Given a decent view of the sky, a GPS receiver can determine your latitude and longitude to a high degree of accuracy as good as a meter or so. But what if the latitude and longitude themselves are in error? That’s the problem faced by the continent of Australia. Every […]
Location-Based Services
21 posts
SafeSpot™ systems make busy workplaces safer by warning pedestrians and forklift drivers of potential collisions. The system triggers a warning around blind corners if a forklift-forklift or forklift-pedestrian collision is imminent. Q-Track’s innovative system employs near-field electromagnetic ranging to detect proximity of forklifts and passive IR to detect pedestrians. Workers […]
Some interesting and informative links from around the net: Via The Art of Manliness, here’s “How to Survive a Lightning Strike,” “Why I Am Not An Environmentalist: The Science of Economics Versus the Religion of Ecology,” by Steven E. Landsburg, excerpted from The Armchair Economist: Economics and Everyday Life, Sean […]
Writing an engaging and interesting book on a technical subject poses a significant challenge. Dive too deeply into the technical minutiae and you risk boring non-technical readers. Skim too superficially and you fail to do the subject justice. In his new book, You Are Here: From the Compass to GPS, […]
The last couple of weeks were action packed. Two weeks ago, I spoke at the Texas Wireless and Microwave Circuits and System Symposium at Baylor University in Waco (see my post “Demystifying Electromagnetic Superposition“). Last week, I joined the Q-Track team in Orlando for RFID Journal Live, our industry’s leading […]
Blogging has been taking a back seat to everything else in my life, lately. This week, though, I have a variety of interesting and exciting developments to share. Today’s news is an update on the indoor location company I co-founded, Q-Track. The good news began a few month ago in […]
Employing Q-Track’s patented Near-Field Electromagnetic Ranging (NFER®) technology, Collision Avoidance Non-Line-of-Sight (CANLOS™) systems allow robots to detect and avoid colliding with their human co-workers even when when direct line-of-sight may be blocked. NFER® signals use low frequencies that penetrate better and diffract around obstructions that may block conventional RF and […]
There’s an abundance of wireless and location news from the past week. A new frontier for Google Maps: mapping the indoors | Google Blog Google maps adds indoor navigation | Engadget Google, Nokia, Ericsson And Navigation’s Next Frontier: The Great Indoors | Fast Company Malls tracked shopper’s cell phones on […]
Last week, Huntsville, AL-based Q-Track Corporation promoted Stephen A. Werner to Chief Executive Officer. Werner previously served as Chief Operating Officer. He brings over twenty-five years of executive experience to Q-Track, including previous service as VP and General Manager for AAR Summa Technology. Werner also held senior positions with Sanmina-SCI […]
This afternoon, I’ll be presenting at the Rocket City Geospatial Conference on the subject, “RTLS Enhancing Nuclear Safety.” Radiation exposure of workers in the nuclear industry poses a significant health hazard to the workers, and imposes substantial costs to the utilities that employ them. Q-Track has developed two Real-Time Location […]
Here are some recent GPS links of interest: GPS to track truant students in Anaheim. FoxNews.com – Experts Warn of ‘Death by GPS’ as More People Visit Remote Wildernesses. US Air Force raises concerns over LightSquared’s LTE network messing with GPS — Engadget. FAA warns of ongoing GPS issues in […]
In 1955, a Sears Department store in Colorado Springs, CO misprinted Santa’s phone number so children calling for Santa accidentally reached the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” Colonel Harry Shoup, Director of Operations, had his staff track Santa by radar and provide updates to the children who […]
Previously, ÆtherCzar passed on the Air Force’s warning to service members to avoid geolocation services. The U.S. Army has the same concern. Here’s why. GPS equipped smart phones and digital cameras can “geotag” photos – embedding GPS coordinates in the image that tell precisely where and when the picture was […]
Some of the latest happenings in wireless, just in time for Wireless Wednesday: Steven J. Crowley’s always interesting Experimental License Updates. Why broadcasters need FM on cell phones – it’s all about the money. Hat Tip: Steven J. Crowley. Wireless guru Shayan Sanyal has a new blog. Check out the […]
Springwise reports on “Parksense,” an application created by Paris-based SmartGrains. The system uses networked in-ground sensors to alert drivers to open parking spots.
Last week, Joshua Brustein reported at the New York Times that “Location-Based Services Have Not Caught On,” citing a Pew Center report that shows use of such services has declined from 5% to 4% over the last six months. The most current survey had a +/-3% margin of error. I […]
Time once again to clear out the update queue: Steven J. Crowley explains the many facets of what’s called “4G” technology. MatthewLasar writing at ArsTechnica explains how smartphone makers are ready to wage war over the FM chip mandate pushed by broadcasters. From TechCrunch: Experimental Real-Time Location Tracking Comes To […]
Wired’s Threat Level blog has the story of California student Yasir Afifi. His mechanic found an unusual electronic gadget in Afifi’s car, that turns out to be a tracking device. Then he posted pictures to Reddit. Interestingly, the crowd-sourced analysis pegged the exact make and model of the tracking device, […]
It was a busy week to have been out on vacation. Here are some RTLS and Location-Based Services links to help get caught up: My employer, NFER® RTLS vendor Q-Track, unveiled an updated website, took second place in the Global Security Challenge, West Coast Final, and was featured in RFID […]
Are you calling 911 on your cell phone because you need emergency assistance? Your cell phone provider has to be able to locate your phone to aid emergency responders in finding you. The current standard, Wireless Enhanced 911 or ‘E911″ Phase 1, requires cell phone providers to be able to […]
Periodically, I like to pass on interesting items that don’t warrant stand-alone posts. Here’s today’s list: ThingMagic continues their series on 100 innovative uses of RFID technology in 100 days at http://rfid.thingmagic.com/ Where, Inc., a location-based ad network, buys Local Ginger. More from the NYT. The Location-Based Services (LBS) market […]