Gadling’s guide to GPS and location based services

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Traveling for me evokes memories of ancient explorers, navigating across vast oceans with only a sextant and the light of the stars and moon. Or the arduous journey of Lewis and Clark as they mapped a slow path across the great wilderness of the Louisiana Purchase. We’ve certainly come a long way since then in terms of navigation – in fact the now-ubiquitous availability of handheld GPS units and Google Maps has made finding your way around in unknown places a cinch.

But in fact, GPS and Google Maps is only the beginning. As we saw with yesterday’s new 3G iPhone with built-in GPS, we’re in the midst of a new era of “location aware devices.” This includes everything from from cameras with geotagging to “location-aware” mobile phones which promise to revolutionize the way we travel and gather information for our trips. Follow along and we’ll take you through Gadling’s guide to GPS and location based services.

Mobile Phones and Location Based Services
A whole range of mobile devices are now on the market that can pinpoint your exact location. Companies like Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola and Apple all make devices which can access this information over the network. This has enabled a huge range of new ways to use your phone, from getting turn-by-turn driving directions to more advanced applications that combine the power of social networks with your location. Services like Where and Socialight not only know where you are, they also let you access location-specific “tags” left by other users in popular locations. Want to know the best place to grab a drink when most bars close at 11pm in London? Find the closest late-night pub by subscribing to Socialight’s “Late London” channel. Looking for a place to cool off this summer in the Northeast United States? Check out the “Swimming holes” group. Drank too much coffee this morning? Better get MizPee. The best part of all this is that the recommendations are based on your location, so you can find the most interesting/useful spots closest to you relatively quickly – no guidebook required.


Geotagging and Photography
Not only does your mobile phone know where you are, your camera is also getting in on the act too. Tools like this Sony GPS unit let you add location data to your snapshots, providing a whole new dimension to your digital scrapbook. Perhaps you’re trying to track down that street in Austin where you took a photo of the great Mexican restaurant? Not a problem, just check out the location data embedded in your image and the next time you’re there, you can swing by for a few tacos. Even popular photo-sharing site Flickr has gotten in on the trend, allowing you to view maps of destinations with popular photos pinpointed to where they were taken. Interestingly enough, there are now even cameras on the market that have built-in GPS capabiltiies.

GPS Just for Fun
In addition to GPS-equipped phones and cameras, there are also plenty of other ways you can use GPS devices just for goofing around. Sony’s popular PlayStation Portable offers a GPS add-on, allowing you to access location data for some of your favorite games like Metal Gear Solid to unlock special bonus characters. And you’ve probably heard by now about the artwork people have been creating using GPS software. Even though the recent DHL piece proved to be a hoax, other copycats have already followed suit. Of course, no article about GPS would be complete without a mention of everyone’s favorite GPS activity, geocaching. If you want to take it step further, you might even use GPS to create a life-size game of Pac-Man for yourself. The possibilities are pretty endless.

Not only do these new location-aware devices services provide us with useful information, they promise to change the way we travel. We are no longer tied to the recommendations of guidebooks. We can call upon user-created information about places to make informed decisions about what to see and where to go. We can take a look at a tiny street in a far-away land, without ever having to step foot there. Or we can use these new services for just plain fun. As location-based devices and services become cheaper and more widespread, they can only serve to help us make more informed travel decisions in the future.

Robbed tourists in Barcelona to get justice via webcam

by Abha Malpani on

I generally find Spain very laid back and relatively lagging in the world of technology — it’s what I often enjoy about being here.

It’s somehow possible to stay away from the high-tech hysteria everywhere else, be it use of technology in your personal life (I don’t know anyone here who cares about the iPhone), or in the professional sector (when I went to pick up my resident card in Madrid, my appointment had been noted on 3 different hand-written(!) lists.

So when I read that a group of tourists who were robbed in Barcelona about a year ago are finally going to get justice by testifying via webcam(!) from their respective country, I almost fell off my chair!

According to the Guardian, 24 British, Belgian, German, Danish, Portuguese, American and Australian alleged victims of a Romanian gang who posed as police to rob tourists in Barcelona last year, will see the culprits punished, assuming the case is revolved. Time differences between the countries are being coordinated, webcam identification of the criminals, and stories of the victims, are being heard. Apparently, all this “tech-justice” process was devised to quicken clearing the backlog of nearly 270,000 such pending cases in the country.

Tourists often get robbed when traveling and can never do much about it because they are leaving the country shortly, this webcam justice initiative by Barcelona has taken things to a new level — I would never have expected such a thing to come out of Spain. Bravo!

Gadling Gear: Creative ZEN Media Player

by Tynan on

Yikes! I promised to write, by last week, about my favorite MP3 player to travel with, and then I didn’t.

In the span of 8 days I visited the island of Miyajima off the coast of Hiroshima, went back to Tokyo, stayed on an island called Yakushima off the southern coast of Japan for four days, and then moved to Taipei, Taiwan. Not much time to write.

However, I’m now settled in the Da-an district of Taipei with a couch and an internet connection, so it’s back to business.

And today’s business is a gem of an MP3 player, the Creative ZEN.

There are two things that make this the best current MP3 player for a serious traveler, as well as a few nice touches that seal the deal. Let’s focus on the big ones first.

1. Massive Storage

It’s competitor, the Apple iPod Nano comes in either 4 or 8gb models. The ZEN doesn’t stop there – it goes up to 16gb and 32gb. That makes it the highest capacity mp3 player with no moving parts.

As if that wasn’t enough storage, it has an SD slot to add up to 16gb more space. That means that you can carry up to 48gb of music, tv shows, and movies with you at all times.

No other tiny player (the ZEN is only 2.1 ounces) comes close here. On my trip to Yakushima, which involved a 9 hour train ride and 4 hour ferry ride both ways, I watched several BBC documentaries, listened to a few hours of Jay-Z, and did a few French tapes. Plenty of room for everything, and I only have the 16gb model.

2. Fantastic Battery Life

Even though it has a bigger screen than the Nano, the ZEN gets slightly better battery life. The battery life is so good that I just never think about charging it. It lasts for about 25 hours playing audio or five playing video.

In practical terms that means that you charge it before your trip and it’s going to last until you get there, even when your flight is delayed twice and you have to wait for your bag for an hour before taking a taxi into town.

When it is time to charge it, you just use the tiny little USB cord and plug it into your computer. The cord is only 3 inches long so you don’t have to coil it and make a mess of you bag. This, of course, is the same cable that you use to load new media onto the player.

The little bugger charges extremely quickly too – maybe 1-2 hours for a full charge.

Ok, if that isn’t enough to convince you that the Creative ZEN is the best media player for die hard travelers, here are a few more little things that I love about it.

1. The built in alarm is perfect. You set it and it will go off even if the player is turned off. If I want to nap on a train but make sure that I wake up for my stop I just put my Etymotics in, set the alarm, and go to sleep.

2. The ZEN automatically remembers where you left off last time. If you decide to put you movie on pause and do a language lesson, it will automatically bring you back to your position in the movie when you get back to it.

3. Copying to it is easy. No need for iTunes or anything stupid like that. Hook it up to any computer with the tiny little cable and you can instantly transfer music.

That’s about it. My only complaint is that the screen is glossy. This seems to be the popular thing to do these days, but I much prefer a matte finish. Oh, and I wish the 32gb one was out when I bought mine. I’m stuck with a “measly” 16gb.

You can get yours on Amazon like I did.

What’s your travel laptop?

by Grant Martin on

With my professional and personal careers both on the move, I have recently discovered the virtues of traveling with a laptop. I hate burning three hours in a random airport terminal with nothing to do when I could be blogging, writing grants or at the very least playing old-school video games. That’s why I’ve invested in a decent, small notebook, capable of running on batteries for 3-4 hours at a time and fulfilling my basic internet/office/DOS needs.

If you’re thinking of investing this year, check out Laptop Magazine’s Top 10 Notebooks of 2007, where the best units in a variety of categories are detailed. While the uber-media-ultra-expensive hepta-core Dell XPS blasto-station might not be up your alley, a variety of budget and portable laptops caught my eye and should be great for the savvy traveler.

My weapon of choice? The Thinkpad X31 running Ubuntu 7.04. Small, secure, fairly powerful, integrated wireless and none of the corporate chaff that slows down Windows computers. It’s kind of like the 1984 Mercedes Benz 380D that you converted to bio-diesel of computers, but I’ll tell ya, it’s a workhorse, doesn’t lock up and is chronically virus free.

A photo history of in-flight entertainment

by Neil Woodburn on

In-flight entertainment has come a long way over the years.

Today, the most common advancements seem to all involve WiFi–staying connected while in the air is the number one goal for travelers these days and most airlines are doing what they can to accommodate this as rapidly as possible.

Entertaining passengers trapped in a metal cylinder traveling thousands of feet in the air has been a priority ever since commercial flight began so very long ago. In honor of the industry continually moving forward in this regard, Time Magazine has published a short photo essay titled, Technology in the Sky. It kicks off with a wonderful black-and-white photograph of German passengers in 1925 watching the first in-flight movie (while sitting in whicker-back chairs).

The essay then moves forward in time showcasing various technology and luxuries such as cockpit intercoms, noise-cancellation headphones, on-demand movies, and more. Although the more recent photos are rather boring (the Airfone!) the older ones are pretty cool and worth a few moments of your time.