81-year old Australian says sat nav is ‘no fun’
November 18, 2009
An 81-year old Australian lost his way on a regular drive to the newspaper shop and ended up almost 600km away from where he started. In what was a usual trip to the buy the day’s newspaper, Eric Steward took the wrong turn and called for help from the Victoria state police after eight hours. Police officer Clayton Smith said that Mr Steward came up to him at a service station saying that he was lost. On asking why hadn’t he stopped for help earlier, added officer Smith, Mr Steward just said “‘I just like to drive”.
Just because he “liked to drive”, the 81-year old kept driving on for eight hours, without a satellite navigation system, uncertain of where he was. Though he didn’t know where he was going, Mr Steward said that he knew he was “somewhere” and that “with a bit of luck” he would eventually find his wife again. With age to vouch for him, Mr Steward was rather unconcerned about the entire episode.
Had a satellite navigation system been installed in the car, the 81-year old would never have been lost in the first place. When asked why he hadn’t done so, Mr Steward simply asked, “Why would you want one of those? You cannot get lost. There’s no fun in that.”
Satellite Navigation technology to be used by brain surgeons
November 17, 2009
Apart from assisting in drivers locate the right road, satellite navigation systems will now aid brain surgeons to locate tumours and vital blood vessels. The technology will also be used to guide them along the right path during critical operations and will help in avoiding wrong turns that could affect the patient. The Royal Preston Hospital in Lancashire houses two speciality brain surgery theatres that include one of the most technologically advanced brain navigation systems in the world.
Donated by the Sydney Driscoll Neuro Science Foundation, the equipment is presently being used during brain tumour and spinal injury operations and could also be used for delicate surgical procedures in the future. According to Consultant neurosurgeon Aprajay Golash, the brain navigation equipment will have a brain scan which will recognise “where an instrument is in the brain”. He also added that the procedure was very delicate, as there was no “second chance if a structure gets damaged.”
Zoombak Offers Free iPhone App to Locate your Zoombak
November 16, 2009
Zoombak, the manufacturer of advanced GPS tracking solutions offers a free iPhone app, which enables users to locate, and track the Zoombak right from their iPhone. To elaborate, it is an interface to locate Zoombak devices that the user already owns.
This app can lets you know about the location of the Zoombak device on-demand. Operation of this app is also much easier. A click on the ‘Find-Now’ can display the current location of the selected device on the map. Of more interest to users, the location information comes with street address, speed, direction, longitude or latitude. There is also an option to switch between road, satellite and hybrid view.
Moreover, Zoombak’s new iPhone App can track the device continuously, and get the updates every five minutes. There are other two methods to track the Zoombak device. These include the one using website, and the other of sending SMS to the device.
DirectUS launches new Rear View Mirror GPS Navigation System
November 14, 2009
DirectUS has launched a new rear view satellite navigation system. This GPS navigation system equipped with rear view mirror features a 4 inches touch screen display that sits alongside of the mirror. The best part of this system is that the wires are concealed inside and hence, no dangling cables are seen outside.
DirectUS GPS Mirror features a bluetooth capability, which allows the user to attend calls handsfree. It employs a 400MHz processor with a 16 channel tracking GPS receiver, and an in-built speaker for voice directions. Another impressive feature in it is its 7 million points of interest. This provides an extensive lists of hotels, theatres, stadiums and so on.
Furthermore, text to speech facility, the ability to hook up to rear view camera when reverse gear is used are also integrated into it. The navigation software loaded in it is from NavNGo. The device has 64MB of internal memory.
Information on its price is not known.
Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System for civilian use
November 13, 2009
Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System GLONASS is to be used for civilian purpose in India. In a bid to give India a hand in combating terrorism, Russia has not only given the thumbs up for civilian use of their GLONASS, but has also backed India’s Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. GLONASS is a radio-based satellite navigation system developed by the former Soviet Union. It is now being operated for the Russian Space Forces by the government.
Presently, GLONASS supposedly consists of 16 operational satellites and 3 under maintenance. Seen as an alternative to the Global Positioning System and Galileo that is under development by the European Union, this Russian Global Navigation Satellite System’s development began way back in 1976 and was developed for the determination of velocity and real time position. Reports suggest that Russia is also willing to provide India an exploration block in Yamal, known for it’s abundant gas reserves.
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