GPS

Mapbag: Josh Billions (video)

Josh Billions demonstrates the Mapbag at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. It is a bicycle messenger bag with a ring of vibrating motors sewn into its strap, whose positions correspond to compass points. This soft circuit project uses a Lilypad in conjunction with the gps feature in an Iphone, allowing the user to set a destination and be given constant haptic feedback through the fabric in order to stay on course and in the right direction. This acts as an exploratory wayfinding tool – a fun and useful alternative to a standard turn-by-turn map.

Continue Reading September 13th, 2011 Becky Stern

Bike Theft: Thinking Outside of the Lock

Since most urban cyclists can never be sure what they’ll be locking to, they’ll often keep both a chain and a U-Lock for versatility’s sake. If you had an extra twelve pounds to make your bike theft-proof, how would you do it?

Continue Reading August 22nd, 2011 Michael Colombo186

GPS Units Disable Themselves If They Go Faster Than 1,200 MPH

This is cool, GPS units disable themselves if they go faster than 1,200 mph and if they go above 60,000 feet… In GPS technology, the phrasing “COCOM Limits” is also used to refer to a limit placed to GPS tracking devices that should disable tracking when the device realizes itself to be moving faster than […]

Continue Reading July 25th, 2011May 26th, 2015 Phillip Torrone40

Arduino Goes to War

Shown uppermost is the prototype of a handheld artillery spotting device developed as a student capstone project at West Point. The blue board to upper left is pretty clearly an Arduino Mega. You can see, in the near upper corner of that board, where the DC power jack has been desoldered and the pads hardwired to the battery pack. The system, called DemonEye, is now reportedly undergoing field testing.

Continue Reading June 27th, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan20

Pneumatic Antenna Launcher uses Android, Free App for AR Scope

We have covered Alan’s Biocca’s fantastic clearinghouse site antennalaunchers.com before, and Brookfield, CT, resident Andrew Stoev’s basic launcher design appears to be a slightly up-gunned version of Alan’s CSV19 pneumatic antenna launcher. It’s a beautiful build, but my favorite feature is the quick-release mount he added for his Android device. Using a free app called GeoCam, his phone, when so mounted, becomes an augmented-reality aiming scope that provides GPS location, compass orientation, and (probably most usefully for this purpose) phone inclination data.

Continue Reading June 20th, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan10

FBI Tracking Device Teardown

Our pals at iFixit have scored a pretty sweet scoop with this photo-dissection of the guts of an official FBI bumper-beeper.

Continue Reading May 9th, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan10

News From The Future: Your GPS Data Sold to Cops for Speed Traps

TomTom sold user data to police, motorists then targeted with speed traps… Following reports that TomTom had sold traffic data collected from GPS device users to police who then used it to determine locations for speed traps, the company has issued a statement and video in an effort to appease angry customers. In the video, […]

Continue Reading May 4th, 2011 Phillip Torrone52

GPS