Ripping mobility from the clutches of telecom
Sharing Location Info
I’m planning to go on an extended motorcycle trip in May. Whenever I leave to go somewhere for more than a few hours and my friends know about it I tend to get a lot of calls. They get very concerned and call to make sure I’m not lying on the side of the road somewhere bleeding. Can’t blame them, the precedent has been set. And hey, it feels good to know that next time I actually am lying on the side of the road bleeding there should be someone looking for me pretty quick even if I don’t have a sweeper following me. However, it also means that there are a bunch of worried people out there if I don’t answer my phone for some reason, for which I feel guilty. “I should be able to solve this with technology!” says Mike the geek.
Immediate thought, Google Latitude. I can keep recording info about where I am in the background with both the Android and Symbian phones I have. That way folks can see where I’m going as I’m going, and if I don’t answer the phone they at least know I’m moving. Which should mean I’m okay, unless I’m wedged under a truck getting dragged down the road. I haven’t figured out a technical solution to detecting that, so I’m leaving that corner case off the table for now.
However, the only way I can see to get info out of Latitude is through the iGoogle widget. Not a bad way for it to work, but I want to just post my location to my blog. Seriously, I don’t give a crap about privacy. I wanna publish where I am for everyone. And I’m not going to get my mom and my sisters to sign up for Google accounts, just not gonna happen. Is there a way to do a background update of location info and publish it your own website for example? Or a system where I can suck it back out easily and map the results?
Another option is to geotag photos and publish them on Flickr. That works, but requires that I’m taking photos in order to update folks about where I am. Perhaps a cool addition, but doesn’t get to the root problem I’m trying to solve, which effectively comes down to passively instrumenting myself using my cell phone and publishing that info as realtime as possible online publicly. I’m sure I could knock together an Android app to do it pretty quickly, but I have to assume there’s something out there already.
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about 1 year ago
gpsgate.com has programs, and I wrote a client as part of minigpsd for the n810 (which I use with a portable hotspot).
They have clients for some phones, and writing an app is fairly simple.
about 1 year ago
FYI – I ride a motorcycle too, and record my trips (to KML files – that is part of what minigpsd does, as well as records the vehicle information stream such as gear, rpm, etc.). Minigpsd has several built-in web server/page functions including live google maps and kml files. I’m also laid off work so I’d have time, but I don’t think I can develop for other devices. If you are using a phone (non-tethered, Phone’s GPS to web), it would need some applet.
about 1 year ago
You wrote:
Is there a way to do a background update of location info and publish it your own website for example? Or a system where I can suck it back out easily and map the results?
Answer: Yes
Our solution allows you to install an applet to your phone. This along with our browser plugin allows you to transmit real time GPS location just by opening the browser and surfing to your web site. You can then mash the location data to any mapping service for real time maps.
Works with Blackberry and Windows Mobile.
If you’re interested you can download a demo at http://www.5o9mm.com – you can test it by checking out the real time GPS enabled search in the browser demo and or the “Where AM I” demo which mashes out your current location to Yahoo and displays a mobile map.
If you want to learn more ping me at peter.cranstone at 5o9inc.com
Cheers,
Peter
about 1 year ago
Hey tz, Thanks! I’ll have to check that out. I found some links in ITT, but no actual home page for the minigpsd project. Is there some info floating around? Or should I just install (I do have an N810) and poke around in the installed files?
about 1 year ago
Basically http://www.zdez.org was the main distribution point, but it is in Maemo-Extras.
I need to redo the UI when I get a chance. There is/was the zmapper page in the maemo garage, which was Qt based, but I need to rewrite chunks of that too. Both are GPL.
At ITT, there is the 0.31 version thread I monitor, but the 0.30 beta also has some tips.
Just install and ask on ITT or PM me there and I’ll try to answer any questions.
(One of the differences is that I do open the gpsd 2947 port to every connection, not just localhost, so you can “pull” a lat/lon location externally – even with telnet by typing p if I remember correctly).
I found a GPS that does 10Hz (or use any 5Hz) so I get detail location for my rides in a KML directory, but it will use the n810 GPS at the same time (or as a backup – I leave the BT unit on my bike and it automatically reconnects when I’m back from a walk).
The code is very compact and efficient so I would think it would be adaptable to phones as long as you could use C language.
about 1 year ago
I haven’t used it really as when I tourist I tend to do it far out of mobile range, or walking (and the GPS sucks the battery) but Nokia Vine purportedly does this:
http://www.nseries.com/nseries/vine/
Updates location to whoever you want, tags photos, some other stuff. I think it’s supposed to generate useful URIs so you can blog and tweet about the stuff as well, instead of it being locked into any one system. Though you’ll need an S60 device yourself. Which I find a good thing.
When I did last travel and give a daily update, I did it all manual. I made this infographic road map:
http://shoobe01.blogspot.com/2007/05/vacation-infographic.html
Which I updated every day or two (so you can’t see the in-progress version as we finished the trip_, and then blogged about stuff separately:
http://shoobe01.blogspot.com/2007/05/wyoming.html
A few friends did follow along, so successfully that we wondered why no one called. They knew what we were up to enough not to worry.
about 1 year ago
If you’re feeling very adventurous, get your bike over here. You’re welcome to drop by ;-)
about 1 year ago
Hi Mike,
Check out Sports Tracker which runs on Nokia phones. It’ll not only track your location and average speed, it will even track your altitude and what music you were listening to as well as any photos or movies taken from the phone.
Here’s what the output looks like:
https://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=642464
about 1 year ago
Awesome, thanks for the suggestions folks!!!
Ian, I downloaded Sports Tracker to my E71, and I’ll give it a try on the ride home.
tz, I’ll snag minigpsd tonight and try it out with my n810 tomorrow.
Fantastic.
about 1 year ago
Hi, have you tried Yahoo’s Fire Eagle? http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/ . The difference with Yahoo’s Fire Eagle is the fact that Google Latitude is for sharing your location only among your Google contacts, while Fire Eagle allows to share your location with public at large. I’ve tryed this app: http://firepin.com/ works great :)
about 1 year ago
Have a look at Nokia’s http://mymobilesite.net/ it is a Nokia Beta Labs service that runs a web server on your phone and will report info like GPS position.
I have also done fun stuff with it like have a friend in Australia take a photo on my phone via the web. (this would also solve the “wedged under a moving truck problem” :-)
about 1 year ago
Hey Mike, there’s a Latitude gadget you can add to a Google Sites dashboard – google.com/sites – only works in the U.S. currently, and I don’t know how easy it is to integrate to others webpages than those created with Sites.