Reblogged from futuramb|105 notes |# Comments

infoneer-pulse:

iPavement Puts a World of Knowledge Beneath Your Feet

Constructed of a calcium carbonate stone, iPavement looks like your average piece of square tile. But one should never judge a tile by its cover. At iPavement’s core is a 5GB microprocessor that can support both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Each tile will also come with its own suite of apps, offering users features like coupons to local businesses and maps to nearby places of interest. Via Inteligente’s ultimate goal is to make cities more accessible and interesting by linking iPavement squares to people’s increasing number of handheld devices.

» via GOOD

Sensors and computers will turn up everywhere and connect everything in the physical world to the digital world… Even under your feet!

Posted at 1:52pm and tagged with: internet of things, tech, technology, wireless, location,.

futuramb:

infoneer-pulse:

iPavement Puts a World of Knowledge Beneath Your Feet

Constructed of a calcium carbonate stone, iPavement looks like your average piece of square tile. But one should never judge a tile by its cover. At iPavement’s core is a 5GB microprocessor that can support both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Each tile will also come with its own suite of apps, offering users features like coupons to local businesses and maps to nearby places of interest. Via Inteligente’s ultimate goal is to make cities more accessible and interesting by linking iPavement squares to people’s increasing number of handheld devices.

» via GOOD

Sensors and computers will turn up everywhere and connect everything in the physical world to the digital world… Even under your feet!

May 3rd 2012

Reblogged from smarterplanet|143 notes |# Comments

smarterplanet:

Laser System Paints Information on the Road Ahead | Technology Review

Ever wondered if you could control your house’s climate, security, and appliances — along with your PCs and peripherals — using Microsoft software? That day may soon dawn, as its Research arm has started testing its home automation software, called HomeOS, in twelve domiciles over the past few months. The budding system views smartphones, printers and air conditioners as network peripherals, controlled by a dedicated gateway computer. The project even has a handful of apps in play, which perform functions like energy monitoring, remote surveillance and face-recognition. This growing list of applications, available through a portal called “HomeStore”, will allow users to easily expand their system’s capabilities. So how does it all work out in the real world? Head past the break, and let Redmond’s research team give you the skinny.

Posted at 3:39pm and tagged with: tech, technology, location, user interface, visualisation,.

smarterplanet:

Laser System Paints Information on the Road Ahead | Technology Review
Ever wondered if you could control your house’s climate, security, and appliances — along with your PCs and peripherals — using Microsoft software? That day may soon dawn, as its Research arm has started testing its home automation software, called HomeOS, in twelve domiciles over the past few months. The budding system views smartphones, printers and air conditioners as network peripherals, controlled by a dedicated gateway computer. The project even has a handful of apps in play, which perform functions like energy monitoring, remote surveillance and face-recognition. This growing list of applications, available through a portal called “HomeStore”, will allow users to easily expand their system’s capabilities. So how does it all work out in the real world? Head past the break, and let Redmond’s research team give you the skinny.

April 29th 2012

Striiv pedometer goes wireless, gets social — Mobile Technology News

Reblogged from smarterplanet|9 notes |# Comments

smarterplanet:

Striiv, a smart pedometer that uses game mechanics to motivate people, is getting updated Wednesday with a new personal wireless connection that lets users encourage and compete with each other. With the new Striiv Connected social component, Striiv is moving beyond a more solo experience and utilizing relationships to help further drive users.

With the updated Striiv, users will be able to connect over a personal wireless network that works over unlicensed spectrum for a short distance. When connected, users can exchange their personal best and averages and issue activity challenges with Striiv Energy or real prizes like chores or coffee awarded to the winner. The activities can be conducted together or separately with the winner determined when the two devices are synced. Users will also get bonus points or a trophy for that day when they beat a friends average or personal best. Striiv Connected will work with existing Striiv devices though at a shorter range.

Posted at 2:49am and tagged with: technology, internet of things, location, tech, sensors, health,.

April 28th 2012

Think GPS is cool? IPS will blow your mind | ExtremeTech

Reblogged from smarterplanet|67 notes |# Comments

smarterplanet:

For all of their awesome applications — from portable navigation devices, to self-driving cars, to cruise missile targeting — the American Global Positioning System and its Russian cohort GLONASS have two fundamental flaws: They don’t work indoors, and they only really operate in two dimensions.

Now, these limitations are fair enough; we’re talking about an extremely weak signal that has traveled 20,200km (12,600mi), after all. Passing through concrete and other solid obstacles is hard enough for a strong, short-range cellular signal — you can’t seriously expect a 50-watt signal traveling 12,000 miles to do the same. Detecting a GPS signal on Earth is comparable to detecting the light from a 25-watt bulb from 10,000 miles.

The situation is a little more complex when it comes to detecting a change in altitude; GPS and GLONASS can measure altitude, but generally the data is inaccurate and too low-resolution (on the order of 10-25 meters) for everyday use. Even with these limitations, though, space-based satellite navigation systems have changed almost every aspect of society, from hardware hacking to farming to cartography to finding a girlfriend.

What if we had a navigation system that worked indoors, though? What if we had an Indoor Positioning System (IPS)? Believe it or not, we’re very nearly already there.

Posted at 10:09am and tagged with: tech, technology, location,.

April 16th 2012

A New Microchip Knows Just Where You Are, Indoors and Out - Technology Review

Reblogged from smarterplanet|78 notes |# Comments

techspotlight:

Broadcom has just rolled out a chip for smart phones that promises to indicate location ultra-precisely, possibly within a few centimeters, vertically and horizontally, indoors and out.

The unprecedented accuracy of the Broadcom 4752 chip results from the sheer breadth of sensors from which it can process information. It can receive signals from global navigation satellites, cell-phone towers, and Wi-Fi hot spots, and also input from gyroscopes, accelerometers, step counters, and altimeters.

The variety of location data available to mobile-device makers means that in our increasingly radio-frequency-dense world, location services will continue to become more refined.

In theory, the new chip can even determine what floor of a building you’re on, thanks to its ability to integrate information from the atmospheric pressure sensor on many models of Android phones. The company calls abilities like this “ubiquitous navigation,” and the idea is that it will enable a new kind of e-commerce predicated on the fact that shopkeepers will know the moment you walk by their front door, or when you are looking at a particular product, and can offer you coupons at that instant.

Posted at 6:28am and tagged with: location, tech, technology, internet of things, smartphone,.

April 15th 2012

11 notes |# Comments

Garmin partners with Suzuki for company’s first in-dash infotainment system

includes a 6.1-inch “high-res” touchscreen, a CD player and AM/FM radio, internal flash memory, along with USB, AUX jack and Bluetooth connectivity. The voice control-enabled system also includes backup camera support, Pandora integration and an SD card slot for loading updates

Full Story: Endgadget

Posted at 7:20pm and tagged with: transport, tech, technology, location,.

Garmin partners with Suzuki for company’s first in-dash infotainment system

includes a 6.1-inch “high-res” touchscreen, a CD player and AM/FM radio, internal flash memory, along with USB, AUX jack and Bluetooth connectivity. The voice control-enabled system also includes backup camera support, Pandora integration and an SD card slot for loading updates

Full Story: Endgadget

April 13th 2012

Reblogged from smarterplanet|32 notes |# Comments

smarterplanet:

Send Bird-Watching Data Straight to Scientists With Your Smartphone | Wired Science | Wired.com

A new smartphone app allows bird watchers to share sightings with scientists straight from the field.

BirdLog, developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is a companion tool for eBird, the world’s largest online database of bird observations.

Gathered by bird watchers around the world, eBird data is used by biologists, land managers and ornithologists to track avian populations trends. According to eBird’s program overview, these millions of hobbyist observations “will become the foundation for a better understanding of bird distribution across the western hemisphere and beyond.”

Posted at 5:53am and tagged with: smartphone, location, applications, tech, technology, sharing,.

smarterplanet:

Send Bird-Watching Data Straight to Scientists With Your Smartphone | Wired Science | Wired.com
A new smartphone app allows bird watchers to share sightings with scientists straight from the field.
BirdLog, developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is a companion tool for eBird, the world’s largest online database of bird observations.
Gathered by bird watchers around the world, eBird data is used by biologists, land managers and ornithologists to track avian populations trends. According to eBird’s program overview, these millions of hobbyist observations “will become the foundation for a better understanding of bird distribution across the western hemisphere and beyond.”

April 5th 2012

Reblogged from futuramb|25 notes |# Comments

Paul Higgins: I think the use of tracking technology in these circumstances is a crazy response. The underlying issues of why kids are not in school needs to be addressed. I am ok with it if it is used to measure the success of programs, etc but not as a tool to punish and locate kids.

futuramb:

In Brazil, locator chips in uniforms detect if kids are in school | Springwise

We’ve seen RFID technology used to protect children on farms in the past, and now we’re seeing that same technology being used to keep track of school children too. The Brazilian city of Vitoria da Conquista is introducing radio tags on the clothes of students in order to tackle the problem of truancy among younger citizens.

Posted at 7:32am and tagged with: tech, technology, edcation, sensors, location,.