Oakley airwave HUD + GPS goggles

As winter approaches in the northern hemisphere, oakley has developed a new type of snow goggles for those counting
down the days for a highly anticipated ski season. featuring a built-in heads-up display (HUD), the 'airwave goggle' implements
GPS and bluetooth technology alongside an accelerometer, barometer and gyro sensors for accessing real time information
about jump analytics that show distance, height and airtime.

Compatible with both iOS and android operating systems, incoming calls
and text messages can be viewed through bluetooth connectivity, allowing the goggle to access and interface with your
smartphone, heart rate monitor and music player.

Nokia, Samsung, Sony, Qualcomm form alliance to improve GPS coverage

Finding out where you are located when inside a mall or in a sports arena using a smartphone is difficult today because of bad GPS coverage and to deal with the issue, Nokia, Samsung, Sony and Qualcomm have formed an In-Location Alliance, to improve the indoor positioning, which is the next façade of mobile services.
Apart from improving the indoor positioning in such locations, the In-Location Alliance will also prioritise low power consumption, making the technology both easy to implement and use.
The core technologies would feature Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi. These technologies are already used in mobile devices and are therefore a good starting point for the Alliance’s efforts. Pilots will be deployed starting in 2012, while integration in smartphones and other devices and the first commercial consumer applications will happen next year.

Accurate indoor positioning will open opportunities for new services. For consumers this could include receiving directions to the right products and promotions in nearby shops or using real-time navigation inside a building to help find a friend, the companies said in a statement.
The In-location Alliance members include Broadcom, CSR, Dialog Semiconductor, Eptisa, Geomobile, Genasys, Indra, Insiteo, Nomadic Solutions, Nordic Semiconductor, Nordic Technology Group, NowOn, Primax Electronics, RapidBlue Solutions, Seolane Innovation, TamperSeal, Team Action Zone and Visioglobe.
Surprisingly, important companies such as Google and Apple are missing from the list. It may be noted that earlier this year, Google had launched Maps Floor Plan Marker for Android, which is still in beta and aims to show users their location more accurately within indoor venues.

TeleType Announces SmartTruckRoute: GPS Navigation App for Trucks

TeleType pioneered the GPS truck navigation industry in 2008, providing the first portable GPS navigation system for trucks. The company recently announced their latest innovation: SmartTruckRoute. This application is available on all Android smartphones, and will soon be released for the iPhone and iPad devices. SmartTruckRoute stands apart from other GPS navigation apps, because it was designed with the specific needs of commercial trucks in mind. The app is also the first server-based app, providing secure back up of routes and location data.

“The Android app gives truck drivers peace of mind for about 10 cents a day, regardless of what other GPS they may be using as it provides an inexpensive back up system for truck navigation,” said Marleen Winer, TeleType’s V.P. of Business Development. The SmartTruckRoute app can be used as the sole GPS navigation system for truck fleets, or simply as a back up system for an existing method. The application can be used simultaneously with other smartphone functions, so the user can make and receive phone calls. The app also provides turn-by-turn instructions, which can be plugged in to the vehicle’s speaker system to avoid driver distraction.
Unlike many other navigation systems, this app was developed specifically for trucks, so it includes special features that a generic navigation devices wouldn’t. Some of these features include truck specific routes and maps, and supports Hazmat restrictions by class, which help the driver avoid restricted tunnels and routes based on the truck’s cargo. The driver can input specific information about the weight and size of the truck and receive routing considerations specific to his or her vehicle. The system can help the driver avoid one-way roads, low bridges and other clearances, load limits, and even sharp turns.

The History of Car GPS Navigation

It's tough to believe, but in-car GPS navigation has already been around for more than a decade. Yet were it not for politics—and Einstein's theory of relativity—we wouldn't even have it in the first place. Twenty years ago, a road trip meant a bunch of fold-out maps stuffed into your glove box or your car door panel pockets. Pulling over, unfolding one like a giant newspaper, and then figuring out where you were and how it corresponded to what you were seeing through the windshield was the norm. Along the way, those maps gave way to MapQuest or Yahoo Maps print-outs, and now, fortunately, we've got portable navigation devices (PNDs), in-dash GPS systems, and GPS-enabled smartphones. Voice-enabled navigation is more commonplace than ever, as the average PND price keeps getting lower and lower, and high-quality navigation apps are available for most smartphones. Android phones even come with free Google Maps with driving directions.
But to figure out how we got here, we need to first look at how it all began.

Einstein and the Origins of GPS
The U.S. Department of Defense first developed satellite-based global positioning technology for the military. An early satellite-based system dubbed TRANSIT was up and running as early as 1960, with more refined and precise versions involving multiple satellites in general military use by the early 1980s (pictured, right). But it wasn't until 2000 that precision GPS navigation became open to the public.
Publicly available GPS devices had already been around since the early 1980s. But the military added interference to the signals to ensure their own version was the only one that could be used with any precision. After four years of deliberations, President Clinton signed a bill in 2000 ordering the military to cease scrambling satellite signals used by civilians. This instantly upgraded the accuracy of the few consumer-based systems already in existence by a factor of 10, and opened the doors to a much larger, consumer electronics-based industry for GPS navigation.
Today, a network of 24 U.S.-based GPS satellites orbit the earth, ensuring that at least three are available at any one time for a device's position request anywhere on the globe. Russia's own GLONASS system of 22 satellites will soon work with some compatible smartphones in the U.S. for additional accuracy.
Most people don't realize that in order for global positioning to work, Einstein's theories of special relativity and general relativity must come into play. On a basic level, GPS finds your position by looking at the time stamp from a number of satellites orbiting the earth, how far away each one is from you, and how far apart each one is from the other. With that data, the system triangulates your position on the ground. But because of relativity, the clocks in the satellites advance ever so slightly faster than clocks on the surface of the Earth. Plus, moving clocks are slower than ones standing still—again, by a very tiny amount.
While those two effects work against each other, the net result isn't equal: You end up with a discrepancy of roughly 38 microseconds per day. That incredibly small difference is still enough to report your actual position off by miles, which would render the GPS system worthless, were it not for allowing for relativistic effects.

The Road to In-Car Navigation
Even after 2000, it would be a while before consumers would see GPS navigation in cars en masse. Fortunately, the dot com boom was already coming to the rescue. Beginning around the turn of the century, computer-generated, turn-by-turn directions from websites like MapQuest were a common sight. Not only were these websites godsends for finding unfamiliar hotels and restaurants, but they also assisted plenty of small businesses heavily reliant on driving—think of home improvement contractors, real estate agents, and freight services, just to name a few examples.
Map-based websites weren't perfect, though. Early routing algorithms were imprecise, and sometimes repeated steps over and over again—long lists of instructions that basically said to stay on the same road for 12 miles were a constant source of frustration. Plus, you still had to print them out and take them with you, which meant you needed to pull over to read the next few steps. And if you wandered off course, you were just as lost as you would have been with a map—worse, actually, if you left the actual map at home, since the printed directions were for one specific route.
http://www.pcmag.com/

Google Navigation for Android is one of the best map solutions

Google Navigation for Android is one of the best map solutions you can get in the palm of your hand, but what if you don’t have a data connection? Whether you’re traveling abroad, using a Wi-Fi-only Android tablet, or just looking to use less data on your phone, you can use one of these map applications to see where you are and get navigation directions. If you start digging through Google Play for offline GPS apps, you’ll find a lot of poor-quality free apps and high-quality apps that cost money.

Google Maps has built-in support for offline maps. This feature lets you download a map area to your Android, so you can view it without a data connection. This sounds very convenient, but there are two big problems:

• Only map tiles are downloaded. You can’t search for points of interest or get navigation directions offline.
• Maps are automatically deleted after 30 days. There’s no warning and no way to change this behavior. If you depend on your map, you might find it has disappeared when you need it most.

GPS Navigation Android phones

GPS Navigation Android phones have offered free, voice-guided GPS since October 2009, whereas the iPhone’s Maps app requires users to look at their handsets and read off directions as they drive. The iPhone has third-party apps with turn-by-turn voice guidance, such as Mapquest, but Android’s built-in  method allows users to jump directly into navigation from address links in other apps. With the iPhone, you must manually copy and paste the address into your app of choice.