march 2002 archives

Sunday, March 31, 2002

At last featuring on this website: Mexico 2001. You will be able to view coverage of the wedding of Bastiaan and Patricia, my visit to all the beautiful Maya and Tolmec ruins and of course, my stay with my friend Lilia in Mexico City! I am definitely due for another holiday! This year it's probably gonna be Spain. By the way, Tom took some nice pictures of London with his digital camera and promised to send them to me.  permanent link for this entry

Sunday, March 24, 2002

No map-related news this time! Tom came to visit me yesterday. He's off to a conference in Reading now. Yesterday we had a good time doing some sight-seeing in London and sampling the local beers and not so local sake! Today we visited Greenwich. For some reason the entrance fee to the Royal Greenwich Observatory was free, so we also had a quick look at the exhibits. Really, Harrison's clocks are great to marvel at. After some fish and chips we made our way back to Clapham.

A few weeks ago, I came across a nice utility advertised my Meg Hourihan, one of the co-founders of Blogger, that is called snapGallery. After you select a folder on your machine that contains images (.jpg files), this script generates a series of web pages to display them. And really, this quote does not promise too much. It just took me a few minutes to put the images that Amber took with her new digital camera online! There are two new sections, created using snapGallery: one with pictures from Xmas and another with pics from Venice. With a bit more time on my hands I would be able to put the pictures from Egypt and Mexico online at last!  permanent link for this entry

Friday, March 08, 2002

Dreaming of a “Wet Christmas”? Even if we can rely on GPS technology that is not owned by the US, such as Galileo, there are still issues with navigation. Yeah, its the famous BMW case I am referring to. For those in LBS who are new to this case, one of the “Golden Oldies” in this field...

On Christmas Day 1998, a 57 year old driver from Hamburg who went out for a drive and came to Caputh near Potsdam in eastern Germany, where a ferry operates across the river Havel. However, he drove his BMW into the Havel river after obediently following instructions provided by the in-car navigation system. Oblivious to stop signs, never mind the river stretched out before him, he unhesitatingly continued on his journey, past a stop sign, down a ferry ramp and then into the Havel. Sedately his BMW sank in about four metres of water.

Unfortunately, the BMW's map showed the presence of a bridge when it should have indicated a ferry. However, that crucial piece of information was not stored in the network data loaded into the in-car navigation system of their BMW. Displayed on the dashboard, it uses signals from satellites to indicate the precise position of a vehicle on an electronic map. As a result, the driver ignored the warnings of the real world - signs, people shouting, flashing red lights, that sort of thing - placing his faith instead on its electronic counterpart. What would we do without disclaimers...  permanent link for this entry

Thursday, March 07, 2002

From Ananova: LBS at its finest. Budweiser launched a World Cup promotion using GPS technology. Opening a special can or bottlec ontaining no liquid, but a tiny GPS transmitter, will cause a GPS signal to be sent to Budweiser's headquarters. 25 multi-packs were randomly released in stores across the UK, Winners will be tracked down and receive a trip to see England and Ireland in the World Cup finals. Budweiser says the GPS promotion is a first for European consumers.  permanent link for this entry