This week in GPS — January 25th, 2014

First looks at iOS in the car?

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 one of some purported screenshots of ‘iOS in the Car’ surface.

From GPS Tracklog

Our posts from the past week:

• Garmin Approach G7 and G8 for golfers
• Garmin Smart Notifications coming to Android (but what will it do to battery life?…)

@gpstracklog I'm using a #fënix and is getting about a workday worth of batterylife with emails, Twitter, facebook etc…

— Knut Korczak (@UtmedKnut) January 21, 2014

Garmin

• BirdsEye v 2 is here!
• Now shipping: Amazon has the Garmin nüvi 55, 55LM, and 55LMT; GPS City also has the 56LM, 56LMT and HUD +
• Looks like the companion HUD + app isn’t available yet though
• The company fails to duck class action lawsuit on faulty nuvi batteries
• Garmin Maps: Paid vs Free
• Garmin HD vs RDS Traffic
• Price Drop on the GPSMAP 78 Series (still not quite down to the $239 we saw over the holidays but worth keeping an eye on)
• Garmin Fenix support for Garmin Connect Mobile coming next month
• Garmin Pilot Adds Enhancements to iOS and Android
• Forerunner 620 to Receive Cycling Updates
• Any idea what this mystery Garmin device that just cleared the FCC is?…

Garmin mystery device

TomTom

• More info on the forthcoming TomTom GO series
• And it looks like the GO 40 has cleared the FCC
• TomTom gets their name on a car

GPS in the news

• Woman distracted by GPS hits cop car

GPS tracking

• Check out the size of this GPS tracking device on valuables leads to arrest
• Map Showing No Snow Plowing Was Due To Bad GPS
• GPS technology helps police track down stolen bus and suspect
• Ways to use the SPOT Trace
• Canine GPS vests reveal dog social network
• Endangered Indian snow leopards to be tracked by GPS
• Cell-phone GPS helps searchers find lost hiker; interesting quote:

After about two hours of searching without success, they helped the lost man access an app on his smart phone that gave his GPS coordinates. With the last 12-percent of battery power remaining, he was able to give his position.

Geocaching

• Cool cache
• Tips for the Four-Season Geocacher
• Next Cache v 2.0 for iOS

Satellites and such

• Battery Modification Could Add 27 Years of Life to GPS satellites

Jamming

• MtronPTI announces new anti-jamming filters

Indoor location

• Ex-Vertu designer launches iBeacon competitor for Android

Just geo

• Why (not just) California’s trails are disappearing from the map; via @modernhiker
• Remember How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk? Turns out is was NYT’s most popular piece in 2013 and was created by an intern
• Every Earth view from “Gravity” identified in Google Earth
• Mapping What the World Wants
• Making Sense of The Declination Diagram
• Should walkers worry about magnetic north shifting?
• Historical Metropolitan Populations of the United States
• Where the Road Ends: A Travel Video Shot With Google Street View
• Daylight Saving Time countries for 2014-2015

All the news that doesn’t fit

• Should cameras be installed on popular hiking trails?
• Suunto Ambit 2 for runners coming soon
• Trimble rolls out an ag drone
• Key Maps: A paper holdout in a GPS world
• $20 GPS/GLONASS/Beidou Receiver
• Potholes and GPS cartoon
• Pacific Crest Trail GPX files
• GPS-powered sun tracker skylights direct natural daylight indoors…

GPS tracking skylight