Naturally as with anything from NASA, the system gets its own acronym. The system is called READI. Other than just being able locate the source and strength of an earthquake more quickly so emergency workers can be dispatched, NASA is also concerned about providing advance notice of tsunamis.

The tsunamis that destroyed parts of Japan and Indonesia were caused by massive offshore earthquakes. Any major earthquake that happens along the western United States has a potential of sending tsunami across the ocean where it could cause damage. As much advance notification of an incoming tsunami as possible is needed to protect lives. It’s interesting to see or GPS system used for things you might not think about such as earthquake preparedness.

Nevada has now approved the regulations that will govern the requirements for companies to test driverless cars on state roads within Nevada. The regulations also outline the license requirements for people and companies to operate the cars. The vision of Nevada is that someday taxis may not need drivers. That would certainly ensure that passengers aren’t getting ripped off by human drivers. If you’ve ever been in a Vegas cab, you know what I’m talking about. Another potential benefit for autonomous cars would be for those that can’t drive themselves due to medical conditions or physical disabilities. A car that needed no driver and still allow these people to be mobile and free would be fantastic.

Some of the basic components of the regulations include a $1 million to $3 million bond that would have to be put up to conduct testing in Nevada, depending on the number cars the company wants to test. Those wanting to test driverless vehicles in the state would also need to layout specific intentions and capabilities such as the ability to operate in fog, rain, snow. The cars would also need data collectors to capture and store sensitive data at least 30 seconds before a collision. That sort of data would help determine if the vehicle was at fault in the event of an accident.

[via DelawareOnline]

The screenshot above is from the shakey-cam video below, which was uploaded by co-Redditor animatedintro, who tried out the module and (seemingly) lived to tell the tale.

Fire up a portal to Reddit or Megaupload to download the unofficial file. It’s been confirmed to work with Nuvi 40, 200, 200W, 250, 250W, 350, Garmin Mobile XT and StreetPilot c550 units. TomTom users can also endanger their lives with a similar mod.

[via Reddit]

But did you know that with just your iPhone, you can travel the world for free? With Wander, you can virtually visit countless locations all over the world through the magic of pictures.

Wander will have you fill out your profile first. Then you choose where you want to “go,” and the app will hook you up with another user from that country.

For a week, you can correspond through instant messages and photos, and get a glimpse into the world of someone who lives in your destination country.

And when your week-long virtual tour is over, you can start over again at another destination. Pretty neat for something that’s available for free. It’s currently available over on the iTunes App Store, and is coming to Android soon.

[via Peta Pixel]

If you have the issue of losing your car a lot, hit Kickstarter and check out the new Find My Car Smart app and hardware combo. Together, they will tell you where you parked, how far you are away, and how long the car was there. While there are already apps which remind you where you parked, you don’t have to remember to activate this one. The dongle works its magic by detecting when you power down the car and automatically tells your iPhone to make a notation using its GPS sensor. The Smart dongle for your car communicates with your iPhone 4S using the new low-power Bluetooth 4.0 standard. According to its maker, this is the first app to use Bluetooth 4.0.

The app is on the iTunes App Store already, but the hardware part isn’t shipping quite yet. A pledge of $25 will get you the dongle and the app, while a pledge of $30 or more you get the app, dongle, and a car USB charger to keep it powered up, in case your car doesn’t already have a USB port. Find My Car Smart expects to start shipping the first of the devices in late January 2012.

According to the scientist, the RQ-170 Sentinel drone was forced to land where the Iranians wanted it to using a GPS hack. First, they blocked the GPS signals to the drone placing it into autopilot. Then the GPS hack fooled the drone into thinking it was somewhere it wasn’t.

The drone then landed of its own accord when the Iranians told it to and they had the complete and working drone in their possession. The crazy part is that apparently the military knew that this exact hack could compromise the drone all the way back in 2003.

[via C|Net via Gizmodo]

This Bluetooth Rearview Mirror Kit is available from Chinavasion for around $200 (USD). It seems like a pretty hefty price to pay for a rearview mirror, but that’s because (and I’m just stating the obvious here) it’s not just an ordinary rearview mirror.

In fact, it’s a touchscreen GPS, DVR, wireless camera, media and game player rolled into one pretty package.

Aside from that, it’s also a hands-free speakerphone and a wireless rearview parking camera to help you ease into those hard-to-park areas.

So really, what more can you ask for in a rearview mirror? With this baby, you can navigate through tight roads, listen to your favorite tunes, catch a quick flick in traffic, play a few games when you’re bored, and even use it to speak to the 911 operator when you’ve driven yourself into a ditch by the road because of previously-mentioned activities.

[via Gizmag via Dvice]

Well, it has a 600MHz processor and weighs just 35 grams for one thing. MOTOACTV combines a GPS-enabled touchscreen watch with a smart music player. Those looking for a watch to workout to should like the fact that it learns songs that will make you exercise harder and it plays those songs more often. (This is where the ACTV part comes into play. Get it?)

There’s also a built-in heart rate monitor and it will give you performance stats like duration, distance, avg. pace, calories burned, and avg. heart rate through a Bluetooth headset. It also has an FM radio built in, and will peer with your smartphone to allow your to answer calls or read texts from the watch display.

It will track your running, walking and cycling stats outside, and treadmill and step machine stats indoors. If you like, you can access your stats via a web browser as well at motoactv.com. So yeah, basically this is a smart-Nano for fitness geeks. MOTOACTV will be available on November 6th, with an 8GB version costing $249.99 (USD) and a 16GB model for $299.99.

[via TechCrunch]

The special edition has the voice of Jeremy Clarkson and a bunch of other Top Gear features. The GPS has speed camera warnings, weather reports, and other things. It features HD traffic updated every two minutes so you can stay out of traffic on and on the hoon. The GPS unit also has the Top Gear POI database with lists of racetracks and more and it has special startup and shutdown screens. Here’s a brief sample of Clarkson’s cheeky GPS voice work for your enjoyment:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

One of my favorite things about the Top Gear GPS special is that it has Stig mode where it broods silently. It also has Top Gear car icons rather than some generic car. If you like the idea of this GPS, you can pick one up in the UK right now for £189.00 (~$295 USD)

The watch is water-resistant to 50 meters. It records swim metrics including swim distance, stroke identification, stroke count, and pool length. The watch is low profile so you can get a wetsuit on and off easily while wearing it. The watch can also be fitted with a mount for bike handlebars and has a battery inside good for 20 hours of use.

A Virtual Racer feature lets the user race against a previous time. Garmin also includes support for wireless ANT+ sensors and a lot more. The Forerunner 910XT will be released sometime this quarter, and will sell for $399.99. You can pre-order it over at Garmin’s website now.

The F600 EXR GPS system is also able to find where the user is and show then any landmarks nearby so they can go see them. The resolution of the camera is 16MP and it uses a new EXR-CMOS sensor. The EXRs Auto sensor also has Motion Detection capability. The motion detection will automatically set the camera to take clearer photos of moving subjects in any light condition.

The camera also has smart digital zoom that will shoot clear pictures with no blur when the digital zoom is used. The sensor is also back side illuminated making it work better in low light situations. It also offers sensitivity to ISO 12,800. On the rear of the camera is a 3-inch 460,000 pixel resolution display. In addition to still images, the F600 EXR shoots 1080p HD video, along with stereo sound capture and a 320 fps high-speed video mode. It also captures 360-degree panoramas.

You can pre-order the FujiFilm F600 EXR over at Amazon for $349.95 (USD). No word yet on a release date.

[via FujiFilm]

Each of those pooches has to have its own GPS collar and then one Astro 320 unit can track up to ten of those collar-wearing dogs at once for up to nine miles on flat terrain. The handheld unit has a color screen that can be read in direct sunlight too. The strange part about his system to me is what good would it be to have your hunting dog nine miles away? If you can train that dog to activate his GPS when he sees some prey, maybe having the dog so far away would be a way to hunt.

I guess this would be a cool system for people with escape-artist dogs too. I once had a Jack Russell terrier that was too smart for his own good. He could escape from anything, and I would end up prowling the neighborhood looking for him. You have to be serious about your pet tracking though to buy this tracker. The Astro 320 is $649 (USD) with a single collar.

Looking at its features, it seems as though the designers tried to make a compromise, but then they realized that having anything on a rear-view mirror aside from a mirror is already dangerous in itself, so why hold back? So yes, there is a dedicated mirror, and there’s a GPS navigation system, but there’s more! Bluetooth for hands-free calling! Audio and video playback! Touchscreen games! Users will surely be entertained in the final minutes of their lives.

I wouldn’t give this as a gift even to my worst enemy. We already have enough mobile gadgets that distract us while we’re driving; there’s no need to mount one more right in our vehicles.

[via TechFresh]

A company called Asthmapolis has devised a cool new way to help the asthma suffer figure out what might be triggering their attacks. The company has a cap called the Spiroscout that can be attached to the inhalers many asthma sufferers use, and the cap has GPS inside and records the time and place the inhaler was used and can transmit that data to a smartphone app.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The idea is that if you find you have to trigger your inhaler around a specific type of tree or at a specific place like around a printer or pet store, you can determine what is triggering the attacks. They’ve even started aggregating data from multiple asthma sufferers and mapping that data. This is pretty cool and if the GPS devices were on all inhalers, the company would be able to determine if a bunch of asthmatics were being triggered in the same place and possibly find a pollution source that is harmful to the public. Asthma sufferers should be able to get their hands on the Spiroscout sometime this fall, if you’d like to get on the list, contact Asthmapolis here.

[via Economist]

This kind of watch is perfect for people who like to train and keep track of their training progress. It’s aimed at runners, but it can double as a cycling computer as well. Unlike previous version of the Forerunner, it has separate settings for this and can come with all of the right accessories to make it at home on your bike.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It has a somewhat slimmer profile than the Garmin Forerunner 405 and 410, so if you were thinking about buying one of those, then you should wait until May 6th when the 610 is released.

The Forerunner 610 will sell for $349 (USD). An in-depth review is available from DC Rainmaker.

[via Garmin]

Using the GPS inside of the Nokia N8 smartphone, along with additional sensors on the snowboarder’s body and board, PushSnowboarding is able to report on critical stats like speed, airtime and altitude and send them back to the N8 for later review. The sensor kit can actually measure heart rate, orientation, pressure, and even the “rush” the rider senses.

The kit uses a variety of sensors connected to Arduino processors, each of which transmit data back to the phone via Bluetooth.

Most of the sensors measure real physical statistics, the “rush” sensor simply measures galvanic skin response – which is often used in so-called “lie detectors”, so it could just be telling us the snowboarder is about to tell a terrible lie too. Snake oil science aside, the whole getup is still pretty cool.

This week, the team has headed out to the Burton Snowboard US Open to show off the system in action, and to capture a bunch of new rider data. For now, we’ve got footage from their last outing, back at the European event back in January so you can see how it works:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

What’s really cool about the Push Snowboarding project is that it’s an open platform, so you can actually go up on their site and grab the code, schematics and even sampled rider data to play with.

The Tecnalia Surfsens board is loaded with a gyroscope, accelerometer, GPS, strain gauges, and pressure sensors to accurately measure your speed, the height of the wave, and more. The data isn’t yet transmitted wirelessly, but must be uploaded once you’re back on dry land.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The Spanish company Pukas make this with Tecnalia, and its currently being tested by pro surfers. I wonder if having the data this surfboard collects will allow the company to someday make a smart surfboard, one that could surf by itself.

[via DVice]

The XP3300 Force can muster 18 to 24 hours of talk time per charge. The phone is made to military specs and designed to survive drops from 2 meters onto concrete and submersion in water. The phone has a 2MP camera and a professional aGPS system that can offer GPS tracking in 5-minute intervals for up to 26 hours. The phone will run JAVA apps and is made to interface with MRM software for timecard, location monitoring and other applications for field workers.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The coolest part of this phone to me is the video that shows the thing being dropped from 100 feet, which is way more than 2 meters. That is one seriously rugged handset. I wish my iPhone could survive drops from 2 feet.

The GPS device is called the upro MX and will ship this May for $199. The pocket-size gadget has a 2.2-inch LCD screen and weighs just three ounces. There will be no annual fees to use the GPS device, and it comes out of the box ready to go with 25,000 courses in its database.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The device can be upgraded to support high-resolution aerial photos of the courses too. That upgrade to support the aerial photos costs money, but Callaway isn’t clear on what the up-charge will be for the service. You can pre-order the upro MX here.

The box has a GPS module, a couple of LEDs and a servo, all mounted on an Arduino board. RickP used nixie tubes to display the distance. The box will search for a GPS signal for three minutes, after which it will display (in kilometers) how far it is from the target location. If it can’t get a signal, the Error LED will light up. Four D batteries power the box.

So what’s the prize? When you open up the box, you’ll find “instructions inside on how to reprogram it via USB and a serial console.” And the game begins anew. I wonder if the box can be programmed to open not just at the right coordinates, but also after a set period of time has passed. That way the game can be more interesting – even if you’ve found the spot, you’ll have to stay and defend the box for some time while other players try to take it from you. Check out Arduino Forum for more info.

[via Fashionably Geek]