GPS

A followup to MovinGmap (that GPS Tracker for Google Maps), MeHere also publishes realtime KML files so you can plot your location with friends on Google Earth and opens the data on your GPS to other applications (eg Greasemonkey scripts). Link.

Great HOW TO from Tomas Kindahl. “This is a short description on how I spent some hours this summer building a simple GPS device. For some time now I have been wondering about the possibility to build such a device from mostly scavenged and old parts, the most important being (of course) a GPS receiver module, and an LCD display. And indeed it was possible”. [via] Link.

Nice hack! I have connected a Lassen iQ GPS module to my serial interface. Maps are downloaded from Google Maps servers with a small script. Google maps consist of 128×128 pixel tiles. You have to specify your address, so that map tiles around your area are downloaded. There is also a parameter for number of tiles you want. Zoom levels are possible but require to have a few tile-sets, one for each zoom level. Link.

Here’s a quick and easy way to make wallpaper/desktops for your computer from Google maps…gMerge is a python script that merges Google Maps satellite “tiles” in order to produce a wallpaper (or even a poster!). For some reason the town I grew up in continues to not be visible on Google maps, ah well. [via] Link.

A couple interesting thing on my fav DIY news channel, RocketBoom. On today’s show they previewed a clip for a new video blog with John Edwards. Looks like anyone will be able to video in questions too. I think we’re about to see vlogs hit like podcasting late last year. . RocketBoom also launched a new site called Apollo Pony that has a lot of video clips from around the web.

As part of her Social Defense Mechanisms: Tools for Reclaiming our Personal Space research, Limor Fried (creator of the Wave Bubble and the Minty MP3) developed the Media-Sensitive Glasses that automatically darken whenever a television is in view, so as to protect the wearer from television’s “hypnotic” effect. Link.

Tony writes “I managed to write a perl script to do the Garmin GPS Overlay on an arbitrary satellite image. You can get ridiculously high resolution, color satellite orthoimages from seamless.usgs.gov, and then overlay the tracks on the image with PerlMagick. My PerlMagick script to do this is here“. I use the same GPS Tony has, the Garmin Forunner- nice work! Link.