This week brings the longest link roundup in quite some time. Whew! First though, for you newbies – 
Waypoints is a weekly post of (mostly) GPS related odds and ends. To get many of these stories as they break, follow me on Twitter. On to the news…
Satellite news
- WAAS satellite PRN 135 (SV48 on Garmin units) shutdown; via @GPSFix
- Update on GLONASS crash: excess fuel now blamed
- China launches another Beidou satellite
- Air Force Space Command video about GPS
- Northern Lights could blind mobile navigation
A GPS holiday
- Skywriting with GPS
- Get Santa to guide you via Waze
- GAP employs GPS-equipped reindeer (the real thing) in holiday promotion
GPS tracking
- If you rob a bank and find a GPS tracking device in the money, don’t hide it in your car
- Delaware court: Police need warrant for GPS tracking
- Steal an iPhone in Australia and they track you down with a police helicopter!
- More on OK Go’s GPS art project
- Brazil to require GPS trackers in cars, apparently for theft prevention; via All Points Blog
Updates
- Garmin Dakota v 3.80
- Garmin Dakota v 3.81 beta
- Garmin Edge 605/705 v 3.30
- Garmin GPSMAP 62/78 v 2.91 beta
- Garmin nuvi map theme files v 2.40
- Garmin Oregon v 4.11 beta
- Garmin Oregon x50 v 4.31 beta
- Garmin zumo 660 v 4.10
Geocaching
- It’s Not about the Numbers on the recent Geocaching.com update
- CacheMania on the changes
- Geocaching.com map beta sneak peek
- Geocaching smackdown goes over the good, the bad & the ugly of OpenCaching.com
- Not everyone is a fan of OpenCaching
- A new and more detailed Opencaching.com poll
- How to spot a geocacher
- Creative geocaches video
- Groundspeak acquires My Geocaching Profile
GPS in the news
- Great story of a Garmin aviation GPS saving a pilot’s life; here’s a local writeup
- Some good advice for GPS newbies in this article
- Grand jury to review fatal upstate NY bus crash
GPS maps
- Minnesota snowmobile maps for Garmin receivers
- German mountain biking maps for Garmin receivers; via @cloudmade
iStuff
- The first Garmin iPhone app (drumroll ends) comes to Australia
- Is Apple building its own navigation service?
- NAVIGON rolls out iPad navigation, new content
- Today’s maps with an antique look on your iPhone; via Google Maps Mania
- iPhone app tracks your own flight sans GPS
Android
- Google Maps 5.0 for Android announced
- A great tutorial for touchscreen gestures in Google Maps 5.0
- Under the hood of Google Maps 5.0 for Android
- The Washington Post sdays it makes iPhone maps look even older
- Trimble Outdoors review
- AndroGeoid reviews the GPS Essentials app
The business of GPS
- Analyst predicts Apple will buy TomTom; via @PocketGPSWorld
- Motley Fool thinks Garmin should buy Foursquare; I disagree
- Um, okay — Garmin fitness TV ad
- Garmin wins patent battle against Pioneer
- Forbes on NavTones
- And NavTones brings Flavor Flav to your GPS
- MapQuest launches US map built on OpenStreetMap
Just geo
- China’s ghost cities; via @experiencegeo
- The best landmarks in the US nobody visits; via VerySpatial
- Interesting perspective on commercial cartography
- Print maps that look hand-drawn
- How to type the degree symbol
- Mapping social networks
- Easter Baja quake lowered mountain
- Create your own farm map
All the news that doesn’t fit
- Kim Komando says any GPS "will work well;" I beg to differ!
- Humans can only walk in circles
- Consumer Reports on GPS navigation features worth getting; I disagree re: Bluetooth
- Garmin working on a motorcycle mode for BaseCamp? Via Groundspeak forums
- How about a $300 golfing GPS-enabled cap?
- Garmin Connect responds to critics and gets an update
- Win a Bushnell Backtrack
- Connected devices come to the marine GPS world
- Average speed cameras hit the UK
- Maybe this is just scare sales tactics, but $10,000 speed camera fines in Florida sounds really bad!
Updated GPS Reviews
I’ve updated these review and resource pages with the following links:
- DeLorme PN-60w & SPOT – A getting started tutorial from DeLorme; I also linked to this review from the Adirondack High peaks forum
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