Teknovis

Sometimes Google Maps gets it incorrect… The Mysterious Google Town of Argleton, Lancashire, England.

Tags: Google, UK

Hacker pilfers browser GPS location via router attack

Even if it is a month late :)

Oh – and Happy New Year while I am posting :D

Tags: GPS

I read yesterday that an Irish company called Cauwill Technologies won the Best Emerging Company category in the 2009 Seedcorn Business Competition. For more about the winners see Intertradeireland Seedcorn Competition Announces Winners.

Cauwill Technologies develop GPS based solutions for use with LBSs.

Tags: Cauwill Technologies, GPS

A friend recently made me aware of a new child locating service called num8 by a company called Lok8u. The service is delivered using a child-friendly watch that contains a GPS receiver, and it uses Google Maps to display the child’s location.

The Lok8u website claims:

Now available.. the world’s first GPS locator that locates your child…not just the device.

And…

num8 is the world’s first GPS locator device that has been specifically designed with children in mind.

I am wary of these claims… For example, I think that Wherify would dispute these claims (if it was still operating)!

Wherify Wireless Watches

I am sure that there are many others also!

Tags: Google, GPS, Lok8u, Wherify

I am hearing and reading a lot about Bing this week! Microsoft seems to be putting a lot of resources behind it! I have not tried using it yet. This is mostly because I am happy with Google, so there is no real incentive for me to change my search engine. I previously had very bad experiences with Cuil. (I must write about them here :o )

Today somebody showed me the Maps feature of Bing. I thought that the interface seemed nice, and the satellite photos were good. It certainly is as good as Google Maps.

However, then I was shown the Bird’s Eye view! This really impressed me!

Bird's Eye view of Camp Nou in Bing Maps

Above you can see the Bird’s Eye view of Camp Nou (home of the 2009 Champions League winners).

Tags: Cuil, Google, Microsoft

I previously described how Google will photograph the streets of Dublin for Google Street View in Google Street View Comes to Ireland.

This morning I spotted one of the cars taking the photos in the north side of the city! I am hoping that I will be visible when the photos are eventually published online!

The car that was being used was a red hatch-back, and I think that it had Irish registration plates on it. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to take a photo of it using my PDA :(

Tags: Google, Ireland

I came across another FriendFinder LBS today called Brightkite. It is interesting to see that this LBS includes many social networking features. I wonder is it only a matter of time before the mainstream social networking web sites start to include location functionality. Maybe they do already!

There is a great promotional story on the Brightkite blog titled New Feature: Brightkite now gives you more legroom… I was considering joining, but then I read Why I’m giving up on brightkite (for now). Now I am not so sure :|

Perhaps there are lots of other similar LBSs of which I am not aware! Perhaps I should make a list of them, and then try them! All I need to do is find the time…

Tags: Brightkite

A friend, with whom I previously work on LBSs, recently told me about a new realisation of the FriendFinder LBS. This realisation is developed by a German company, and you can read more about it in aka-aki.

Interestingly, privacy does not appear to be a major concern in relation to this LBS, as noted by my friend ;)

Tags: aka-aki, Germany

I read an interesting article during the week that described how Google Latitude was used to locate, apprehend, and arrest the thief of a stolen purse! I guess that this is great advertising for Google! To read the full article see Google nabs purse snatcher.

The most interesting thing that I learned from this article is that the telcos charge the police for this location information, and the charge varies depending on how fast the police want this information! I wonder if this only occurs in the US, or if it occurs in the EU also.

I am surprised that the telcos are not required to supply this location information free-of-charge due to either freedom of information (the mobile phone owner’s location information) or emergency services legislation!

Tags: Google

I read earlier this week that a man was found guilty of a hit and run in which the victim ultimately died. The man did not deny that the car was involved in the incident, but he did claim that he sold the car before the incident occurred. Therefore, he claimed that it was the new, and unidentified, owner who was guilty of the hit and run.

However, the police presented evidence from a mobile phone company that the man’s mobile phone, and by extension the man, was in the area of the incident at the time of the incident. Indeed, they even knew that the man was on a call at the time of the incident. The full article is Man jailed for fatal Dublin hit and run, but you need to view the video in order to hear about the location based evidence.

I think that it is very interesting the way that mobile phone location information is being increasingly used to solve crime in Ireland.

The first investigation that highlighted the use of location information relating to a mobile phone was the disappearance and death of Robert Holohan. See Holohan search called off for the night for more information.

More recently, mobile phone evidence was used to successfully convict Joe O’Reilly of the murder of his wife. For more about this see Mobile record clashes with O’Reilly alibi and O’Reilly trial hears details of mobile calls. Indeed, in this case the location aspects of the mobile phone evidence were questioned in the unsucessful appeal case, as described in Joe O’Reilly’s appeal is dismissed.

Tags: Ireland, Mobile Phone, Police