Street (Trail?) View comes to the Grand Canyon!
This week in GPS is a weekly link roundup of (mostly) GPS related odds and ends, from GPS Tracklog and other places around the Web. To get a few of the biggest stories as they break, follow me on Twitter. This week’s lead image is from an article on the Grand Canyon getting StreetView; here’s the gallery.
From GPS Tracklog
Our posts from the past week:
- January 2013 best selling GPS
- Garmin’s new .ggz geocaching file format
- Magellan eXplorist GC gets support for topos and aerial imagery
GPS deals
New on our GPS deals page: Garmin nuvi 2455LMT for $142.77 shipped
Garmin
- Will Lane Assist not show up anywhere but Junction View on 2013 nuvi Advanced and Prestige series? (Hat tip to Boyd)
- Garmin HD traffic reverts to FM-TMC when HD traffic unavailable
- BaseCamp 4.1.0 for Windows pulled
- Software updates this week: BaseCamp for Macs (adds Garmin Cloud support), Forerunner 10, Montana, quatix, zumo 660 and 665
- YouTube video: Garmin Training Plans Using Garmin Connect – Heart Rate Training
- New 2013 Bluecharts released
- Is the new .ggz file format just a compressed gpx?
- And apparently the new Oregons will support .gpx files:
The Oregon can hold an unlimited number of geocaches and supports GPX files from OpenCaching.com for downloading geocaches and details straight to the unit.
Geocaching
A variety of geocaching containers
- A Geocaching Beginner’s Guide – Geocache Container Pictures (see pic above)
- Announcing the 2013 Cache In Trash Out Weekend
- Lonely Caches; via @cachemania
- 7 Mystery and Puzzle Ideas; via Geocaching Journal
- Book: 101 Devil Caches
; via Its Not About The Numbers
- Sharp cop knows a geocache when he sees one
- Score A Montana From OpenCaching.com
- Oregon geotour
- Cool geocache of the week:
The site of the newest geocache of the week
GPS in the news
- Man allegedly follows GPS directions to wrong house; shot dead
- NC DOT puts up sign tantamount to telling people their GPS is wrong
The business of GPS
- Great infographic on the economic impact of GPS and other geo-services; via Google Lat Long
- Apple Reaches Out to LBS Developers with iOS 6.1 POI Search API
- Harman Bets on In-Car Infotainment Upgrade
- TCS Issued 4 U.S. Patents Related to Mobile Location
GPS tracking
- Arlington Heights cops used GPS to crack missing tire case
- Home Invasion Victim Leads Modesto Police To Suspects With GPS
- More sensors coming to telematics?
- Rare antelope monitored with GPS
- Indian government working on a GPS wristwatch to help prevent rape
- Dementia sufferers benefit from GPS
- (QUOTE) Judge: GPS tracking evidence can be used in burglary case; funny quote from article:
The man’s defense attorney, however, has argued that the state shouldn’t get to use information from the monitor, unless it can offer expert testimony that it’s reliable, and was working properly on the days in question.
Going mobile
- Topo Map Cover for your iPhone
- 5 safe places to put your smartphone while driving
- Apple adds prominent report problem button in iOS 6.1 update
- BlackBerry Maps App Questionable in new Z10 and Q10
- TomTom provides traffic information and map database for new Blackberry maps (no word on POIs)
- Beginners guide: How to Enable GPS and Other Location Services on your Android
Satellites and such
- Will Beidou replace GPS as the GNSS of choice? Quite possibly
- MediaTek Announces Multi-GNSS Receiver SoC Solutions Supporting Beidou
- Anti-jamming antenna
- India: Home-grown GPS ‘Gagan’ likely by 2014
- Russia, India Join Global Satnav Augmentation Meeting
Geotagging
- New Location-Enabled Cameras Show Up
- Pentax WG-3 GPS Camera
- Olympus Introduces Stylus Tough TG-2 iHS Underwater GPS Camera
Just geo
- Detailed maps of North Korea from Google, including gulags!
- More of the back story
- And here is National Geographic’s take on it
- Know Your Neighborhood on Street View; via Google Maps Mania
- Mapping with Kites in the Age of Drones
- Cool pictorial: 50 places you can’t reach without climbing (and they don’t mean technical climbing)
- DARPA’s 1.8-gigapixel cam touts surveillance from 20,000 feet
- 100,000 new tours added to Google Earth
- The Top 10 Biking Cities In America, Mapped By How People Commute; via DC Rainmaker
- China: Shipton’s Arch
- The Universal Texture: The reason for those visual anomalies on Google Earth; via Google Earth Blog (see pic below)
Google Earth anomolies
All the news that doesn’t fit
- Monitoring weather with a barometric altimeter; I’ve linked to this in my all about barometric altimeters post
- Google’s Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions (part one of three)
- Eight year old thru-hikes the Appalachian Trail
- Video: What not to do in a national park
- Followed appropriately enough by Backpacker Magazine infographic on fall zones
- Traffic looking bad; economy looking up?
- Simple Arduino Micro GPS Clock Project
Updated GPS reviews
I’ve updated these review and resource pages with the following links:
- Garmin Oregon 550 – The Airdrie Rambler takes on a popular handheld
- Magellan eXplorist 310 – A review for hunters
- SPOT Connect – Cycle World reviews this satellite communicator
About Rich Owings
