Richard's Tech Reviews

Google MyTracks - Android GPS track recording and sharing

Today Google announced in their Mobile blog an application for Android phones to record, display and share GPS tracks.

Today Dylan Casey, a former professional cyclist, announced another location-based service from Google. My Tracks is a new Android application that makes it easy to record your routes when cycling, running, hiking, or doing pretty much any outdoor activity.

Record your training routes with the My Tracks Android App - Google Mobile blog - February 12, 2009

The application site

http://mytracks.appspot.com/

includes a video explaining the application, sample maps, and other information.  The FAQ says you can get tracks out in GPX or KML format (in an email attachment, which seems a bit inconvenient, or saved to the phone's memory card).

This is another step in the mainstreaming of GPS track logging.

You can get a T-Mobile G1 through Amazon.com (as is usual, the price is based on you getting a T-Mobile service plan).

Sony GPS-CS3KA - next generation GPS logger finally announced

After essentially creating the category of GPS loggers for photo geotagging with the GPS-CS1 in 2006, Sony inexplicably let the product languish for three years with only minor upgrades.  They fell so far behind I have been recommending other brands rather than the CS1.  I had been waiting for a "GPS-CS2" to appear, but they've skipped all the way ahead to GPS-CS3KA.

Some key features:

• built-in Memory Stick Duo and SD card slots, apparently to support hardware geotagging (similar to ATP PhotoFinder)
• LCD display
• 128 MB internal memory
• compatibility with Sony camcorders for geotagging video (it's not clear to me how it does this; there is no video geotagging standard)
• comes with Sony Picture Motion Browser version 4.2 software ("Mac not supported")

It takes one AA battery, but they offer "Long life battery (sold separately) for a one-day trip, up to 15 hours" - the Sony LR6 battery, apparently.  Or if I'm reading it right, 7 hours on an HR6 NiMH battery (it lists 14 hours, but that appears to be by using two HR6s, one after the other).

The downsides:
* There is no information about what GPS chipset it is using.  (More discussion on this below.)
* There is no indication of Mac compatibility (if it's not, it would be very disappointing - it took a ridiculously long time for the previous CS1 to finally be Mac-compatible)
* List price is at the high end, at US$150

It's not clear if you can use the memory card slots to store GPS tracks, or only for inserting memory cards from cameras in order to geotag the photos they store.  It's also not clear if it mounts as a USB drive, like the CS1, or whether it uses some custom serial-to-USB protocol like other loggers.

Sensitivity

I wish manufacturers would make it easier to know exactly what chipset they're using, and its sensitivity.  An older version of the SonyStyle page lists (rather incongruously under audio - presumably someone was confused by the listing of frequencies and dBm)

* Frequency Response : 1575.42 MHz (L1 band, C/A code)
* Sensitivity : -159dBm or less (average, while tracking)

Screenshot from cached version of SonyStyle.com:

If this is true,

it indicates a modern high-sensitivity chipset, and a dramatic improvement over the
-150dBm of the CS1.  (For GPS sensitivity, more negative is more sensitive, and even a single dBm is a fairly substantial improvement.)  Unfortunately, the current version of the SonyStyle USA page no longer lists these specifications.

I will try to find out more information about this device.

UPDATE 2009-05-01: I now have the GPS-CS3 so here are answers to some of the above items I crossed out:

* It mounts as a USB drive, like the CS1, and the USB drive is Mac-compatible, so you can download the logs (processing the logs on the Mac is left to you; no Mac software is provided).  See my posting Sony GPS-CS3 is a Mac compatible GPS logger for more information.

* The external memory cards you insert cannot be used to store logs, only for geotagging digital camera photos

* The manual lists specs of 20-channels, -159dBm

ENDUPDATE

You can see the menu (GPS, Matching, Tools) in the large version of the following image.

Images from Sony Image Gallery - GPS-CS3KA  Image Album.

Amazon.com is currently (May 1, 2009) showing it in stock.

Previously:
June 03, 2008  GPS-CS1 reported fixed in Mac 10.5.3
January 31, 2008  Sony announces GPS-CS1KASP, everyone yawns
September 15, 2006  my review of the Sony GPS-CS1 datalogger with photo geocoding

The GPS Revolution - NHPR radio interview

Most of us know GPS, or global positioning systems, as the things that give talking driving directions. Now smart phones like the Google Phone and the iPhone have dozens of applications that use GPS to connect with others and to find everything from the nearest coffee shop to identifying constellations in the night sky.

New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) - The GPS Revolution - February 4, 2009

They interview Mat Honan, who wrote the Wired article about GPS applications.

Interview is 9:40 into the audio of the show - listen to the audio in your browser or download the MP3 from Word of Mouth - February 4, 2009.

Google Latitude mainstreams social location tracking

Google Latitude is a primarily-cellphone service for sharing your current location with friends.  As such it's quite similar to the services reviewed by Mathew Honan in Wired, as well as to Google's now-discontinued Dodgeball service.  BrightKite and Yahoo's FireEagle also have aspects similar to this service, although FireEagle is more of a general infrastructure for exchanging location information.

Latitude has quite broad cellphone platform support, with versions for Android (naturally), BlackBerry, Windown Mobile 5 and S60, with iPhone and J2ME support promised.

You can get an idea of the control you have over your location info based on this screen from the site

There is also a web interface to the location info, as well as the cellphone applications.

Of course, one can also speculate that knowing in great precision where users are could also help Google in shaping hyper-local search and advertising offerings.

Search Engine Land says

Latitude is not a separate service that people need to separately adopt and configure but an extension of existing Maps for Mobile functionality. People simply need to download the latest version of Maps for their phone and opt-in to location sharing.

They also indicate that Latitude was an independent development from Dodgeball.

(Thanks to Eric Schnell for the SEL pointer.)

UPDATE: In viewing the demo, there's no indication of a time, event, friend list subset, or proximity limit option on Latitude.  I can see for example wanting to set various combinations of privacy limits - e.g. you can see my locations during the day, but not at night, or (a certain group of people) can see my location while I'm at a conference or other event, or some new contacts are allowed to see my location for a few days, but not afterwards, or you can only see my location IF you're in my friend list AND you're within a km of me.

I also don't see the "location detail" options that Fire Eagle has (for example, I might be comfortable sharing that I am in a particular city, but not my exact location within that city).

Previously:
January 26, 2009  Wired 17.02: GPS