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SUV's GPS Device Helped Capture Boston Bombing Suspects

Thu, 02 May 2013 12:12:19 GMT

Late in the evening on April 18, Boston marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev carjacked a black Mercedes-Benz SUV in Cambridge, Mass. Its driver escaped shortly after midnight on April 19; the ensuing saga left one suspect dead, another in custody and an entire city on lockdown.

It turns out the Mercedes played a significant part in bringing the Tsarvnaev brothers down. The Boston Globe reports that the vehicle, an ML350 SUV, was leased by its owner, a 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur who wishes to remain anonymous. It had Mercedes' mbrace2 telematics system, complete with an app on the owner's iPhone that allowed him to track the vehicle's location. What followed was a bit of GPS sleuthing that shows stealing a car with an active telematics subscription — whether it's mbrace, GM's OnStar or others — is a fast way to get caught.

The Boston Globe details the moment Danny — the ML350 owner's American nickname, by which he requested identification — saw his chance. It was at a Shell station in Cambridge some 90 minutes after the carjacking began. The three pulled in for gas, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev walked into the convenience mart to pay the cash-only pump. That left Danny in the car with Dzhokhar's older brother, Tamerlan, who put down his weapon to futz with a navigation device. Danny unbuckled his seatbelt, flung the door open and fled to a Mobil station across the street. The Tsarnaev brothers sped off, and police arrived minutes later. Danny told them he could track the stolen car on his iPhone via the ML350's mbrace telematics system, and officials took over.

"We received a call from the authorities shortly after midnight," Mercedes spokeswoman Donna Boland told us. "They asked us to activate stolen vehicle tracking. After the appropriate verifications from the owner, we activated the system and, as we understand it, that helped the police to find and follow the vehicle," Boland said. She also confirmed the ML350 as a 2013 model.

It wasn't just a one-time contact. "My understanding is that we had to keep in touch with them [law enforcement] because, remember, it's one thing to know where the vehicle is at one moment in time," she said. "As the police go to that location, of course, the vehicle isn't there anymore."

Go to it, they did. As CNN documents the night's events, police tracked the ML350 into Watertown, Mass., exchanging gunfire with both suspects. The elder Tsarnaev died from his wounds; authorities caught the younger one some 19 hours later just blocks away.

What happened to the ML350? "That vehicle is probably a piece of [police] evidence that is going to remain so for a long, long time," Boland said. "We weren't involved anymore once they actually had the vehicle in sight. Needless to say, we're very happy that we could make that contribution."

Source: blogs.cars

How Mercedes' Next Gen GPS System Helped Catch The Boston Bombers 9

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:51:19 GMT

The talk of the country is still the bombers that terrorized Boston just two weeks ago. There's still much to learn about what motivated the alleged bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers, but we just found out that one of the unsung heroes of their capture is Mercedes and their advanced GPS telematics system.

Source: blodic

Supreme Court rules GPS tracking requires warrant

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:16:28 GMT

Legal authorities cannot use GPS tracking devices on a person's vehicle without first obtaining a search warrant, the United States Supreme Court has ruled. The ruling clarifies the Fourth Amendment right of Americans which protects them from unreasonable searches or seizures without a warrant and probable cause. The Amendment references "persons, houses, papers and effects."According to the new verdict, instances where "the government obtains information by physically intruding on a constitutionally protected area," includes an individual's car.

Massive ramifications
GPS tracking is often used by the police and other federal authorities to gain intelligence on the movement of suspects, so today's legal ruling has massive ramifications. Monday's verdict stems from a case where a man was able to overturn his conviction and sentence of life imprisonment for drug dealing. His legal team were able to prove to the court that police had installed a GPS tracking device on his jeep without a warrant. The Supreme Court justices agreed that the police had violated his "reasonable expectations of privacy."

Source: techradar

TomTom Unveils New GPS Watches with One Button Control, Runner and Multi-Sport

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:02:16 GMT

Today, TomTom unveiled what they’re claiming to be the industry’s first one-button control GPS Sports watches, the TomTom Runner and TomTom Multi-Sport . It’s been a while since I heard from TomTom, and ever since Google released free turn-by-turn maps app for both Android and iPhone I had written them off. Looks like I was wrong as these watches look to be the real deal.

The TomTom Runner, as the name suggests is geared towards those engaging in the singular sport of running. Like its more versatile brother, the TomTom Multi-Sport, it too features an extra-large, high-resolution and high-contrast display; one button control that lets you navigate up-down-left-right through menus; race against a virtual partner; and connect to Bluetooth associated devices, such as a heart rate monitor.

It would seem that both units are waterproof up to 50 meters, yet the Mult-sport watch, which is designed specifically for swimmers and triathletes, it can track lap and stroke information, as well as calculate a SWOLF score to show swim efficiency. It also has a built-in altimeter, cadence sensor and ships with a dedicated bike mount.

Both watches measure just 11.5mm thick and boast a 10 hour battery life with GPS engaged. Unfortunately, TomTom hasn’t announced pricing, but expect TomTom Runner and TomTom Multi-Sport to be available sometime this summer.

Source: gadgetreview

Smithsonian navigates history from Galileo to GPS

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:03:26 GMT

In the age of hand-held GPS devices, navigating by the stars may seem quaint and irrelevant. So it may come as a surprise that it took hundreds of years to develop the tools needed to find our way across oceans, through the air and into deep space.

On Friday, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum is opening its first major exhibit focused on navigation. It includes instruments that aviator Charles Lindbergh used to learn celestial navigation and the clock he used during his milestone trans-Atlantic flight — along with much luck — to help make his way from New York to Paris in 1927.

The museum pulled together stories and objects from major milestones and breakthroughs over the course of 300 years for the new permanent exhibition "Time and Navigation: The Untold Story of Getting from Here to There." The $3.5 million gallery shows the evolution of marine, air and space navigation, as well as a glimpse of the future with a robotic-driven car that can navigate a race course.

Navigation proved a worthy topic for the museum because it's something we often take for granted nowadays, curator Paul Ceruzzi said. "It's an invisible utility. It's like electric power or telephones," he said. "It's so critical to our daily lives, but it's invisible. You don't see it."

In order for people to know where they are on a map, they need a reliable clock. The first clocks were invented in Europe in the 1300s, but creating a clock that could keep accurate time at sea wasn't invented until the late 1700s. It was a challenge some of the greatest minds tried to tackle, including Galileo, said Curator Carlene Stephens, who oversees the clock collection at the National Museum of American History.

The new exhibit shows early instruments used by mariners and models of clocks designed by Galileo, as well as the earliest marine chronometer made in the United States during the War of 1812. The advent of radio navigation was pivotal for air travel, though it came after Lindbergh's historic flight. In 1931 and 1933, Wiley Post and navigator Harold Gatty flew the Lockheed Vega "Winnie Mae" to break the records for around-the-world flights. The plane is the gallery's centerpiece.

The museum also is showing milestones in space navigation, including the advent of the atomic clock, a sextant that Apollo astronauts used to go to the moon and systems used to send spacecraft to other planets. In more recent years, innovators combined all these past discoveries to develop satellite navigation and the military's breakthroughs to create the Global Positioning System that so many people use now on smartphones and cars.

"I don't think people realize that we shrank (navigational) devices that filled up rooms. It's now handheld," Ceruzzi said. The story of navigation has been mostly untold and key innovations are largely forgotten, Stephens said.

"It's for people who live in a technical world who don't think science and technology have anything to do with them," she said. "We have chosen to be a society based on science and technology, and it has a lot to do with us, whether we think it does or not."

Source: sfgate

GPS bracelet uses social media to protect Civil Rights Activists

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 20:42:16 GMT

The Civil Rights Defenders have issued their first batch of GPS bracelets that will alert the CRDs’ headquarters, other nearby activists, and the entirety of the CRDs’ social media following if the bracelet’s owner is ever kidnapped. The first 5 bracelets were issued from April 2nd through April 5th during the Civil Rights Defenders’ conference, Defenders’ Days. The CRD plans on issuing 55 of these bracelets over the next year and a half.

The bracelets are described as a personal alarm, and the product is called the “Natalia Project”. It was named after Natalia Estemirova, a human rights defender who, in 2009, was murdered within 24 hours of being kidnapped. The CRD believed that if the authorities were alerted sooner of Natalia’s kidnapping, the tragedy could have been prevented. Robert Hårdh, the Executive Director of Civil Rights Defenders, stated that these bracelets “gives us an opportunity to react faster and extend our hands-on protection further.”

The GPS bracelet can be activated manually, or if an attacker forcefully removes it from the activist’s wrist. A signal with the activist’s GPS location will be sent to the CRD headquarters in Stockholm. Alerts will also be sent out to other CRD activists within the vicinity, and an automatic notification will be sent out throughout the Natalia Project’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The Civil Rights Defenders state that these bracelets could potentially alert hundreds of thousands of people instantly. It would also put pressure on the attacker, because having the entire world become aware of the attack “creates virtual protection around civil rights defenders at risk.” Unfortunately, the CRD requires additional money to get these bracelets to more activists. Its asking anyone who can help to support the Natalia Project with any donation amount they can afford. You can find out more about the Natalia Project here.

Source: slashgear

GPS Devices or GSM With GPS: Are Cell Phones The Future Of GPS?

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:59:42 GMT

Back in the old days when GPS was declassified by the military and the public was allowed full use through commercial signals, GPS devices were big clumsy gizmos that were composed of a personal computer, a giant disc where map information is stored, and another monitor. Then came the single-channel receivers and the first handheld units with black and white maps that introduced the world to the numerous wonders of Global Positioning Systems.

The technology was an exclusive utilisation of the army prior to it being declassified and having this same James Bond-type of capacities appealed to a few of the people who were prepared to hand over more than $500 for a device whose only function is to plot their coordinates on a digital map. But such price tags were sufficient in those days, in return for correct positional information for automobiles, boats, planes and other applications that need info regarding their coordinates.

This technology has gone a long way since then, as GPS navigational devices at last became smaller, more portable, more affordable, and packed with extra features. Other gadgets are riding on this popularity of GPS, for example incorporating cell-phone functionalities with GPS capabilities. The result's a continual competition between portable navigational devices and GSM telephones with GPS capacities in regards to what technology shall set the way forward for GPS.

China Changing the Name of the Ball Game
China's rise to economic power caused a rush of China-made products and gadgets into the global market, including GPS navigational devices. Online wholesalers are selling a wide selection of products and their in-flow into the world market resulted in important price falls on GPS devices. To keep prices at low levels, wholesalers distribute GPS products without pre-installed exclusive software and applications. They do however , offer unlocked GPS devices that can work with commercially available or perhaps open source GPS software.

Cellphones With GPS Functionalities
Microchips were developed that can provide GPS functionalities to cellphones, and these were first commercially introduced in 2004. Then in 2005, the federal Communications Commission issued a mandate called E911 that needed telephone manufacturers to include GPS receivers into their mobile phones. This law was essentially set to help emergency reply units simply find the unit position during emergencies.

The booming popularity of smartphones and 3G mobile devices made a rush of developers as well as OEM GPS manufacturers to introduce a wide selection of GPS Apps that may be used with these cellphones. Such applications provide a wide range of functionalities to these phones, some of which were exclusive features of stand-alone portable navigational devices. These include turn-by-turn navigational information for users and a large number of other features that GPS users may find extremely useful.

However , GPS phones lack the type of screen resolution that installed GPS receivers on vehicles and other automobiles have. This is due largely partly to the display size limitations that cell telephones have. Some users may find these screen constraints difficult to use especially when working with maps, and is not practical to use as a navigational device while driving.

The Future Of Cellular Telephones With GPS Functionalities
The rise of cellular phones with GPS functionalities is a serious blow to the private navigational device market. Many folks are taking advantage of the assorted applications available with smartphones including its incorporated GPS features that many smartphone users find it unrealistic to have a separate device only for GPS navigation.

This prompted GPS devices makers to incorporate a large number of other features into these devices that go past their core functionality of getting satellite coordinates and giving directions. These added features include multi media player capacities, Bluetooth, FM transmitters, net browsing and other features and capacities that would supply a boost to the market appeal of these GPS devices.

Excepting their core functionalities, a thin line divides the features between a personal GPS navigator and GPS telephones. Both are setting trends towards the way ahead for GPS, but only the response of buyers to these trends will at last determine which will be the dominant GPS technology in the future.

Bike industry PR in national press with GPS device for pets

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 08:29:39 GMT

Bike industry marketing and PR man David Evans is in the national press today with a creation of his - the Gpaws 'CatNav' GPS. Appearing in The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Times, Evans' creation is now available via Accapi, a pet and outdoor specialist.

The lightweight (30g) device attaches to either a cat or dog collar and uses a multi-channel GPS receiver to record the adventures of your pet. The unit works alongside a free-to-use website, g-paws.com. The site incorporates free mapping to enable users to keep records of their pets’ movements and see other owner’s tracklogs on a social network platform. Battery life on a single charge is around eight to ten hours. The G-paws unit connects to a computer via a mini USB cable (supplied) for both charging and data transfer.

Accapi will have the product available from May, priced at £50, ready for a Spring Summer 2013 launch. The unit will come with three collar attachments giving it a secure and robust fixing to small cat collars, dog collars and even oversized collars.

Source: bikebiz

Can You Be Tracked With GPS Phone Data?

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 09:32:45 GMT

A new study shows that it's possible to use mobile phone location data to find an individual. Researchers say that, in most cases, getting four confirmed locations for a person is enough to identify their handset.

The study's findings appear in the latest edition of Scientific Reports. According to the researchers, most users understand and accept that mobile phone service providers track their locations. Customers are usually 'OK' with this because the data is kept confidential and only provided to law enforcement authorities after a warrant has been issued. (Source: nature.com)

Anonymous Phone Records Not-So Secret
In theory, even if somebody accessed phone service data without permission, they'd have no way to tie it to a specific individual. However, the researchers say phone users give up location details in a range of other ways that could identify them.

For example, if your home or work address is publicly available because you've published them online, or because they are part of public records, hackers could use this information to acquire your location. Locations can also be revealed when you knowingly, or unknowingly, include your location details when publishing a social network status update or photograph.

To test this idea, the researchers were granted access to 15 months worth of mobile phone data for 1.5 million users. This data told them where every phone had been once per hour during this time. They weren't told which phones corresponded to which users. The researchers then set about taking known locations and times and cross-referencing that information with phone data.

Four Known Locations Make Near-Perfect Match
The results: with just two known points, the researchers could correctly identify more than half of all users. Once they knew where a person had been on four occasions, they had a 95 per cent chance of identifying their handset.

Luckily, the risks are fairly limited: a snooper would need to gain unauthorized access to phone records to take advantage of these patterns. However, the researchers say their findings should be a reminder of the importance of data protection laws for both phone records and other location data.

Source: opposingviews

Four new Oregon touchscreen GPS devices pop up on Garmin's website (updated)

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 11:54:08 GMT

As Garmin hasn't made any official announcement, we can't tell you when these sneaky handheld GPS navigators first showed up on the company's website, but say hello to the Oregon 600, 600t, 650 and 650t. Aesthetically, they all look identical, with a 3-inch "transflective color TFT touchscreen" in portrait orientation (240 x 400 resolution). Similarly, they share the overwhelming majority of internal specs, and all track your jaunts into the great outdoors using GPS and GLONASS.

The only major differences we can find on the spec sheets are that the t-marked models come with Garmin's "TOPO US 100K maps" preloaded, and that both 650 units boast an 8-megapixel camera. As the Garmin pages note, the models cost between $400 and $550, but they won't be available for purchase until our FCC overlords allow it. Head to the source link if you'd like to know more. Update: The official PR is out and we've embedded it below. Give it a read if you want a thorough overview of the new Oregon handhelds, which are slated for release in Q1 2013.

Source: engadget