow from the XRW keyboard and in my mind I could hear the neighbors whispering, “Call the men in white coats, there he goes again.” And actually there may be reason for concern, as I am sitting on my deck during a lull in a major blizzard and typing on a laptop computer half buried in snow. But not just any computer.

    I am composing the beginning of this month’s column, the words you are reading now, on the Algiz XRW built in the non-tropical Swedish paradise known as Lidköping (which must mean something like “coping by the frozen lake”), and brought to you by the folks at Handheld US. Of course, I know — or certainly hope — my neighbors are not really calling anyone to come take me away to a little padded room because for them my once-strange behavior should by now be almost commonplace. Like swallows returning to Capistrano, when it snows in the Rockies I can be found on my deck with several new devices: dropping them in snow banks and freezing pools of water, and generally putting them through their paces. Where I live in the Rockies, we are eligible for snow 12 months out of the year, so this is not an uncommon occurrence. There are lots of opportunities for testing supposedly rugged devices.

    Unfortunately, only about one in ten survive this tortuous treatment, and those are the ones you read about in this column. Remember, my rules of engagement (ROE) are that I only review top-notch products that our warfighters and first responders can use. I never pen a negative review unless it is a comparison evaluation where one of the products is clearly inferior. These inferior products, the ones I don’t write about, are returned to the manufacturers in various states of disrepair. Frankly, I am amazed and disturbed by the huge number of substandard and sometimes just poorly conceived “rugged” laptops on the market. Fortunately, the XRW is not one of them. Indeed, as a rugged GPS-enabled Windows laptop, it rises above the herd of less capable machines and demonstrates that a great device can be produced with just a little, or in the case of the XRW, a lot of planning and forethought, and be genuinely useful to our warfighters and first responders.

    Photo: Don Jewell
    The XRW being put through its paces during a lull in a Colorado Blizzard.

    Why Test?

    I decided to test several rugged laptops during our latest blizzard. A full 20 percent of my warfighter correspondence indicates that there are just some warfighting computer tasks more suited to a rugged laptop than a rugged handheld device.

    One of the greatest weaknesses and strengths of current military user equipment (MUE), and be assured it is only one of many, is that the mission planning software requires a separate Windows computer to fully plan missions and download numerous waypoints. The only upside is that, certainly speaking generically, it is usually more convenient and more comfortable to make changes on a laptop versus a rugged handheld. The problem comes with the restriction that this is the only way to make major mission changes to your government-furnished PNT (position, navigation and timing) device. If the mission changes in the field, which happens more often than not, about 90 percent of the time according to warfighters, then you need a rugged laptop in the field to update or change the mission coordinates that are input into the extremely outdated government-furnished GPS device. So for the warfighter, since a laptop is required to make changes, it makes sense to use a rugged laptop or notebook computer to do the updating in the field. Having said that, and considering that in Afghanistan there are really no front lines, everyone is in the field in some respect, I suspect the perceived need is actually very real. Employing a rugged laptop or notebook that actually has an excellent inherent GPS capability adds a layer of familiarity and comfort as well as necessity; consequently and for good reason, many of our warfighters feel strongly that they need a rugged laptop, so a search and subsequent blizzard testing commenced.

    Photo: Don Jewell
    Handheld US produces several mil-spec rugged
    devices. We have put many of them through
    their paces over the last several years.

    The Algiz XRW, henceforth referred to as the XRW, passed all the mil-spec tests with flying colors, but there was one test event that provided a result I have never before encountered — the first time I dropped the XRW into a snow bank from about five feet up, it hit a hidden rock and the keyboard popped off. I was surprised and a bit disappointed, until I realized this was a design feature, not a fault. The keyboard is connected via an electrical connection that does not alter the imperviousness of the laptop case, ensuring the XRW is immune to water and dust. I simply reinserted the keyboard; it popped back in place very easily, and it has been functioning perfectly ever since.

    Photo: Don Jewell
    There really is a keyboard underneath all that snow and the XRW is running applications
    as it gets cold soaked for further mil-spec testing    .

    The XRW is truly a rugged laptop with a keyboard that can take everything you can throw at it. As you can see in several of the pictures, the keyboard is covered in fresh snow while I allowed the XRW to cold soak and repel moisture for over an hour with no ill effects. Everything still functions perfectly. And I must admit the XRW keyboard has a nice feel, almost as good as the Apple keyboard I use daily, and that from me is high praise indeed, as I freely admit that I am enamored with the touch and feel of Apple keyboards.

    Photo: Don Jewell

    Photo: Don Jewell
    The XRW running applications while embedded in fresh Colorado snow. Note the leather
    strap on the left side of the XRW that can be used as a handhold or as an attachment point
    for a lanyard, a warfighter requirement.

    The XRW is probably more correctly called an ultra-rugged notebook, but most notebooks don’t have touchscreen capabilities. Whether you choose to call it a laptop or notebook, it is extremely rugged. Its size and capabilities make it very well suited for use by warfighters and first responders, as you can see by reviewing the following specifications that include very stringent MIL-STD (military standard) specifications:

    Algiz XRW Specifications
    Size 260mm x 178 mm x 40 mm (10.2″ x 7.0″ x 1.6″)
    Weight 1.5 kg (3.3 lb)
    Environment Operating: -20 °C to 55 °C (-4 °F to 131 °F) MIL-STD-810G, Method 501.5

    Procedure II, MIL-STD-810G, Method 502.5, Procedure I, II, III

    Storage: -40 °C to 55 °C (-40 °F to 131 °F) MIL-STD-810G, Method 501.5

    Procedure II, MIL-STD-810G, Method 502.5, Procedure I, II, III

    Drop: 26 drops from 1.22 m (4 ft) MIL-STD-810G, Method 516.6, Procedure IV

    Vibration: MIL-STD-810G, Method 514.6 Procedures I & II, General minimum

    integrity and the more rigorous loose cargo test

    Sand & dust: IP65, MIL-STD-810G

    Water: IP65, MIL-STD-810G

    Humidity: MIL-STD-810F, Method 507.5, 90% RH temp cycle 0 °C/70 °C

    Altitude: 4572 m (15.000 ft) at 22 °C (73 °F)
    Processor Intel ATOM Z550 2.0 GHz/US15W chipset
    Memory/Disk 2GB RAM/64 GB solid state hard drive
    Operating system Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
    Screen 10.1″ touchscreen 1366×768 resolution LED high brightness, MaxView

    Technology
    Keyboard/keypad Keyboard with touch pad. English, French, Spanish, Italian, German,

    Nordic languages. Keyboard illuminated by 2 LEDs.
    Battery 1 x Battery, 4800mAh, 57.6Wh, 8 hours
    Connections 2 x USB 2.0 port

    1 x 9-pin serial RS-232 port

    1 X RJ45 for Ethernet 10/100/1000 LAN

    1 x DC power input

    1 x SD Slot

    1 x VGA

    Docking Connector (Contact Pin Type)

    Dual Speaker/Mic

    Microphone input jack

    Headset Jack

    Receiver (Audio In)
    Communication Audio: Speaker /MIC

    Bluetooth: PAN: Bluetooth v.2.0 + EDR

    Cellular (WWAN): HSDPA/3G, Gobi 2000 ready

    Wireless LAN: Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n, WiMax option

    Optional WiMax
    Navigation u-blox GPS, WAAS/EGNOS capable
    Camera 2 Megapixel camera with auto focus
    Options Kensington lock, Vehicle cradle, USB office dock,

    carrying equipment, vehicle charger, screen protectors

     

    Warfighter Requirements

    At just over three pounds, the XRW is easy to hold and has a side strap with a leather Velcro cover that is easily adaptable to attaching to a warfighter via a lanyard. This allows the warfighter to instantly drop the XRW and bring his or her weapon to bear without ever worrying about the rugged notebook hitting the ground. I tested this scenario several times and the side strap held up well. The computer was no worse for wear, mainly because it is rugged and has a 64-GB solid-state drive — in other words, no moving parts. The lanyard and instant-drop capability is fast becoming a requirement or “must have” among our warfighters, and the XRW meets the requirement handily.

    Another warfighter requirement, especially in the mountains of Afghanistan, is that the MaxView Technology 10.1-inch touchscreen be usable by a warfighter wearing gloves or using a stylus, a pencil eraser or a bare finger. The XRW’s touchscreen responds well to all these input devices. Therefore with the XRW, whatever comes to hand or the hand itself works for inputting data or selecting applications.

    The screen is readable in all lighting conditions, including bright sunlight and sunlight reflected off snow, which can be blinding. Alternatively, the light level of the screen can be lowered to the point that it is only visible to those in a very small radius. The XRW also employs what I like to call a tactical “instant off” capability. Just touch one button and the screen doesn’t just fade-to-black — it goes black instantly, a handy and potentially life-saving feature for our warfighters.

    GPS

    The XRW’s GPS capabilities are best displayed using an onboard program named U-Center developed by ublox in Switzerland. The display provides more information than the average warfighter would ever want to know about their GPS position and the satellites responsible. A built-in data recorder and viewer can be automatically programmed to reconstruct GNSS environments displaying the number of satellites available by PRN (pseudorandom noise) codes, satellites used (in several graphical formats) and the PDOP or Positional Dilution of Precision (3D) and HDOP or Horizontal Dilution of Precision during any given moment.

    The U-Center also displays velocity of the user or, more correctly, the XRW unit, altitude, time, date, coordinates, compass heading, whether you are in 2D or 3D mode, and the last time to first fix (TTFF) when the GPS capability was last initialized on the XRW. Your position and the sub-point position of the GPS satellites utilized is displayed on a global map for geospatial situational awareness. I used Google Maps indoors with the 3D function and the display was crisp and clear. The ublox GPS chipset is sensitive enough to use indoors, where on average I received seven satellites for 5-meter navigation data with the FAA’s (Federal Aviation Administration) WAAS (wide area augmentation system) enabled. EGNOS or the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service is also available. This is excellent performance for indoors.

    Outdoors, there were always 10-12 satellites available, at 7000+ feet with an approximate 15-degree masking angle toward the Rocky Mountains. The XRW’s GPS accuracy was consistently below three meters and half the time better than two meters. Combine this with the 3G and Wi-Fi communications capabilities, and unless you are geocaching this is excellent performance and certainly acceptable for our warfighters and first responders. Note: I employed Skype using a military tactical headset with a small adapter and it worked flawlessly. With the headset attached, the very capable internal speakers are disengaged.

    Philosophy

    Try Skyping with the current MUE; no, don’t bother because it doesn’t work. Please note that when I question the status quo and indeed the legitimacy of the current MUE program for our warfighters, it is for good reason. The U.S. Army last year spent $450M on supplying our warfighters with decades-old proprietary equipment that has a user interface from the early ’70s. At the same time the Army is now instigating a program to provide warfighters with very capable Android phones, while setting up what can only be described as an Android apps store for military users, programmers and developers. The U.S. Air Force has several special programs in place that take advantage of the unique capabilities of the iPhone and iPad. The DoD and Services routinely support waivers for specialized GPS/PNT equipment that fills a requirements void. So while the military response to new technology can only be described as bipolar in nature, it is important that our warfighters and first responders have access to the best equipment available, hence the periodic equipment reviews in this column. The Algiz XRW is certainly a piece of equipment that fills one of the equipment voids for our warfighters and first responders.

    eXtreme Road Warrior 

    The XRW or eXtreme Road Warrior performs all the functions of your normal office laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate. I found the screen to be clearly viewable from all angles, even when the unit was unfolded to an almost flat aspect, in all lighting conditions, and the touchscreen to be very intuitive. There were times when touching the screen to enable a function or application seemed much more intuitive than using a mouse. While I agree with Steve Jobs concerning the use of a stylus, that “once a stylus is required you have lost the battle,” in fact there are times with the XRW when the mouse works best, times the stylus works best, and then sometimes your digits are the best tools. The beauty of the XRW is that all three options work when enabled, and it makes using this great little machine very intuitive.

    I put the Algiz XRW through the ringer for over two months, and this is another machine that is going to be tough to send back. Do you have any idea how much it costs to FedEx a package to Sweden?!

    Bottom Line

    The bottom line is the Algiz XRW is the perfect solution for those warfighters and first responders that need a rugged touchscreen netbook capable of doing double duty in the office and in the field.

    As the folks in Lidköping, Sweden, home of the Algiz XRW would say, it is lagom.

    Until next time, happy navigating.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Inside the Head of the Body Politic

    In the exciting run-up to Election ’12, we conducted a straw poll of selected voters, giving everyone a chance to see what the electorate thinks about the state of things, and its outlook on the future. This is y’all talking, now: a barely scientific subset of the GPS/GNSS community, the audience at last week’s webinar, “The Challenges of Global Navigation.” The poll results are hardly surprising, but illuminating nonetheless.

    Question One. The greatest challenge to realizing new technical capabilities is:

    A.   staying ahead of the competition.  4.3% voted for this one.
    B.   funding.  34%
    C.   meeting expectations of the consumer (user).  34%
    D.   establishing standards.  8.5%
    E.   overcoming opposition (policy, privacy, regulations, etc..).   19.1%

    Few surprises here. The biggest problems are always getting hands on the money to make a product, and then getting someone to buy the product.  The latter, of course, by making the product enough of a value proposition for the discerning prospect to buy.

    Question Two. The predominate source of technical vision/innovation is:
    A.     Governments.   1.7%
    B.     Industry on its own.   53.3%
    C.     Industry responding to government requirements.   28.3%
    D.     Academia.   16.7%

    Most of you out there believe you know what you are doing and are best left to yourselves to do it. Good on ya.

    By the way, all the questions here were devised by Doug Taggart, president of Overlook Systems Technologies, Inc., and moderator of the plenary session at the Institute of Navigation’s (ION’s) International Technical Meeting. The ION ITM plenary took place three hours before our webinar, and audience members voted on these same questions. We then adjourned to a hotel room at the conference site and essentially re-presented a portion of the webinar content, interspersed with the polling questions.

    The full 60-minute webinar, with presentations by Jules McNeff, VP Strategy and Programs, Overlook Systems Technologies, Inc., and Chuck Schue, president and CEO of UrsaNav, is available for download and replay at env-gpsworld-integration.kinsta.cloud/webinar (scroll down).

    Question Three. Successful innovation is most dependent on:
    A.     technology revolution.   11.5%
    B.     technology evolution.   39.3%
    C.     market demand.   34.4%
    D.      project management.   6.6%
    E.      funding.   8.2%

    The free-market Keynesians out there are exceeded (in numbers) only by the techno visionaries, who believe that technology itself is a live organism, evolving and developing under its own impetus (perhaps aided or driven in part by market demand). Unless I’m putting words into someone’s mouth.

    Question Four. Should innovative military capabilities be made available for civil/commercial exploitation?
    A.      Yes, always.  The commercial spin-off value is far greater.  31.3%
    B.      Sometimes.  When military capability is not compromised.   68.7%
    C.      No.  Military capabilities are for military use only.  Every advantage must be protected.   0%

    “Sometimes” is always a safe answer. But a coalition of free-marketers and techno visionaries made a surprisingly strong showing, garnering nearly one-third of the votes on an unequivocal up-down issue. This pushback should not be ignored by those in power.

    Question Five. GPS will continue to be the world’s space-based PNT “Gold Standard”:
    A.    for the next 20 years.   50%
    B.    until Europe’s Galileo system is declared operational.   20.8%
    C.    until China’s Compass system is declared operational.   14.6%
    D.    until Glonass incorporates L1C.   8.3%
    E.    it is not the Gold Standard today.   6.2%

    At first glance, one might find few worries here for those who design new products with GPS uppermost or even solely in mind. On the other hand, if you combine the four non-GPS gold standard answers, you get a separate but equal body politic.

    Mind you, the other 50% are not saying that any other system will surpass GPS and become a new gold standard. The question does not ask that. But it does leave the door open for anyone to conclude that there may not be a gold standard at all at some point in the future — that all or at least a plurality of systems will be equally capable, or that an interoperable, interchangeable GNSS will surpass any single system component.

    Question Six. From a user perspective, what is the most concerning aspect of having access to PNT information derived from GNSS?
    A.    It is susceptible to interference.   58%
    B.    Without augmentation, it does not meet my needs.   26%
    C.    It is overshadowing the need for complementary systems that do not have similar shortcomings.   8%
    D.    No concerns.   8%

    Interference is on nearly everyone’s mind. In fact, those who voted the B or C ticket can also be inferred to be driven by interference concerns, they are just taking their concern a step further by envisioning a solution. Chuck Shue’s webinar presentation (see above link) on e-Loran should be of interest to everyone here except the bottom 8.

    Question Seven. Regarding GNSS systems, which is more important to design and field first?
    A.      The Space segment (satellites).   21.4%
    B.      The Ground Control Segment.   23.2%
    C.      The User Equipment.   1.8%
    D.      All are equally important, and should be fielded simultaneously.   53.6%

    I feel this result is of little use to anyone except the U.S. Air Force, the European Space Agency, Roscosmos, and the China National Space Administration. And I’m pretty sure they all knew it already.

    Question Eight. How does a country gain and maintain GNSS superiority?
    A.      Create technological advantage (better mouse trap).   25%
    B.      Create political/policy advantage (better playing field).   11.5%
    C.      Create fiscal advantage (better funding).   36.5%
    D.      Create public/private partnerships (better risk mitigation).   26.9%

    A majority, but not a thumping one, opts for money.  Another safe vote in almost any circumstance.

    David Last, another panel speaker at the morning’s plenary, made a cogent comment when this question was presented. He could understand, he said, how a country might want to gain and maintain military superiority. That’s a question of survival. But GNSS superiority? In this age of interoperability, surely that’s beside the point.

    Well, we’ve tossed our chaff into the wind to see which way it blows. Now we must all put our heads down and our shoulders to the wheel, pushing on to Election ’12, coming up  November 4.

    But there’s an earlier Election ’12 that takes place September 20: the return showdown between the Satellite Party and the Signal Party. The Reds and the Blues. They last contested, you may or may not remember, in the previous election year, 2008; Put to a Vote, GPS World’s Leadership Dinner — held during ION-GNSS 2008 in Savannah, Georgia — convoked a lively debate: Would the community gain more from new signals, or from more satellites? A made-up scenario that elicited important insights.

    The Satellite Party has been in power since its ’08 victory. Are you better off now than you were four years ago? We will return to the hustings in Nashville during ION-GNSS, as again GPS World hosts GNSS Election ’12.

    Given the current tenor of debates around the country and around the world, I have a feeling we’ll be hearing from the Occupy GPS movement as well as the two frontrunners.

  • Da Capo: Pardon Me, Boy, Is That the Galileo Choo Choo?

    Our Paris correspondent, Ms. Axelle Pomies, writes that “The Galileo Train is about to depart, but European GNSS applications incentives are still at the station.”

    “Despite a vast potential for industry growth and new jobs in Europe,” she continues, “European government bodies are not taking up the challenge. The budget dedicated to GNSS application research in European Commission FP7 was dramatically cut in 2007, and no specific budget line for GNSS application R&D is foreseen for the period post-2013. In times of much-needed jobs, decision-makers seem to plan to leave out the GNSS application R&D. This short-term strategy, depriving European citizens of the opportunity to take full advantage of a booming market, is going to cost European GNSS downstream industry and Europe dear.”

    See the full Galileo Services press release.

    Hear melodic accompaniment and see very flashy footwork for the following doggerel.

    And now, with apologies to Mack Gordon, Harry Warren, and Glenn Miller,

    Pardon me, boy
    Is that the Galileo choo choo?
    Track twenty-nine
    Boy, you can give me a shine.
    Can you afford
    To miss that Galileo choo choo
    And miss the ride
    That R & D would provide?

    You leave the Gare du Nord ’bout a quarter to four
    Read a magazine and then you’re in Dusseldor(f)
    Dinner in the diner
    Nothing could be finer
    Than to have your ham an’ eggs in Thurin-gai-ya

    When you hear the whistle blowin’ eight to the bar
    Then you know Oberpfaffenhoffen’s not very far
    Shovel all the coal in
    Gotta keep it rollin’
    Woo, woo, Galileo, there you are

    There’s gonna be
    A certain party at the station
    But if EU won’t show support
    Our downstream market will fall short
    We’re all gonna cry
    Without a Framework Programme loan
    So Galileo choo choo
    Won’t you choo-choo me home?
    Galileo choo choo
    Won’t you choo-choo me home?

  • Out in Front: When the Gavel Comes Down

    By Alan Cameron

    Perhaps you don’t track suspected criminals in your spare time, nor do you design or supply a GNSS product that does so. Still, the fresh Supreme Court ruling on GPS use for this purpose reverberates for you, in ways yet unknown. The most interesting part of the court’s ruling pops up in a somewhat open-ended “what if” comment concerning future issues that at least one justice thinks the court should address.

    GPS trackers are a form of search, and police must obtain a search warrant to use them, the court unanimously ruled. This comes as a setback to government and police agencies who increasingly rely on GPS surveillance. Justice Scalia said the government’s installation of a GPS device to monitor a vehicle’s movements constitutes a search and violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

    Justice Samuel Alito further said the court should address how expectations of privacy affect whether warrants are required for remote surveillance using electronic methods that do not require the police to install equipment, such as GPS tracking of mobile telephones. “If long-term monitoring can be accomplished without committing a technical trespass — suppose for example, that the federal government required or persuaded auto manufacturers to include a GPS tracking device in every car — the court’s theory would provide no protection,” Alito wrote.

    This, or its exact counterpart, has already occurred in cell phones: government-mandated location technology embedded in all devices, over a sliding timescale that comes to maturity, or full application, fairly soon.

    The words “no protection” in Justice Alito’s opinion appear to state that personal cell-phone records are open season to government investigators. Such has already been the case in a number of instances.

    Murkier than government use — if such a concept is conceivable — is commercial use of a consumer’s location data. In other words, privacy. This issue has been raised since GPS-enabled phones were first theorized, and since the very whisper of the first location-based service, but it has never been fully or adequately addressed by anyone in industry or government.The notion of “granting permission” to use one’s location data, in order to benefit from services thus provided, still seems unresolved to me.

    Presumably, we are all waiting around for a test case, such as that of the Jeep owner in the Supreme Court just now. With LBS poised — same as it ever was — on the brink of widespread acceptance, it might benefit everyone if such a case came sooner rather than later.

  • Let’s Hear It for the Supremes!

    GPS trackers are a form of search, and police must obtain a search warrant to use them, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled. This comes as a setback to government and police agencies who increasingly rely on GPS surveillance. Justice Scalia said the government’s installation of a GPS device to monitor a vehicle’s movements constitutes a search and violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

    The most interesting part of the Supreme Court decision pops up in a somewhat open-ended what-if comment concerning future issues that at least one justice thinks the court should address. Consumer privacy issues remain very much alive and potentially troublesome for location-based services in the United States

    Justice Samuel Alito said the court should examine how expectations of privacy affect whether warrants are required for remote surveillance using electronic methods that do not require the police to install equipment, such as GPS tracking of mobile telephones. “If long-term monitoring can be accomplished without committing a technical trespass — suppose for example, that the federal government required or persuaded auto manufacturers to include a GPS tracking device in every car — the court’s theory would provide no protection,” Alito wrote.

    This, or its exact counterpart, has already occurred in cell phones: government-mandated location technology embedded in all devices, over a sliding timescale that comes to maturity, or full application, fairly soon.

    The Register-Guard newspaper of Eugene, Oregon, published an editorial containing the quote reprinted in the introduction to this column. The writer went on to say that “The result was a ruling that sidestepped tough questions, such as how to treat information held by cell phone companies and how to treat information gathered from devices that are installed at the factory.”

    The Register-Guard went on to state “Advances in science and technology have produced GPS devices that have unlimited potential for abuse.”

    “In the face of the very real threat of ubiquitous surveillance, Congress should complete its revamping of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Lawmakers have begun work on this task, but the legislation is not ready for passage.”

    The words “no protection” in Justice Alito’s opinion imply that personal cell-phone records are open season to government investigators. Such has already been the case in a number of instances.

    Murkier than government use — if such a concept is conceivable — is commercial use of a consumer’s location data. In other words, privacy. This issue has been raised since GPS-enabled phones were first theorized, and since the very whisper of the first location-based service, but it has never been fully or adequately addressed by anyone in industry or government. The notion of “granting permission” to use one’s location data, in order to benefit from services thus provided, still seems unresolved to me.

    Most consumers and cell-phone users do not have a clear picture of just how far the ball goes if they check a box that says “agree to terms” or otherwise signify that they are releasing their location data in some undefined form. Sure, they think they’ll just get a coupon the next time they pass near an industrial-strength coffee shop. They have no idea just how much their location data and travel patterns could be exploited by companies seeking to sell them something based on their profile. If you think robotelemarketing – the automated sales calls, often extremely deceptive in their offer, that come as you’re sitting down to dinner – are the worst form of pest, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

    The Eugene Register-Guard made this recommendation: ““In the face of the very real threat of ubiquitous surveillance, Congress should complete its revamping of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Lawmakers have begun work on this task, but the legislation is not ready for passage.”

    I am not intimately familiar with the draft of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, but I have a feeling it does little more than scratch the surface on this issue; it probably focuses on government use of private citizens’ location data, and does not begin to consider commercial use.

    So far, we are just talking about the United States.

    Regarding GNSS use elsewhere around the world  for tracking criminals:

    In Russia and China, one can reasonably presume that the interests of the state will crush any notion of citizen rights, so that government and police use of GNSS tracking will be placed under no restriction. Europe under the European Union has fairly strong citizen protections in some areas, less so in others. Japan, Korea, Australia . . . I just don’t know.

    Regarding GNSS use elsewhere around the world for tracking ordinary citizens’ location and travel patterns for commercial — that is, sales and marketing — purposes, I must again claim ignorance regarding the established ground rules in these countries, if there are any.

    Anywhere in the world, if GNSS should be perceived as a tool of Big Brother (government) or Big Broker (industry selling and buying consumer location data), then all navigation systems acquire a big PR problem, which translates into big funding and modernization problems. That outcome, that uncertainty, would affect everyone in or associated with GNSS provision. So we all have an interest in seeing, or making, or shaping, some resolution.

    Presumably, we are all waiting around for a test case on privacy versus commercial interests. With the location-based services (LBS) market poised — same as it ever was — on the brink of widespread acceptance, it might benefit everyone if such a case came sooner rather than later. Or if the U.S. Congress tackled the issue before being required to do so by the courts.

  • Location Technology, All in the Cars

    Microsoft says this is its last year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Fine. Move over because the car manufacturers are using the show to unveil stunning location and mobile offerings. It has only been a few years since automakers started coming to CES to pitch new in-vehicle mobile platforms. This year automakers have been knocking themselves out to bring smartphones, location and cloud content into the vehicle to enhance the driving experience. The CES invasion by the vehicle OEMs started in 2007 when Ford introduced Sync at CES. Kia followed in 2010 with UVO powered by Microsoft. 2012 brings a multitude of OEM mobile announcements, including one from first-time CES participant Mercedes-Benz.

    Cars are getting smarter. Kia unveiled the next-generation UVO 2, which adds a crash notification assist feature that automatically dials 911 on a connected phone when an airbag deploys. It adds a number of location-based services that are controlled via a smartphone app that includes noting a car’s parked location on a map, transferring destinations from Google maps to the navigation system, and monitoring vehicle location and speed.

    And the list goes on. Mercedes Benz made its initial appearance at CES to show off an app that allows drivers to plug iPhones into vehicles to enable the phone’s entertainment and navigation to appear on the in-dash display. Chevrolet introduced a new head unit that will use a smartphone’s apps, such as Pandora, to access cloud-based content and navigation. Ford added Roximity to provide contextual real-time discounts linked to the vehicle’s location and user’s preferences. TCS has its foot in this market, too. It will be supplying hybrid navigation solutions for the QNX in-vehicle car platforms.

    images
    Mercedes-Benz takes center stage at CES 2012.

    After-market activity. You can tweet about your accident, make it a status update, or do both. TomTom has integrated Facebook and Twitter with its navigation app for iPhones and iPads. Information from Facebook events, places and friends will feed to create navigation routes. Destinations and arrival times can then be shared on these networks.

    Heavy-weight skinny nav. Garmin has introduced the nüvi 3500 series, its new flagship personal navigation device, an ultra-thin GPS device with a five-inch screen. Capabilities include digital HD traffic and a smartphone link that can add live services, such as traffic information, traffic camera images, weather and fuel prices.

    Good luck, Verizon. At a time when straight-up navigation is becoming a utility, Verizon is rolling out a new bundled application app package. It includes their navigation app, as well as NFL Mobile, ringback tones and Verizon Video for $12.99. I don’t know much about the NFL Mobile app, but it better be good. Given the poor marks received by Verizon Video and low interest in ringback tones, the package isn’t looking too appealing when navigation is often a freebie.

    Need maps. TomTom will be providing Samsung with map and location content to power the Wave3 smartphone. TomTom will provide map coverage for more than 200 countries, POIs, traffic, 3D maps and landmarks and “safety-related speed cameras.” Safety-related speed cameras?

    Enterprise routing trends. Enterprises using vehicle routing software for fleets of service and truck vehicles are increasing their buying of on-board computers, as well as smartphones for driver interfaces. These products are used for improved efficiencies in planning routes, and often feed analytics into a complex logistics system. Customers who used to be satisfied with just obtaining GPS positions of their fleets are now pushing for more telematics and a connected vehicle.

    Lower prices and more pressure on productivity have pushed demand for on-board computers that can deliver data about the vehicle’s actual route, and sometimes connects to the engine to provide detail on how the vehicle was driven. Other fleets, particularly service fleets, are tending toward integrating routing apps with smartphones. The phones are cheaper than onboard computers, don’t need to integrated, and still can provide turn-by-turn directions to that day’s route. The trend is toward the Android operating system.

  • Facts, Law, Table, Pound, Hand

    So it has come to this. LightSquared officers want the FCC to investigate Brad Parkinson.

    Senator Joe McCarthy is not a good look for them.

    A young attorney of my acquaintance, who also happens to be a contributing editor to this magazine, wrote me in this regard:

    “Lawyers have an old saying — when you don’t have the law on your side, pound on the facts; when you don’t have the facts on your side,  pound on the law; and when you don’t have either, pound on the table.”

    It appears that LightSquared has run out of technical solutions that it has variably proposed, without coming up with any to solve interference with the full range of GPS uses and users, and is now reduced to complaints about process. Engineering was never its strong suit, and there are many cautionary lessons to be learned from its near-run at GPS demolition. Financiers and lawyers can bring a whole heap of spectrum danger with just a little knowledge.

    In coverage of this issue over the past year, I have tried to keep the magazine and its various newsletters away from the posturing and saber-rattling on both sides, the stock-market speculations and the wireless industry tea-leaves reading, and stick instead to the facts: test results, official statements by government agencies, and so on. You gentle readers have plenty of other outlets for hyperbole and flights of imagination that you can go to for that sort of thing, and it’s never in short supply. I hope we have served you well.