So, I wanted to add a GPS receiver to my Mini 9, but I didn't want to have to use a dongle or other external device. I figured that a netbook really ought to just have it built in, so that's what I decided to do...

The idea behind the GPS-A-Sketch was to create an open shareable design that many users could use as the foundation for a modular, user-programmable, portable, GPS receiver. As the technology comes down in price (A Garmin eTrex of slightly lower specs can currently be had for $130), this technology should begin to be used for alternative uses (other than getting directions to the Walmart).

Potential uses could be in entertainment (locative games), art, r/c robotics, tracking and hopefully some things I haven't even thought of.

The device should be easy to program (with user designed modular libraries), and allow for modular hardware addition, such as WiFi, accelerometers, sensors and interface components. I've chosen the Arduino based RBBB from modern devices as the initial processor, because of the vast resources and ease of use associated to the Arduino microcontroller platform, and the tiny form factor of the RBBB.

For now, the cost of a unit comes in at about $130 with the addition of an FTDI cable and shipping, bringing the total closer to $160 on a per/unit basis. Obviously there will eventually be ways to get this cost down below $100, including a single circuit board, and some shared bulk ordering on components.

Jon Warner of Argonne National Laboratories set out to examine GPS security one Saturday afternoon. Jon is part of the Vulnerability Assessment Team (VAT), a small group whose goal is to uncover flaws in our systems so that they can be fixed. “We try to think like the bad guys,” Jon said, “so that we can plug the holes they might use.”

To test out GPS security, Roger Johnston, head of the VAT, challenged the team to demonstrate how to steal a cargo truck and get away with it. Cargo trucks generally contain a GPS tracking device which relays position and speed information to a central office. This enables freight companies to track their drivers’ locations and ensure that trucks are on course. If a truck veers off course, it sets off an alarm at headquarters. If an attacker could falsify or “spoof” GPS information, he or she could hijack the truck and steal the cargo without being noticed.

The chips cost $4,000 plus an annual fee of $2,200....

Xega, based in the central Mexican city of Quererato, designed global positioning systems to track stolen vehicles until a company owner was kidnapped in broad daylight in 2001. Frustrated by his powerlessness to call for help, the company adapted the technology to track stolen people.

Most people get the chips injected into their arms between the skin and muscle where they cannot be seen. Customers who fear they are being kidnapped press a panic button on an external device to alert Xega which then calls the police.

"Before, they only kidnapped key, well-known economically successful people like industrialists and landowners. Now they are kidnapping people from the middle class," said Sergio Galvan, Xega's commercial director.

...Xega sees kidnapping as a growth industry and is planning to expand its services next year to Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.

Anyone know or have some guesses?

More:

• RFID and Text-To-Speech Modules Video Podcast.
• Interview with RFID implanter.
• RFID aesthetics article.
• @ DEFCON RFID World record attempt...
• MAKE VIDEO PODCAST - Getting "Chipped"

It's the first day of 5 in 5 and there's a parade of projects. See the gang free themselves from Positioning Systems, choose their food decisively, sash a speaker, stick socks to a tee, mate software circles, print Mega Man, enliven their claw prizes, greet with robots, calm a TV, root for poops, Eco-nomize a billfold, season some mittens, dramatize their voicemail, cut their own coins and Franken their Faces. This motivated group of ITP students and their Guest Star, Bre Pettis did each project in a single day and they'll do another four each this week for a total of around 50 different projects in five days!

Days: 1 2 3 4 5

In 2007, Valve Software released Portal, one of the most enjoyable and creative video games of the year.

But you already know that.

I have created a custom voice file for GPS units with a stylized voice in the fashion of GLaDOS, the charmingly creepy antagonist of the game. That's right. You can now dutifully follow directions from your GPS unit all the while wondering if the next instruction will lead you to your GPS-planned doom in a car wash retrofitted with flame throwers and sawmill blades. Take a look at the video below for a very quick sample of the voice.

Eight members of Team DeLorme’s cycling group made the long trip from Yarmouth, Maine, down to New York City to participate in the 2008 NYC 5 Boro Bike Tour. The weather was great and the opportunity to ride through the heart of such an impressive city without any automobile traffic was amazing!

The 5 Boro Bike Tour is even bigger in person than described on Bike New York’s web site. You really have to be in the middle of the pack to appreciate what 30,000 cyclists look like! I’ve uploaded video clips (See a couple of favorite videos at the end of this post) from a helmet cam along with some photos taken by people in our group. Check them out to get a feel for the magnitude of this event. I see why the ride has earned the title of ”largest recreational cycling event in the nation!”

As usual, the Earthmate GPS PN-20 was with me throughout the ride. While it was impossible to get lost with that many riders, it was still good to see where we were on the route. I’ve included a screen shot from our XMap software so that you can see how I’ve linked the video clips into the map to make a nice project file for sharing with the other riders.

AS WE ALL KNOW, GPS SIGNALS ARE WEAK. At a receiver's antenna, in the open air, their strength is about -160 dBW or 1 × 10-16 watts. Compare this to a cell-phone signal, which might be -60 dBW or 1 × 10-6 watts -- 10 billion times stronger! While code correlation in the receiver lifts the GPS signals above the background noise floor, the signals are still relatively fragile, and building walls and other obstructions can significantly attenuate the received signal power so that they cannot be tracked by a conventional receiver.

It is the ratio of the signal power to the noise power per unit bandwidth that determines the trackability of the signal. Accordingly, if the receiver's noise floor should increase sufficiently, even in an outdoor environment, the signals may also become untrackable. This can happen when the receiver is subjected to intentional or unintentional radio-frequency interference (RFI) by a transmitter operating on or near GPS frequencies. If the interference is strong enough, it can jam the receiver. Although intentional jamming is typically of concern only to military GPS users, unintentional jamming can occur anywhere and anytime and can affect large numbers of users within the range of the jamming transmitter. The jamming incident in San Diego harbor in January 2007, for example, affected all GPS users within a range of about 15 kilometers including a medical services paging network.

Such jamming renders a GPS receiver inoperable. But how do users know that their receivers are being jammed and not suffering some other type of malfunction? Clearly it would be advantageous for users to receive a heads-up when jamming signals are present and, if possible, for the receiver to take corrective action automatically.

In this month's column, we look at some simple techniques, which can be easily incorporated into the design of a GNSS receiver, to detect, characterize, and actually mitigate RFI. Such receiver enhancements will benefit civilian and military users alike.

Though many details of the JLOC system operation cannot be released, Jim Dalrymple, JLOC lead at Navsys Corp., explains some of its principles of operation. "Modern GPS receivers include the capability to detect GPS interference and can provide reports showing higher than normal signal levels in the GPS band and lower than normal signal/noise ratio. This condition indicates the presence of a GPS threat. The JLOC system allows networked GPS receivers to send reports to the JLOC Master Station of detected interference, acting as JLOC sensors. The JLOC Master Station is designed to collate these reports to provide near real-time situational awareness on GPS threats to military users." Bruce Bockius, who supports JLOC Master Station operations, indicated that thousands of JLOC sensor reports are now being received daily.

Testing during the GPS Jamfest conducted regularly by the 746th Test Squadron has proven the JLOC system operation under elaborate jamming scenarios. Saffel explained: "By providing the warfighter tools situational awareness on the GPS threats and their predicted effects on military operations, they are able to plan their missions accordingly and also develop tactics to counter the threats where appropriate."

More:

• Open source jammer, the WaveBubble.
• GPS jamming around the world.
• Interference Head-Up: Receiver Techniques for Detecting and Characterizing RFI.

Garmin introduces a completely redesigned GPS dog tracking collar for use with the Astro GPS Dog Tracking System. The new collar is more rugged and its antennas are positioned differently for optimal tracking.

"The new DC 30 collar is designed to stand up to the torturous abuse of hunting dogs. Whether it's hounds crashing through thick and swampy woods, or bird dogs bounding through dense CRP fields, the DC 30 is made to take the beating that working dogs dish out daily," said Dan Bartel, Garmin's vice president of worldwide sales. "And the new configuration also makes mounting the collar a cinch -- while improving reception."

The DC 30 collar's main housing is weighted to sit below the dog's neck, while a small, low-profile GPS antenna is integrated into the collar strap and positioned on top of the dog's neck, providing a clear view of satellites with minimal rotation. The transmitter antenna originates from the lower housing, and has been redesigned for more flexibility and ruggedness. No counterbalance or harness is needed. The weight for the transmitter plus antenna is 4.1 ounces, and the entire DC 30 weighs just 8.7 ounces.

This shield requires a GPS module (sometimes called an "engine board" or "engine module") to receive the timecode data from GPS satelites. There are dozens of GPS modules on the market, each with slightly different specifications. The Adafruit GPS shield v1.0 supports 4 popular hobbyist modules and is geared specifically for the EM-406A: the required connector is already soldered on and ready to go. If you want to use a different module, check the parts list for the required connector as they are not included.

As others have commented... this seems a little fishy, but it's possible.

This "Butterfly GPS" device was built with an ATmega169 microcontroller, a GPS receiver board based on the SiRF chipset, and an LCD screen that reads out the data in real-time as location, date and time. Very simple construction and nice details on how it was built at the PDF link below.

A Butterfly GPS (PDF), [via]

Here are some of their latest products that looked interesting to me...


The AVR-GSM.

Series 2.5 XBee module with Wire antenna.

The GPS stick.

Here is the simplest build-it-yourself GPS tracker yet. No expensive GSM module required - I am using the $20 GoPhone from WalMart or Target. Uses a 14-pin AVR microcontroller, a voltage regulator, a transistor, a GPS module 2 inches across, and that's it. My open source firmware can track objects automatically or manually. Has a programmable command interpreter that can sense or control pretty much anything by text messaging.

Here's a how-to on building a low cost vehicle tracker using the Telit GM862-GPS module. The GM862-GPS is a hardware module that supports connections on local GSM networks as well as GPS signals. In addition, this device supports a Python interpreter which allows for easy interfacing to build a simple tracker. Lots of info at the below link.

Developing a vehicle tracker - Link

It's not quite small enough to track your cat, but the Uber Tracker is a beast of a product. This device may seem simple enough: get GPS coordinates and broadcast those coordinates over the cellular network - but it's so much more! The Uber Tracker has open firmware and hackability. It's also completely PTCRB and FCC certified meaning it is fully licensed to operate on any GSM network in North America. Configure the unit, power it up, and you'll get an update every few minutes of the device's position to your phone, your website, or your SQL database. Could you track your car? Sure. Ever wonder where your donated clothing goes? What about biological samples? It's 'big brother' - but you get to play the older sibling's role.

The evaluation board using the ET312 SiRF III GPS receiver is finally done! This board will allow you to play with this very small but powerful GPS receiver.

Cherry Blossoms is a backpack that uses a small microcontroller and a GPS unit. Recent news of bombings in Iraq are downloaded to the unit every night, and their relative location to the center of the city are superimposed on a map of Boston. If the wearer walks in a space in Boston that correlates to a site of violence in Baghdad, the backpack detonates and releases a compressed air cloud of confetti, looking for all the world like smoke and shrapnel. Each piece of confetti is inscribed with the name of a civilian who died in the war, and the circumstances of their death.

The iphone locoGPS module allows jail broken iphones to finally have GPS functionality. This module is in development and will be shipping in February. All software is open source and more applications are being written every day. The locoGPS module gives you the ability to explore all the benefits of GPS from a device that is small enough to put on a keychain.

The FRIDA V. (Free Ride Data Acquisition Vehicle) combines a normal bicycle with a tactical mapping toolkit that includes a compact computer, GPS receiver, wireless 802.11 transceiver, and an audiovisual recording unit. This makes the bike a perfect human-powered war driving vehicle and real-time mapping system. All of the open source software and hardware design for the bike can be downloaded from the Wiki (link below).

FRIDA V. Wiki - Link

Next time you get lost, you might wish you were wearing the "Active Belt". Consisting of seven pager motors and a GPS unit, this prototype will buzz you in the right direction (forward, back, right left) in order to direct you towards your destination. Let's just hope the porn industry doesn't get a hold of it first.

ActiveBelt: Belt-type Wearable Tactile Display for Directional Navigation Link

MicoDrone - Link

Raising GPS from the Dead - Link

Related:

• OnStar Projects - Link
• OnStar eavesdropping - Link

GPS-HOG - 2007 - Link

Related:

• Modifying a cheap portable cellphone jammer - Link
• The World's Simplest Radio Jammer - Link
• Wave Bubble - Open source Wi-Fi, cellphone, GPS and ... - Link
• Turn off TV week - Link

Personal cell phone signal blocker device ($48 - not sure what's up with this company, proceed with caution) - Link.

Wavebubble open source RF jammer - Link.

Solar UMPC - [via] Link

You recently put up a link to Alex's Mobile GPS tracker article - it used an extra microcontroller which was not strictly necessary since the GM862-GPS features an inbuilt Python interpreter. My article describes the process for developing with Python on the GM862-GPS, and also includes the source code for an application that allows the tracker units position to be queried / reported back via SMS.

This project is about GPS tracing. it works as follows:
- GPS traces the position of the device via satelite
- Somebody (who wants to know the position) calls the number of the GSM-Module
- The Microcontroller noticed the call and ask the position which is stored in a global var
- The Microcontroller sends a command to the GSM-Module to send a SMS with position information back to the caller.