gps

344 Articles

Recent News Followup

June 2, 2008 by 18 Comments


Last week we talked about a single rumored arrest over the OiNK torrent tracker. Since then, there’s been a confirmed report of 6 arrests. The arrests appear to be the result of users uploading pre-release music to the now defunct site. For some time, police have had access to the OiNK user records minus the passwords which are thought to be stored as a salted MD5 hash. It seems British authorities can force these individuals to reveal passwords under something called the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

The Phoenix Mars Lander (pictured above) has found what might be a large piece of ice directly underneath it. This week the lander will scoop up a sample, melt its contents and test the various gases it releases. Twitter users can watch the mission’s progress in semi real time by following the MarsPhonix account. Lastly it looks like the official website for this mission was defaced through a SQL injection attack.

We already reported the world’s largest GPS drawing as a hoax. It has however inspired a few to look closer at the concept of position based art and others have already created authentic works. Our friends over at BoingBoing even made a little flash application to create your own “Unimpressive GPS Art“. Upon hearing of the hoax we were quick to draw up a brand new proposal for DHL using Google maps.

Biggest Drawing In The World Created With GPS

May 24, 2008 by 44 Comments


UPDATE: The text: “This is fictional work. DHL did not transport the GPS at any time” has been added to the bottom of the page since the original posting.

Artist [Erik Nordenankar] has created the Biggest Drawing In The World. At least that’s what his URL says. He used the movement of a GPS device to create a giant single line self portrait on the globe. His Pelican case containing four large batteries and the GPS data logger was handed off DHL with very specific travel instructions for its 55 day journey. It’s a pretty amazing feat, but we really wish the case had managed to make the trip without the close watch shown in the video.

Continue reading “Biggest Drawing In The World Created With GPS” →

Hack-upgrade Your Magellan GPS

December 10, 2007 by 11 Comments


[dgoeken] sent in his Magellan 3100 hack. The device runs Windows CE 5.0, and mounts as a standard flash drive. Since everything is easily accessible, it’s just a matter of replacing and modifying the appropriate files. According to the GpsPassion message board, some are finding his guide useful for other models of Magellan GPS. So far he’s added a file manager, media player and upgraded the Points of Interest file. The site is slightly bandwidth challenged, so I’ve mirrored his hack process here.

Build Your Own GPS And GLONASS Receiver

October 4, 2007 by 17 Comments

[superlopez] sent in this detailed article (mirrored here and here) which describes how to build a GPS and GLONASS (the Russian version of GPS) receiver. The resulting device is gigantic compared to one of those tiny bluetooth USB GPS units, but the ability to build one’s own receiver is one of those post-apocalyptic skills I sure would like to have. The creator of the article [Matjaz Vidmar] aka [S53MV] also has pages on Packet-Radio (PKT) transceiver improvements (PKT gets my vote for the best post-apocalyptic technology, and the only believable technology featured in the Transformers movie), and a more sophisticated homemade frequency counter than the one featured earlier this summer.

In 2005 we featured a from-scratch GPS receiver as well, thought the project site seems to be down. If your GPS unit just needs a better antenna, check out [Will]’s how-to from last year.

Python On The Telit GSM/GPS Module (vehicle Tracking)

August 18, 2007 by 2 Comments


[Nick] caught [Alex]s GPS enabled AVR, so he sent in his project using the same Telit GM862 module. Rather than depend on an external AVR, he wanted to use the on-board python interpreter. Apparently, documentation is a bit sparse, so he put together a good write-up on developing python for the device. Since the GPS unit takes up the com port previously used for debugging info, he added a hardware python debugging board to speed development.

SMS Tracking With A GPS GSM Enabled AVR

July 15, 2007 by 20 Comments


[Alex] sent in some of his latest work. He interfaced some not so cheap components to give an AVR GPS and GSM I/O. For now it can read the GPS position and send text messages. Thanks to the GPS/GSM module, the schematic is pretty simple – anyone with basic soldering skills and a desire to put a dent in their credit card can probably build this. (Programming the AVR is probably the most difficult task)