Archive for the ‘gps’ Category

Google, this is not funny!

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

google-is-evilGoogle’s joke may not be funny at all. Some people tend to NOT to think at all when using satellite navigation systems. Chances are, some of Google Maps users will blindly follow Google Maps directions…brrr terrifying!

Yet another proof Google is evil – literally wants the users to go down ;-)

libopenlr.org anyone?

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Slashgeo forwarded an interesting news about OpenLR initiative by TomTom. A part of it is an open industry standard. Another part of it is an open source code library which is coming soon.

In the meantime, as it seems the complete stack of PDFs has been published, would anyone be after libopenlr.org project, before TomTom will put its red hands on it? And the domain is still available, by the way :-)

Sanoodi plays OpenLayers

Monday, August 4th, 2008

Recently, I’ve been playing with Sanoodiactivity-based social networking website for participants in sports and leisure activities. The idea of Sanoodi is very similar to Sports Tracker by Nokia.

The Sanoodi version 1.1.0.0 is based on Google Maps API. It works well, rarely reporting errors. Today, I migrated my account to Sanoodi Beta available for mysterious Friday the 13th (month unspecified :-)). Besides new & ugly user interface, I’ve encountered that mapping capabilities in Beta are based on OpenLayers engine. Great choice, if my vote counts. The core of Sanoodi application is based on Django framework. Another good choice :-)

If you are doing any outdoor activities, Sanoodi is a nice gadget and worth to try. I recommend to use version 1.1.0.0 for regular diary. In my opinion, the Beta version is still unusable. It is throwing errors while saving preferences or uploading GPX file, Save button for new route sees to be not even linked, etc. BTW, I’ve reported all my problems to the Sanoodi Team. Hopefully, they will fix it soon.

Garmin goes Open Source

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

A week ago, LinuxDevices.com announced that Garmin opens source code of software used on their Nuvi 8xx and Nuvi 5xxx devices.

Now, it’s confirmed that Garmin uses Linux and GNOME software, more precisely, they use GNOME Mobile platform All packages are published on dedicated webiste http://developer.garmin.com/linux/

The Earth is Flat

Saturday, March 1st, 2008

It may be surprising, but some people still believe it is. Here is an interesting debate the Al-Fayhaa TV aired in 2007, during which astronomy researcher is arguing with physicist on this subject:

It’s been nearly 500 years since Nicolaus Copernicus and afterward Galileo Galilei proved with their researches that we do not leave on a plate but on a potato. Not to mention what we’ve learned from a number of space missions and explorations made with satellites. By the way of digression, how would the Global Navigation Satellite Systems work if the Earth was flat? Hmm…

Write your own map calibration tool

Monday, February 6th, 2006

Yesterday, the CodeProject announced new articles. One of them is a small tutorial about how to write simple map calibration tool in .NETGeo-referencing {Map Calibration} by Mohammad Riazi and H.Riazi.

Besides map calibration technique, this article explains rudiments of coordinates transformation between Geographic coordinates (latitude and longtitude) to Cartesian coordiantes (X, Y) on plane. Along clear explanation a set of simple equations is also provided. In my opinion this article is a good start for beginners of GIS and GPS applications.

ATVN: Video lecture about Geoid

Sunday, January 22nd, 2006

ATVN LogoGoing on with searching new videos I walked through polish Academic Internet Television Network. There I found another interesting program titled Geoida, in english – geoid. Unfortunately, it’s only available in polish language.

In modern geodesy and cartography scientists use satellites to do accurate and permanent observations of the Earth’s globe. Thanks to those new techniques we are able to verify geodetic and cartographic data we already have as well as collect new data about movement of the continents, measure strain in the Earth’s crust, and much more. Most of all, satellite based observations help to define accurate shape of the earth – geoid.

Here you can find the Geoida video. RealPlayer is required.