GPS reviews, news, tips and tricks
Well, it finally happened. A GPS with bad map data led someone into a lake at night, resulting in a drowning death.
Apparently, the GPS receiver showed an old road as passable, despite the fact that Spain’s La Serena reservoir was built in 1989. Fortunately the passenger was able to make it to shore safely; the driver was not so lucky.
It’s not often that we get detailed insights into military capabilities and concerns re: GPS jamming, but South Korea’s defense minister has shared some rather specific information.
The first experimental GPS satellite was launched in 1978, with the real thing (the Block II series) starting to go up in 1989. But the Global Positioning System was of limited use to anyone but the military in the early days, due to Selective Availability (SA), which degraded the signal, resulting in inaccuracies of up to 100 meters. An executive order signed by President Bill Clinton ten years ago today ended SA.
This is bad. The Register reports that car thieves in the UK are now using illegally imported GPS jammers to avoid the GPS tracking systems now found in many autos. Consider the implications — bank robbers and sex offenders with jammers, bleed over from the signals affecting emergency services, etc. Not good.
Odds & ends from the holiday weekend:
for the iPhone and iPod touch has shown up on Amazon, with a release date of December 11 and a price of $129.99. 
Regulations recently adopted by the California Air Resources Board will require automakers to reduce the amount of solar energy entering vehicles by 45% by 2014 and 60% by 2016. The problem is, the technology used to do this will utilize reflective metal oxide particles embedded in windshields, effectively blocking GPS signals. Stay tuned; I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this one.
The September issue of Consumer Reports showed up this past weekend, with an article titled “Best GPS Navigators.” Their top ten chart says it shows the best choices from their tests of 89 models; the list includes five Garmins, three TomToms and two Magellans.
Topping the list are the Garmin nuvi 885T, TomTom GO 740 Live and Garmin nuvi 765T, good choices all and hard to argue with. I’d probably put the nuvi 765T on top, partially because I find touch-screen input easier and faster than voice-input.
Looks like those hands-free cell phone laws and bans on texting while driving may soon apply to GPS if one New Jersey legislator gets his way. L. Harvey Smith, a Democratic Assemblyman, has introduced a bill that would make it illegal to program a non-voice command GPS while driving.
There isn’t a lot of information to be had yet about the forthcoming connected GPS units from Best Buy, but I do have a couple of things for you, including the promo photo above. It shows multiple route options, ala the Dash Express. There’s no indication that they’ll use crowd-sourced, anonymized cell phone data for traffic though. Of course it’s always possible that they’ve struck a deal with Dash or IntelliOne; I’ve been waiting awhile for someone to announce a partnership with the latter.
Geohashing is a new GPS sport where participants are sent to random coordinates to meet. Each day, new coordinates are automatically generated for each 1°x1° square of latitude and longitude.
GPS Tracklog is written by Rich Owings, author of GPS Mapping.
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