Sunday, March 18, 2012

Archives for 2016

Groundspeak Announces 5 New Country Souvenirs

geocache GPS use

There are many different facets to geocaching, and whether you’re in it for the bragging rites, the glory, the travel bugs, or the exercise, it’s a great game. One of the most overlooked parts, and in my opinion one of the most fun, of geocaching is the souvenirs that you can earn to display. You can read a full explanation of souvenirs here, but basically they are digital badges that you can earn by finding a geocache in a specific location or attending an event.

Recently, Groundspeak, the minds behind Geocaching.com, recently announced that they were adding five new geocaching country souvenirs to its massive list of souvenir locations. All of these can be accessed immediately, and can be earned by logging a cache or attending an event in any of these countries. Without further ado, here’s the list:
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TomTom and Microsoft Announce Partnership

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The GPS industry has changed significantly over the last five or six years. While once a booming trade, the advert of smartphones with GPS chips hit the industry hard, putting DeLorme out of business entirely (to be purchased by Garmin), while the last few giants standing are left to find alternate ways to make their fortunes. While Garmin has chosen to delve into the fitness tracker and smartwatch territory with its line, TomTom has instead focused less on hardware and more on mapping and navigational technology.

In fact, the last couple of years TomTom has made more deals with companies than it has released new products, and the most recent is actually pretty huge for the Dutch company. Last week, TomTom announced that it has entered into a partnership with Microsoft to provide location-based services to Microsoft’s Azure platform. read more

Amazon’s First Customer Drone Delivery Completed

Amazon GPS drone delivery

This is one of Amazon’s early drone prototypes, but not the kind which made the most recent delivery.

Drone delivery has been on the horizon for a couple years now, and it’s no secret that Amazon has been the front runner for this futuristic convenience. As officials here in the United States have not been overly willing to let drone deliveries go through, Amazon moved its operations and testing grounds abroad and it looks like we’re finally starting to see results.

This month marks Amazon’s first commercial drone delivery to a customer. According to ReCode, the delivery took place on December 7, and consisted of an Amazon Fire TV and a bag of popcorn. The customer, who lives near the testing facility in Cambridge, England, received his package about 13 minutes after the order was placed. read more

Geocaching Souvenirs Explained

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Geocaching is a surprisingly multi-faceted game. Designed as an adult treasure hunt, finding a geocache and logging it can be a thrill. Inside, you might find any kind of fun trinket to commemorate the event, but many times geocachers will neither take nor leave anything. The thrill is in the hunt and the prestige in being able to log a new geocache. For these intrepid geocachers, souvenirs and the bragging rights are almost better than swag.

What are souvenirs?

Souvenirs are a sort of digital badge that is displayed on your Geocaching.com profile to show off your accomplishments. There are some which are only available for a specific location, event, or only for accomplishing specific tasks or things. As a result, many people are proud of their souvenirs and work to try and collect as many rare souvenirs as possible. read more

4 Reasons Why GPS Makes You A Better Driver

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Having a GPS is a huge boon in this day and age. The ability to not only navigate without the worry of getting lost, but also be able to find the right lane and drive with confidence has the potential to make anyone a better and even a safer driver.

However, there are definitely some downsides to using GPS on the road. Distracted driving is the big one, and not using common sense. But, let’s be honest… even without GPS, the people who fall prey to those dangerous activities would probably still be distracted by something (like a phone) or lack common sense. After all, it is people, not the GPS, which cause accidents. Generally speaking, I think that GPS actually makes you a better driver. Here are four reasons why:

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This Week in GPS — December 16, 2016

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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. This week’s featured image is a rendering of a Galileo satellite in honor of the EU’s navigational constellation finally going live this week! Read more about this and other GPS news below: read more

Garmin Fitness Trackers Get New Safety Feature

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Whether you’re into biking or jogging, going out for a morning run or an afternoon ride can be one of the best times of the day. Just you and the road as you push yourself to get a little further, go a little faster, or try out a new route. However, for loved ones at home and your own peace of mind, it’s important to make sure someone knows where you are going and when you’ll be back.

Recently, Strava’s safety feature Beacon was integrated with Garmin’s LiveTrack so riders and runners can share their location with up to three trusted contacts. First launched as part of the Strava app, the Beacon feature is compatible with the following devices: read more

Galileo Set To Go Live Thursday, December 15, 2016

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Although it has undergone numerous setbacks, launch miscalculations, and is over budget by more than 8 billion euro, it looks like Europe’s Galileo satellite constellation is finally complete enough to begin sending out signals. In fact, according to GPS Daily, the constellation is set to begin transmitting as soon as tomorrow, December 15, 2016, and it’s been a long time in coming.

This project has been in progress for at least 17 years and cost European taxpayers an estimated 10 billion euros ($11 billion) although it was originally expected to cost around 1.8 billion Euros. Of course, the numerous errors, including launching two satellites into the wrong orbit in 2014, caused the entire program to take nearly twice as long as initially intended.
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GPS FAQ: Who Owns and Operates GPS?

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GPS is probably one of the most useful technologies to date. Most users—even if they aren’t GPS enthusiasts with dedicated automotive or handheld devices—use it on a daily basis. From getting accurate weather predictions based on your GPS location to finding your way around the city or even locating a new restaurant, GPS is pretty much everywhere. But, a surprisingly small number of people actually know anything about GPS.

Now, this is something that we have written about before here on GPS Tracklog, but as GPS is becoming more and more mainstream as time goes on, it’s something that is worth going over once again. If you’re here to try and find out how GPS works, then check out this post for a more in-depth discussion. Below, you’ll find some of the questions that I get asked the most. read more

GPS Jamming Becomes Big Problem in Europe

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Although GPS is one of the most important technologies of our age, it is surprisingly susceptible to tampering and failure. GPS signals are actually surprisingly weak with leaves them vulnerable to not only spoofing, but jamming. While spoofing is the process of sending fake signals to a GPS device to make it think that it is in a different location, jamming completely scrambles the signals so that they become unusable.

In the United States, both jamming and spoofing are illegal, but other countries (which often use GPS as it was the first and arguably most reliable system) the laws vary and are sometimes nonexistent. This has led to many problems with GPS jamming and spoofing in other countries and here in the US.  read more