Open a Nestlé candy bar in the United Kingdom — one of six with a GPS tracking device — and you could win a big cash prize. The candy company’s latest marketing campaign involves putting GPS trackers on half-a-dozen bars such as Kit Kat, Aero, and Yorkie.
A 30-second commercial video shows, in Bond-like fashion, how the bar will activate when opened, with instant response by a “crack team” that will arrive via helicopter to award the lucky customer £10,000.
The marketing campaign, developed by creative agency JWT London, is part of a promotion involving ads on TV and radio, as well as online, costing Nestlé £4 million ($6.5 million).
The internal newspaper of ISS Reshetnev, Siberian Satellite, has reported on the status of current and future manufacturing of GLONASS satellites (loosely translated):
“A federal target program, approved by the Russian Government, has provided measures to maintain and develop the GLONASS system. The Reshetnev Company from 2012 to 2020 will manufacture 15 “Glonass-M” satellites and 22 “Glonass-K”. The work in this direction is taking place at ISS at full speed. Now the company is making space apparatus “Glonass-M” No. 50 [likely to be known as 750 once launched] and has signed contracts with related enterprises for the supply of equipment for a few more satellites in this series. [ISS] has already completed the manufacture of satellites “Glonass-M” No. 47, No. 48, No. 49. Routine tests confirmed compliance characteristics of their design and with operational documentation. The space vehicles have been put in the assembly shop for safekeeping. [ISS] has sent a next-generation navigation satellite “Glonass-K” No. 12L to the spaceport. A decision on the launch date of the navigation satellites will be made by Roscosmos after an analysis of the [state of the] GLONASS constellation.”
Note that there is a reserved launch slot for the GLONASS-K satellite at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on 14 November.
Topcon Positioning Systems announces the MG-A8 antenna for navigation and precise positioning in marine applications. According to Topcon, the new MG-A8 marine antenna provides exemplary GNSS signal tracking while not being susceptible to signal jamming from other sources, such as Inmarsat communications.
The MG-A8 antenna can be used in DGPS mode for meter-level navigation purposes but can also be used for RTK centimeter level positioning in areas where there is a network of reference stations available to support this level of precision. With its RTK capabilities, the MG-A8 is a “preferred solution for applications such as dredging in inland river channels and waterways,” said Tom Morris, TPS senior product development manager.
“This antenna is designed with challenging marine applications in mind. It is accurate, rugged, reliable and affordable.”
Trimble has introduced at the ION GNSS Conference in Nashville the Trimble BD920-W3G receiver and communication module. As part of Trimble’s GNSS OEM portfolio, the new compact module features centimeter-level, real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning capabilities coupled with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular that deliver flexible communication options for precise, mobile positioning. The BD920-W3G module’s connectivity and configuration ease allow system integrators and OEMs to easily add GNSS centimeter-level positioning to specialized or custom hardware solutions, Trimble said.
“The OEM and system integrator communities demand high performance, reliability and support for their positioning solutions,” said Dale Hermann, director of marketing and sales. “The Trimble BD920-W3G delivers the latest in GNSS and communication technology in an easy-to-integrate form factor for demanding conditions and applications such as field computing, port automation, and lightweight robotic or unmanned vehicles.”
The Trimble BD920-W3G module has been designed for applications requiring centimeter accuracy in a compact package. By integrating wireless communications on the same module, the task of receiving and transmitting data such as RTK corrections is greatly simplified. A single intuitive Web interface allows a variety of use cases to be supported. In addition to GNSS base and rover setups with Wi-Fi or UMTS modem, the module also allows simultaneous customer access to the Internet.
The dual-frequency GPS/GLONASS BD920-W3G provides customers with a more integrated product that can reduce their integration effort and time to market. Wireless communications and Ethernet connectivity are available on the module to allow high-speed data transfer and configuration via standard Web browsers. USB and RS232 are also supported. By tightly integrating communications and GNSS receiver, integrators can reduce costs and integration complexity, the company said.
The Trimble BD920-W3G is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2013 through Trimble’s Precision GNSS + Inertial sales channel worldwide. The BD920-W3G can be viewed in 3D on Trimble’s 3D Warehouse by SketchUp. OEMs and integrators can also download a 3D model into their applications. For more information, visit www.trimble.com/gnss-inertial.
We are making history. The rate of iOS and Android device adoption has surpassed adoption rates for any other consumer technology in recent history, reports analytics firm Flurry. Android and iOS devices are being adopted at a rate 10 times faster than the rate of PC adoption during the 1980s. Smart device adoption is growing twice as fast as Internet adoption during the 1990s, and three times faster than that of recent social network adoption. Flurry estimates there were more than 640 million Android and iOS devices in use as of July 2012. The U.S., followed by China, has the most active iOS and Android devices. However, China had the fastest growth of active devices last year and its active user base will soon overtake the U.S. Other news this month includes security concerns with LBS offerings, developments in the indoor location market, voice navigation for bikes, and unusual election activities.
With cause, people are concerned about the security of location-based applications. In a poll focused on LBS security, a quarter of 1,000 Americans surveyed indicated both concerns about third-party use of personal information for marketing purposes and strangers knowing too much about personal activities. Surprisingly, about 20 percent indicated a concern for their actual personal safety. The poll was conducted by the non-profit security group, ISACA. Nearly one-third of consumers in ISACA’s survey use location-based apps more than they did a year ago.
It isn’t just LBS that carries security risks. Smartphones themselves are inherently vulnerable. “Every smartphone subscriber end-point is a potential threat to the mobile network and creates hundreds of millions of points of network vulnerability,” says Jeff Orr of ABI Research. Currently, protection is focused on hardware and end-user application security. To more ably face threats, defensive security measures will grow more sophisticated and encompass contextual information about usage, location, and user. Perversely, this is the same information sought by mobile advertisers. Today, carriers are focused on 4G roll-out and delivering the hottest handset, but they need to be just as concerned about security.
A Whiff of Hyperbole in the Indoors. The indoors location market is going to be big, but I think that ABI Research’s forecast of indoor maps and services reaching more than $2.5 billion by 2017 is overstated. I agree with their assertion that business models are changing with the most significant indoor mapping companies increasing their scope to include more revenue enhancing activities. These still focus on indoor location, but include application development, location technologies, analytics, and advertising.
Indoor Location Club. The In-Location Alliance has been formed by 22 companies, including Nokia, Qualcomm, and Samsung, to pursue high-accuracy indoor positioning and related services. One of their goals is to ensure a multi-vendor environment by promoting open interfaces and a standard-based approach. Members are encouraged to execute their own pilots and present their data to the Alliance. The primary solutions will be based on enhanced Bluetooth 4.0 low-energy technology and Wi-Fi standards using relevant existing or upcoming features of those technologies. Pre-commercial pilots and business model verifications will start in 2012, while 2013 is expected to bring mobile handset-based implementation, enabling the first consumer applications in the indoor mobile environment.
Enterprise GPS Doing Well Approximately 5.5 million GPS/wireless devices are used to manage fleet vehicles, trailers, construction equipment, and mobile workers, estimates C.J. Driscoll & Associates. By 2015, this market will expand to more than nine million units and annual hardware and service revenues will grow to over $3.0 billion, predicts Driscoll. Growth is expected to be strongest in the local GPS fleet tracking market, which is expanding at a rate of 15-20 percent per year.
Listen to Your Bike. Google has added turn-by-turn voice-guided navigation for bike riders in 10 Nordic and European bike loving countries. Bikers can either listen to the voice or view the route on a phone. In the U.S. and Canada, a beta version will be available. Google maps contain more than 330,000 miles of biking lines. These are color classified as either dedicated bike trails with no motor vehicles, streets with bike lanes, or other streets recommended for biking. Users can use Map Maker to add bike routes.
Election Coverage. You may have heard that a group called Crossroads GPS spent $5.3 million to run ads to defend Governor Romney’s proposed tax plan. Crossroads GPS is not a new faction of the LBS industry. Crossroads GPS (Grassroots Policy Strategies) is a conservative organization with an unlikely acronym.
Save the Date. I’ll be moderating a panel debate, “Opening up the Indoors for Location Services,” at MforMobile’s Location Business Summit 2012, being held in San Jose October 16-17. TheWhereBusiness and NFC Insight are now MforMobile.
NovAtel Inc. announced at ION the addition of SPAN GNSS/Inertial Navigation System (INS) technology to its OEM6 GNSS receiver platform. NovAtel’s SPAN technology tightly couples precision GNSS receivers with robust inertial measurement units (IMUs) to provide reliable, continuously available, position, velocity and attitude (roll, pitch, yaw), even during short periods of time when satellite signals are blocked or unavailable.
The release of SPAN on OEM6 provides SPAN OEM customers with new features and functionality previously unavailable on NovAtel’s OEMV based SPAN platform, including ALIGN GNSS heading determination, API, RAIM, and GPS+GLONASS positioning.
Jason Hamilton, director of Marketing at NovAtel, stated, “SPAN on OEM6 builds on our core GNSS platform, taking features and functionality from our six series and adding them to our SPAN technology.” He added, “SPAN on OEM6 improves positioning performance in difficult GNSS environments over NovAtel’s past generations of products, greatly improving the ability to bridge GNSS outages, and allowing users to operate with higher confidence in challenging environments.”
NovAtel’s SPAN technology will be supported on OEM615 and OEM628 board level receivers, and the FlexPak6 receiver which gives integrators a rugged enclosed platform that can be paired with the company’s complete range of IMU sensors.
The OEM615 and 628 boards replace NovAtel’s legacy OEMV receivers to provide integrators a new platform for developing and embedding SPAN into their applications. Existing OEM6 customers can now upgrade their receiver to become full GNSS/INS SPAN platforms.
Interested parties can visit NovAtel at Booth “F” at ION 2012 to learn more about this new product offering. Shipments of OEM6 SPAN enabled receivers will begin September 2012. Further information can be found on the company’s website at novatel.com or through a company representative which can be located under the “Where to Buy” tab of the company website.
NVS Technologies AG announces today, from the ION-GNSS 2012 Conference in Nashville, the launch of the NV08C-Mini PCI-E Embedded Mini PCI Express GNSS Receiver.
The NV08C-Mini PCI-E is a fully integrated GNSS receiver module, optimized for Mini PCI Express (Mini-PCIe) based applications. Its key feature is its full compatibility with GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, COMPASS (GNSS), and EGNOS, WAAS, MSAS, and GAGAN (SBAS). It is specifically designed for use in a wide range of mobile computing, in-vehicle and rugged handheld computer equipment, for the security/public safety, telematics/fleet management, and precision GIS/survey, machine control, and agriculture markets. Features include:
Embedded mini PCI Express GNSS receiver
Very quick and simple integration
GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, COMPASS, SBAS L1
Precise navigation, positioning, and timing
32 GNSS tracking channels / 200K correlators — Ensuring fast TTFF and high signal sensitivity
NMEA 0183 / IEC 61162-1, binary (BINR) and RTCM SC-104 v2.3 data protocols
Raw Data output — Pseudorange, Carrier phase and Doppler
Individual GLONASS group delay calibration — Assuring very high accuracy
64 KB EEPROM for firmware upgrade and data storage
Industrial operating temperature range ‐40 to +85°C
The NV08C-Mini PCI-E offers high sensitivity, high-performance acquisition and tracking, NMEA and raw data outputs, plus Differential (D-GNSS) and Assisted GNSS (A-GNSS) functions. Tracking satellites from multiple GNSS constellations ensures much higher availability of navigation signals, when compared to single constellation alternatives, and provides increased performance, accuracy, and reliability, NVS Technologies said. It features two RF channels (GPS and GLONASS), three-stage SAW filtration for high noise immunity, and several protocol interfaces and a supply voltage source for an active antenna. This fully featured embedded Mini PCI-e GNSS receiver is the quickest-to-market solution for mobile computing applications, the company said.
Placed Analytics is a new service that will provide perspective on the places that people were physically nearby when interacting with specific content. Placed Analytics expands the platforms it supports beyond Android and iOS to include the mobile web.
“We chose mobile web as our next platform because mobile site owners have been requesting the same level of insights as app developers. Additionally, the early adopters of Placed Analytics are also the same developers embracing HTML5 as an alternative to native app development,” said David Shim of Placed. “Placed has measured over 1 billion locations since launching our beta to the public back in June. This rate of adoption has surpassed all of our internal goals, and the addition of mobile web measurement should only accelerate growth.”
Dentsu has released a social app for location-based food search for iOS devices. FoodKing enables searching for a particular food item of interest, such as an omelet or pasta, based on the user’s location. Users can also “like” and “comment” on reviews and gather points to become a King of an individual food ranking.
This app was released globally enabling users to communicate internationally through food reviews. Dentsu says it will be adding new food categories every month. Currently the app supports English and Japanese in the interface, and reviews in all languages. More languages are planned.
TomTom, global supplier of location and navigation products and services, is extending its partnership with Telenav. TomTom will provide mapping data for Scout, Telenav’s daily personal navigator. Additionally, TomTom will remain the provider of map content for Telenav-powered Sprint applications.
Scout, currently available on the iPhone, provides personalized information that includes navigation directions, optimal departure time and things to do at the destination. Together, Telenav and TomTom will provide up-to-date map content to Scout customers. All Sprint customers will also continue to have access to TomTom maps via Scout.
“We believe the new contract with Telenav is an endorsement of our high quality maps,” said Anders Truelsen of TomTom. “We are pleased that Scout users will be able to experience the added value of our rich map content.”
“Our goal is to always provide a reliable and easy-to-use service for our customers,” said Hassan Wahla of Telenav. “We are pleased to extend our agreement with TomTom because of its parallel focus and commitment to high-quality map content.”
ITT Exelis has announced what it calls a significant development in the field of GPS technology. Exelis GPS Interference, Detection and Geolocation (IDG) will provide near real-time geolocation of intentional and unintentional GPS jamming sources through a network of sensors and advanced geolocation technology, the company announced at ION-GNSS, being held this week in Nashville, Tennessee.
“From security to transportation and almost every sector of the economy, the world relies on receiving precise GPS timing and positioning data,” said Mark Pisani, vice president and general manager, Precision Instruments and Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Systems, ITT Exelis Geospatial Systems. “As GPS jamming devices become cheaper and more accessible, there is a greater need to protect military, commercial and industrial systems from a diverse range of threats. This technology is a major step forward in delivering actionable interference intelligence to an array of GPS users.”
IDG technology is based upon a network of threat detection sensors that are networked to a centralized server running Exelis-developed geolocation algorithms. These sensors would be strategically located around high-risk areas, such as airports or utility grids, to instantaneously sense and triangulate the location of the jamming source. Should a threat be detected, users would receive pin-point geolocation information and actionable intelligence in order to respond.
The Exelis solution would benefit a broad range of GPS customers and users. Jamming devices can send out signals capable of disrupting the synchronization of a utility power grid and creating significant infrastructure and economic damage. In each of these scenarios, IDG would detect, analyze and geolocate the hostile signal, sending the intelligence through a secure network in order for the user to mitigate the threat.
Exelis payloads and payload components have been aboard every GPS satellite for almost 40 years. Today, Exelis is involved in developing and integrating the navigation payloads for GPS III. Exelis is also providing navigation processing components, precision monitor station receivers, and key components of the system security design for the GPS Operational Control System, also known as GPS OCX.
China successfully launched two BeiDou-2/Compass MEO satellites Tuesday at 19:10:04 UTC. The satellites are designated Compass-M5 and Compass-M6. They are also referred to BeiDou-14 and BeiDou-15.
UPDATE: More details have emerged on yesterday’s BeiDou-2/Compass satellite launch. According to Web sources, the new satellites will occupy slots 7 and 8 in Plane A of the Compass MEO orbit design. The existing operational Compass MEO satellites, MEO-3 and MEO-4 occupy slots 3 and 4 in Plane B, 120 degrees to the west of Plane A. The Compass MEO constellation will eventually consist of 24 primary satellites, eight in each of three equally spaced planes. It is reported that the satellites now use Chinese-made atomic clocks.
The exact time of yesterday’s launch was 19:10:04.179 UTC. NORAD/JSpOC is tracking four objects from the launch: the satellites, the adapter, and the third stage of the launch vehicle. They are all in elliptical transfer orbits at the present time and the satellites will likely transfer to their MEO orbits within the next few days.
According to a Compass official, the current generation of Compass navigation satellites has a predicted lifetime of eight years. This will be increased to 11-12 years for future models.
Compass managers now claim that the 5 GEO + 5 IGSO +4 MEO initial configuration will have good robustness and economic efficiency for such a regional navigation system. They state that “[T]he four MEO satellites increases the repeat coverage for users: the probability for position dilution of precision being less than three is now at 74.89 percent for more than 23 hours per day, up from 38.55 percent earlier this year.”
The final Compass GEO satellite for the initial constellation deployment, GEO-6, is scheduled for launch in October of this year.
