Rocky Mountain Tracking

Daily GPS News

GPS Bracelet For Human Rights Workers: Tweets When Trouble Arises

June 9th, 2013

Being a human rights worker or member of the media in a volatile area can be a dangerous job. You are attempting to expose some form of misconduct against the people of that country by their government or military, but the government or military certainly doesn’t want you there. The free speech enjoyed here in the US is not something enjoyed worldwide. Activists and media are threatened by abduction and violent attacks each and every day.

Just this April, Mahmoud Al-Farjani, a Libyan journalist for Al-Arabiya, was kidnapped by armed militiamen from the network’s office after numerous threats were directed towards him in the days leading up to the kidnapping. He was held for seven hours and beaten, and even received death threats.

Enter The Natalia Project

If Al-Farjani were wearing a GPS tracking device from the group Civil Rights Defenders, the outcome might have been much different. The Civil Rights Defenders was formed in Sweden in 1982, and deploys aid workers worldwide to combat civil rights violations, keep an eye on elections to keep them fair, and more.

The GPS tracking bracelet was named after Natalia Estemirova, human rights worker uncovering abuses of human rights in the Caucaus region of Chechnya. In 2009, she was kidnapped and brutally murdered.

What It Does

If the person wearing the GPS tracking bracelet is in trouble, all they need to do is trigger the device. At that point, GPS location data with their last known location is sent to nearby workers as well as the Civil Rights Defenders office in Sweden. The same occurs if the bracelet is forcibly removed from the wearer.

What’s unique about the bracelet: it is capable of sending out an update to their Facebook friends and Twitter followers regarding the alert via cellular signal. Those who designed the GPS tracking bracelet feel this level of awareness will make kidnappers nervous, possibly leading to the release of the victim.

“The Natalia Project makes it easy for anyone to contribute to the safety of human rights defenders to allow them to carry on their crucial work, either showing strength in numbers, by ‘liking’ or following on social media, or by donating directly to support the ongoing work,” said Robert Hårdh, Executive Director of Civil Rights Defenders in a press release.

Only The Beginning

The bracelets were showcased at the Civil Rights Defenders’ annual conference, Defenders’ Days, in Stockholm. 55 human rights workers will be equipped with the bracelets over the next 18 months, but only if they receive enough financial backing from sponsors.

To donate to this cause, visit Natalia Project’s website: http://natalia.civilrightsdefenders.org/

GPS Device Designed to Prevent Rape

June 5th, 2013

Three Indian engineers have designed a GPS device that they hope will help to combat the high incidence of rape in their country. While many of their countrymen have taken to the streets in protest of the government’s handling of these cases, these engineers are trying to prevent future occurrences.

The Situation in India

India is one of the most dangerous countries for women. There are many problems reported, including domestic abuse, child marriages, female infanticide, and child trafficking. Yet the most public issue in recent days has been the problem of rape. In 2012, a woman and her male companion were brutally attacked on a public bus. After the man was knocked unconscious, the woman was gang raped. She later died of her injuries. This tragic incident sparked numerous protests throughout the country and brought to light some of the hurtful attitudes held by authorities. Statements were made which revealed that many men believe rape incidents are caused by women’s attitudes or by the newer independent roles that women have assumed.

A New Invention

In an effort to help women protect themselves, three automobile engineers came up with a type of lingerie that can both defend against attacks and alert authorities to the incident. They have called their product Society Harnessing Equipment or SHE. The lingerie uses a GPS device that determines the victim’s location and a global system for mobile communications (GSM) that sends a text message to both the local emergency number and to family members of the victim. These systems are activated by means of pressure sensors in the garment. The setup also includes a defensive system that is capable of delivering shock waves of 3800kV to an attacker. These shocks can be produced more than 80 times, if necessary. The invention won a prize at the Gandhian Young Technology Award-2013 event.

The Next Steps

While this product certainly has great potential in arming women against these attacks, there is still much to be done. The engineers are still working to arrange a joint venture for its production. They have received a number of offers but have not yet come to an agreement. They are also attempting to find the right kind of fabric in which to insert the product, so that the entire garment can be washable.

While the situation of women in India is quite concerning, it is encouraging to see the development of ways for women to defend themselves against rape and other attacks. This GPS device may well provide some women the confidence they need to live their lives without fear.

GPS Tracking Takes Search and Rescue to a Whole New Level

April 7th, 2013

In Pennington County, South Dakota, search and rescue teams keep themselves in ready condition by scheduling training exercises while on their yearly outdoor camping activity during the winter. Their preparation includes the checking of all their devices (along with those GPS-tracked) and winterized vehicles for proper function, including snowmobiles, ATVs, Snowcats, and UTVs. To stay sharp for when crises arise on the job, the Pennington County Search and Rescue workers use GPS tracking to hone their proficiency at hunting during winter weather and snowfall conditions. On a recent trip, an emergency test plan required the team to generally locate and make their way to a stranded party with the assistance of GPS tracking and, once on scene, to monitor them while appropriate action was taken.

NASA to Use GPS for Worldwide Search and Rescue

NASA has been making the transition to GPS technology to provide safe and speedy rescue far beyond the current applications in local communities. Up until then, NASA had been using the weather satellite system to sense and single out distress signals whereupon the location on earth would be analyzed for exact coordinates.

The instance NASA is particularly proud of is the search and rescue of Abby Sunderland, a 16-year-old amateur sailor determined to beat a world record of navigating the globe without stopping. Before she embarked, Abby was given an electronically monitored device (the MicroPLB Type GXL) and, upon being stranded in the Indian Ocean with her storm-damaged boat, used it to send out a distress signal to a Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking satellite. The SARSAT satellite then dispatched the signal with use of repeater technology to a 40-nation system of search and rescue satellites and eventually to the United States; within 60 minutes, her coordinates were calculated and sent to a ship 400 miles away to pick her up.

It has been the goal of NASA engineers at Goddard, the Coast Guard, US Air Force, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop a complete Distress Alerting Satellite System by 2015 using the GPS system of the Air Force to speed up the recognition of activated distress beacons to under 5 minutes as opposed to, for example, Abby’s hour (or longer) via weather satellites.

GPS Aids in Mountain Rescue

March 7th, 2013

A flashlight, pocket knife, extra food, and bandages have long been staples of every serious hiker’s emergency kit. But if you plan on doing some serious hiking, there’s something you might not have thought of to add: a smartphone. Often used to play cheap games and take self portraits in the bathroom mirror, these GPS equipped phones are now helping hikers, guides, and even search and rescue teams. While most survival equipment is designed to help lost hikers hold out til help comes or relies on rescuers looking in the right place at the right time for a signal, smartphones enable lost hikers to help rescuers pinpoint their location.

Take for instance last December on Mount Hood. A group of experienced hikers, one whom was a veteran guide, took off across the mountain in the direction of a rustic cabin. But when the trail they were looking for turned out to have been washed away in a flood, and fog and snow rolled in, the trio found themselves lost, without shelter, and unable to find their way off the mountain. They called for help, and rescue teams used the call to place determine their general coordinates, but due to the inclement weather, search and rescue team members were unable to find them. So the trio hiked on for another twenty hours, still unable to find the cabin they were in search of. When they finally gave up, though, the experience of their guide, helped them survive the night as he was able to construct a snow cave to keep the worst of the elements at bay.

But with the weather limiting visibility, and even with the aid of two snowcats and skis, twenty rescuers were unable to locate the lost hikers. However, as the weather began to clear the next day the lost hikers were able to send out a brief signal from their GPS device. With better weather and a specific area in which to look, the rescuers were quickly able to locate the hikers who, while cold, had suffered no major injuries during their ordeal. Trapped on the mountainside and without enough equipment to hold out long, a brief phone call and quick GPS tracking signal were enough to save the hiker’s lives. So next time you pack an emergency kit, make sure you really have everything you need.

SpareOne Plus Phone Featuring GPS Designed With Emergencies in Mind

February 23rd, 2013

The majority of the world has jumped on the smartphone bus. As amazing and handy as they are, they still come with their share of drawbacks, the biggest probably being limited battery life. My iPhone can barely make it to dinner before I have to plug it in, and I barely use it.

Over the weekend New England was hit with a monster blizzard, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands. I remember assuring my iPhone was plugged in early in the day in the event we lost power, giving me a full charge right out of the gate. I even have an emergency backup plan in the event the power is knocked out longer than my iPhone can stay juiced: starting up my car and charging the phone that way. What if a bigger catastrophe were to occur, like a hurricane, and the power was out indefinitely? I would surely run out of gas if I kept charging my phone in my car, and then what would I do?

XPAL to the rescue with the SpareOne Plus, a secondary phone that is powered by a single AA battery. You can turn to the SpareOne Plus in an emergency situation, when you have drained the battery on your cellphone and your landline (if you even still have a landline) is not working.

The SpareOne Plus is a lot more than an emergency backup phone. This handy little device features a built-in GPS tracking device that family members with power can assure you have made it to safety. Think back to horrific Hurricane Sandy: if you had the SpareOne Plus, your sisters in California could log on to a website or use an app on their smartphone to see your GPS location to make sure you made it to the emergency shelter, or if you are still stranded at your home. This GPS tracking technology makes it much more than a link to the outside world. It is more like a lifeline in the event of an emergency.

Since you never know when the power will go out, the SpareOne Plus also features voice confirmation of each button you press. This way, if you can’t see, you can still successfully call for help. Maneuver your way around your pitch black house with the phone’s torchlight. Press the large, prominent red cross button to automatically dial emergency services.

The phone also allows you to call loved ones, as long as you have a GSM-capable SIM card. Just insert it in the back of the phone and start calling. The SpareOne Plus can also be programmed with quick dial numbers, allowing you to call those you love with the touch of a button.

The AA battery included out of the box can last for 15 years in the back of your closet without running out of power. It will allow 10 hours of talk time and 24 hours of torchlight use. There is no word as to the cost of the SpareOne Plus, so we’ll just have to wait and see when it is launched later this year.

GPS Tracking Locates Hydrants for Palm Beach County Fire Rescue

February 17th, 2013

Sun, sand, surf—Palm Beach seems to be one place that does not need an upgrade, and yet an upgrade it is due to receive. The Palm Beach County fire department is using GPS devices to physically map the fire hydrants in the county. Up till now, their fire rescue’s methods of fighting fires were still the standard ones used in the past, which were often accompanied by human mistakes. At one time the county’s hydrants had to be charted by hand onto area maps; even after being recopied digitally, hydrants would be mapped erroneously as on the opposite side of the street or incorrectly measured with error margins of up to 100 yards away. Mistakes like these would cost firefighters vital minutes otherwise used to save lives just to find a useable hydrant.

GPS Tracking to Correct Hydrant Inaccuracies

Enforcers of the new mapping system are hoping to drastically reduce the likelihood of mistakes. The project extends from Boca Raton to Jupiter and, in all, encompasses about 45,000 hydrants. Two GPS tracked devices (each priced at around $1,000) are being used to scan individual hydrants. At the push of a button, a signal is sent to and recorded by a minimum of three orbiting satellites onto an online HydrantNav chart. Besides tracking the exact coordinates, employees will also note via HydrantNav the rate of water flow (in gallons per minute) and current functionality of each hydrant. Dispatchers will then be prepared to best direct firefighters to a hydrant while they are en route to an emergency. No longer will firefighters have to go looking for a hydrant that may or may not be working or in the correctly noted spot; dispatch will have all necessary information at their fingertips.

GPS Hydrant Tracking Methods Elsewhere in Florida

This same type of GPS tracking system has already been operational since 2006 in Boynton Beach, FL; mapping equipment in the trucks allows rescue personnel to view onscreen any hydrant in the vicinity of an input address. Boynton Beach and Boca Raton both use separate dispatching which would keep them from having access to Palm Beach County hydrant mapping information. Even so, Palm Beach will still record all hydrants in all surrounding cities because its rescue department often provides back-up to other zones.

GPS Tracking Apps Help Owners Recover Stolen iPhones

February 13th, 2013

For a thief, the perfect heist is fast, easy, involves little chance of getting caught, and is either cash or can be easily converted to cash. Enter the iThief. From New York City subways to the streets of Oakland, CA, thieves are grabbing all the iPhones and other Apple products that they can. One shocked public transit rider in San Francisco even had her iPhone stolen right out of her hands – while she was still talking on it!

So why are the “i” products such a hot item to steal? First of all, there is a heavy demand for them. A well priced iPhone can easily be sold in a matter of days, or even hours, online or on the street. Secondly, once it’s sold, it’s hard to trace it back to the thief, because there are no regulations on reselling these items, and online identities can easily be faked and deleted. So with brazen thefts on the rise, and overwhelmed police unable to investigate every robbery, is there any hope for getting your iPhone and all the personal information you store on it back?

If you’ve taken advantage of the GPS device built into your product, the answer is yes. Luckily for consumers, Apple had the foresight to build into each of their products tracking devices such as the “iCloud” and “Find my iPhone/Pod/Pad” apps that can be activated for free. While often used to help forgetful owners find their misplaced items around the house, victims of crime are using the tool to fight back.

Each apple product contains a GPS tracking chip which uses local wireless hotspots to send out a signal that can be tracked via the Apple iCloud app. Once alerted, Police can track a stolen iPhone to its location, often catching the thief as well as recovering the stolen item. Some departments are now even offering special training to officers in how to use the apps to catch criminals before they can sell the stolen product.

Activating the “Find my iPhone” apps is relatively simple process, and easy to follow instructions can be found the Apple website. Besides the apps designed by Apple, there are several others that can help you locate a lost or stolen Apple product. But none of these apps can replace simply being aware of one’s surroundings and keeping a close eye on belongings, as some thieves have learned to circumvent GPS tracking devices by turning off stolen products or removing the SIM card from phones. While there is no guarantee that you’ll be reunited with your stolen phone, activiting GPS tracking apps do give you the ability to fight back if you’ve had something stolen, and increase the odds that your stolen product will be recovered.

Global Positioning…Stalker?

January 22nd, 2013

In November 2012, a Philadelphia man was charged with several accounts, one of which was stalking a Hatfield Township woman using a GPS tracking device he planted on her car. On a few occasions, he followed her to a restaurant she frequented and he even had detailed knowledge of where she lived. He continued stalked her for several months before the woman sent her car into a repair shop. There, the repairman discovered the tracking device and the police were notified shortly thereafter. This man remains incarcerated at a prison in Montgomery County.

Although this man’s motives and intentions were less than honorable in his use of the GPS system, you can see how thorough and efficient the system was in helping the criminal to keep track of his victim. He was able to use the device to pinpoint her exact location and follow her to her home and various other places she visited during the time that he stalked her. Of course, the GPS tracking system was not intended for low-lives and scoundrels to track and stalk innocent women. However, this story does demonstrate the effectiveness of the system and its ability to function smoothly and indicate the right location of the item it is tracking.

Most would use a GPS tracking system on their car for the purpose of tracking the car if it were stolen. Parents sometimes use the GPS device to keep track of teen drivers, or to keep an eye on a babysitter if they allow him or her to drive their children to the park or school. Just because it was used wrongly in one situation does not mean that the device is inherently evil or should be avoided. Under normal circumstances, this tracking system is an excellent and wholesome tool that can greatly aid in locating ones vehicle.

GPS Technology Closes Emergency Gaps

January 21st, 2013

Rising premiums, annual evaluations, and insurance ultimatums: good things or bad? The answer to that question could depend on motivating factors and results. Although additional scrutiny from insurance companies usually brings an element of dread, serious gaps in safety and emergency procedures are often revealed. GPS technology seems to be motivating insurance companies to reveal such gaps for homeowners. While increased premiums are never pleasant, the threat of them may motivate some significant steps toward closing the gaps that can often turn emergencies into devastating tragedies.

Identify Risks

Evaluations using GPS technology can easily identify residential areas that are located at high-risk distances from appropriate emergency facilities. Since emergencies are always unexpected, the identification of exact routes and distances could provide crucial information at a moment of crisis. Awareness of multiple routes to a hospital might save a life. And an understanding of the distance from the nearest fire or police station could prove invaluable in the face of a disaster. With GPS tracking systems, the latest information can be appropriately applied for homeowners in every type of living circumstance, weather condition, or traffic complication. Although pressure from insurance companies coming in the form of increased rates for homeowners living specific distances from emergency facilities is not ideal, the new awareness of risks may inspire many to begin their own crucial evaluations.

Apply Solutions

As GPS technology reveals the gaps, identifying the risks that have been slipping through the cracks, communities can brainstorm for solutions to begin applying. One county in Georgia has been responding to new GPS technology provided information about residential areas in relation to fire stations in several different ways. Solutions range from the expensive adding of new fire stations to the more budget-friendly collaborating with other counties for specific areas. Additional emergency vehicles, new roads, and updated equipment are other solutions that have been considered for this specific county. Since each community includes specific demographics and individual challenges, solutions to identified emergency gaps can cover a wide range of possibilities. While individual homeowners may not be able to implement drastic changes, an increasing awareness of risks through GPS technology could enable citizens within a community to work together. The knowledge of impending scrutiny by insurance companies may even motivate a unified effort to avoid the financial ramifications that could be inevitable otherwise.

Quicker Earthquake Response Thanks to Hybrid GPS-Seismic System

January 14th, 2013

Remember the March 2010 devastating earthquake in Japan? Seismologists there needed about 20 minutes before they could determine the actual magnitude of the disaster and activate disaster response efforts. Scientists at Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UC San Diego have been working on a next-generation system to detect magnitude, and they think this will cut down assessment time to a mere two to three minutes. It is called the Real-time Earthquake Analysis for Disaster (READI) Mitigation Network, and can be used for tsunamis as well.

Currently, the seismic instruments that calculate important earthquake information for rapid hazard assessment depends on devices that record and measure the movement of the ground with extreme precision. However, they are not able to quickly provide views of large seismic events as they don’t do the measuring directly. It is the GPS network, taking the information from the devices recording the movement and transmitting the data to the seismic instruments, that does all the hard work.

“By using GPS to measure ground deformation from large earthquakes, we can reduce the time needed to locate and characterize the damage from large seismic events to several minutes,” said the director of Scripps’ Orbit and Permanent Array Center based in La Jolla, CA, Yehuda Bock. “We now are poised to fully test the prototype system this year.”

Craig Dobson, natural hazards program manager in the Earth Science Division at NASA headquarters in Washington, said “With the READI network, we are enabling continued development of real-time GPS technologies to advance national and international early warning disaster systems. This prototype system is a significant step towards realizing the goal of providing Pacific basin-wide natural hazards capability around the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire.’”

Scripps is only one part of the READI network. The other institutions involved include Central Washington University in Ellensburg, the University of Nevada in Reno, California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, the University of California at Berkely, and UNAVCO in Boulder, Colorado. There are a variety of government and local partners that support the GPS stations in the network, including NASA, USGS, NSF, the Pacific Northwest Geodetic Array, EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory, the Bay Area Regional Deformation Array, and the California Real-Time Network.

After 25 years of research by the US government to expand GPS technology applications and capabilities, the READI network was born. “Conventional seismic networks have consistently struggled to rapidly identify the true size of great earthquakes during the last decade,” said director of the Central Washington University’s Pacific Northwest Geodetic Array Timothy Melbourne. “This GPS system is more likely to provide accurate and rapid estimates of the location and amount of fault slip to fire, utility, medical, and other first-response teams.”