As is standard on mobile astronomy apps these days, Star Chart has an augmented reality mode. As you tilt and rotate your phone, it will show you the view of space from the direction you’re looking. It mechanically determines your emplacement from the phone’s GPS receiver, but you can set a manual location.

The Nokia Belle style toolbar at the bottom has an icon of an eye which toggles the augmented reality mode. Turning it off allows you to navigate the sky by swiping across the screen. While it may be easy to lose your bearings in this mode, Star Chart helps by overlaying an equatorial grid, and a coloured hue above the horizon. when the time of day is upon your local sunset, you’ll find a glorious red haze surrounding our local star.

  Atmospheric view.

You can also stretch and pinch to zoom in and out. doing so will disclose objects that were too dim to see before. This is a deceptively simple way of implementing a magnitude (brightness) filter for those who are not perchance intimate with distinct elements of astronomy. In real life, the dimmer an object is, the more you have to zoom in to gather enough of its light to detect it.

  Zooming into a cluster.

Tapping on an object in the sky will target it and fetch up a list of its critical statistics. there is also a button to auto-zoom onto a targeting object. This is good for a quick look-up but you will have to go hunting out specific objects because this version of Star Chart does not have a search function!

  Astronomical data on display.

As necessary tool for any astronomy associate is a red monochrome mode to preserve your night vision. the crescent moon icon on the toolbar toggles this on and off. Having this enables you to go out looking at in the night and use Star Chart as a guide. however, it lacks a lot of other tools that you would need for serious observation.

  Night vision mode in action.

Star Chart is presently at version 1.0, which is shown by not even having an option to overlay constellation lines and names. It is presently fixed to toggling planet and star names. neither is there an azimuthal grid option or the capacity to set a future date so you can plot where objects will be in the future – e.g. if you were planning the evening’s observations during the day.

Star Chart is available in the Nokia Store for £1.50. What it lacks in comprehensiveness it makes up for in simplicity and could be a great way to get a child fascinated in astronomy.

I'll be revisiting this should it get seriously altered in the future.

David Gilson, 31st January 2012

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Star Chart review is a post from: Buy Handheld GPS Online

If you own a TomTom GPS and you're a "Simpsons" fan, you're in for a treat.

For the past couples years, you had the option of putting the voice of Homer Simpson into your nav system. Now, TomTom has landed two more "Simpsons" cast members: Julie Kavner and Harry Shearer, who lend their substantial vocal endowments to Marge Simpson and Mr. Burns, respectively.

Excellent.

These "Voice Skins," which trade for $12.95 apiece, take the place of the stock voices contained in your TomTom. (Actually, you may switch back and forth among voices as desired.) The only downside is that you lose out on street names: Instead of hearing, say, "Turn left on Maple Road," you'll hear, "Take the next left."

Of course, when you're hearing it from Homer, Marge, or C. Montgomery Burns, who cares? I've had the Homer voice since it was first available, and to this day it still makes me smile. It's peculiarly great when I have passengers, who always get a chuckle out of it.

Want to know what you're getting, voice-wise? Click the preview clips for any of the characters.

Curiously, TomTom doesn't mention anyplace that Dan Castellaneta et al are responsible for the voice-overs, but there's no question these are the real deal. (I'll fight anyone who thinks otherwise.)

To install these or any other TomTom celebrity voices (the mr. T one is particularly hilarious), you'll need TomTom's desktop software, your GPS, and the USB cable that came with it.

You may load voices on pretty much each TomTom GPS made in the last few years. Personally, if I was buying goods for a new nav system, I'd choose a TomTom over a Garmin or Magellan solely so I could listen to mr. Burns tell me where to go.

Indeed, if you're tired of hearing that same old robotic GPS voice, this is a great way to liven up your trips.

Add ‘Simpsons’ voices to your TomTom GPS is a post from: Buy Handheld GPS Online

Runmeter, Cyclemeter, Walkmeter

Abvio is a veteran in the exercise-tracking app space. The company has iterated it is three sister products, Runmeter, Cyclemeter and Walkmeter, for version 7.0, making the collection one of the most obsessively finish app suites for monitoring and analyzing workouts.

All three apps are built on the same platform so they offer the same features, but are tailored to running, cycling, and walking, respectively. The apps tap into the GPS function of your iPhone, and aid you track your actions on a map, in a calendar, and in graphs.

Abvio's apps are totally iOS-based -- there are no accompanying web apps, and all selective information about your exercise is stored in the apps themselves. The software trio features social media integration and text-to-speech technology. so, for example, if you tweet that you're about to break a distance record, and your friends tweet back to urge you on, the app will read those tweets to you aloud.

Version 7.0 includes an altered stopwatch feature that lets you track and display more selective information than pretty much any other exercise app around. it can display more than 150 dissimilar selective information statistics, broken down into time or distance-based "splits," like each mile of a bike ride. you can set up and personalize pages of selective information to get the stats and visuals that interest you most, and the apps now have a history feature that saves all of your past workout data directly to your iPhone. you can go back and look at your past mileposts by year, month, week or day, or by specific workout.

Runmeter, Cyclemeter and Walkmeter are $5 from the App Store.

8 Killer iOS Apps That Shined at Macworld 2012 is a post from: Buy Handheld GPS Online

German aerospace engineer Ernst Dickmanns at Bundeswehr University Munich inaugurated a series of projects in the 1980s that at last earned him the sobriquet "the pioneer of the autonomous car."

In 1987, VaMoRs, outfitted with two cameras, eight 16-bit Intel microprocessors and a host of other sensors and software, drove more than 90 km/h (56 mph) for roughly 20 kilometers.

Seven years later, VaMP, with it is two cameras processing 320 by 240 pixels per effigy at a range of 100 meters, could recognize road markings, it is relative position in the lane and the presence of other vehicles. in a test drive near Paris the car drove at up at 130 km/h (81 mph) in simulated traffic, even judging whether it was safe to change lanes. the next year, Dickmann’s team piloted a Mercedes S-Class from Munich to Odense, Denmark, a trip of more than 1,600 kilometers at a greatest or most complete or best possible speed of 180 km/h (112 mph) with, as Dickmanns notes, "about 95% of the distance ... traveled to the full or entire extent automatically."

The success of these vehicles redirected exploration away from cars guided by inductive signals received from buried cables toward vision-based systems for lateral guidance.

Photo: Ernst Dickmanns

Autonomous Cars Through the Ages is a post from: Buy Handheld GPS Online

LinkedIn is one of the most familiar, and most highly visible networking internet sites on the Internet today, so it’s not surprising that it is now the third largest social networking site. The platform is primarily used as a networking area for those looking for work, vendors looking to extend their business reach and established companies that are looking to recruit highly skilled individuals. but how many of you have truly understood its potential when it comes to marketing your business? Let’s take a brief look through how you can apply LinkedIn to your vantage and use it to take your merchandising system to a new level:

1. Interact with well respected, well established LinkedIn groups: LinkedIn plays host to tens of thousands of groups in every niche imaginable: marketing; mentoring; idea sharing; you name it and you will without doubt find a affiliated group. By taking vantage of these conventional groups you can find a whole new audience to advertize and market to. if you are planning an event or product launch, don’t be affrighted to let these groups know; if just one group fellow member takes notice, then it’s been a suitable exercise. Not only will your message be seen by that group, but to their extended connections. The more persons view your profile on LinkedIn, the more your online visibility will start to soar.

2. Use LinkedIn for exploration purposes: Perhaps you have a product or service that you are looking to improve or upgrade, or a new product that has yet to be launched? This is where LinkedIn comes into it’s own. By using the questions and answers division on LinkedIn, you can effortlessly make sure what it is your client wants. LinkedIn users are a very interactional bunch, and you will find that the pros here will be more than happy to showcase their attainments by helping to answer your questions and supplying you with worthful feedback on your ideas.

3. Status updates and Tweeting to promote your company: Don’t underestimate the exceedingly useful status updates and tweets apps. Send out regular yet focalized messages. Don’t waste time with too much beside the point information. keep your messages short and sweet. Let humans know of any changes you are making. but do not forget likewise to give helpful and timely counsel as well.

You could give counsel to humans seeking work or for those working in similar niche markets as yourself. Wouldn’t you like to read something useful about a topic you are mesmerized in? LinkedIn users are the same; they are always on the lookout for something helpful that they can use to endorse themselves or add to their cognition base. LinkedIn is all about putting yourself out there in the marketplace, increasing your visibility and encouraging your professionalism.

4. Direct advertising: take full vantage of the recent publicity services LinkedIn have integrated into the website and use them to publicize your service or product. a LinkedIn promotion venture can support you to effortlessly reach a international audience. having read over the LinkedIn Ts and Cs they appear to be supplying somewhat lowpriced and flexible terms. definitely worth a little investment for a month or two and take it from there then.

5. Looking for investment? your idealisti capitalist could be using LinkedIn: if you are in a circumstance where your business, idea, product development or service needs investment then you couldn’t have come to a better place. By using LinkedIn as a merchandising tool, you are ensuring that your company is commanding great visibility in all the search engines.

Use your profile to it’s fullest by explaining your venture in detail and encouraging potential investors to get in contact. everything of note can be elaborate on you profile: portfolio; video; product documents; achievements; education and much, much more.

As you can see LinkedIn is not just a great place to meet new people, but is a proven way to advertize your business and brand. Once you start taking full vantage of LinkedIn I can make sure you that you won’t be disappointed by the results.

Scott is a prolific networker – online and offline!  He is a conductor of an SEO Agency and likewise writes travel blogs for one of his clients – no.1 Traveller, operators of airport lounges across London airports.

LinkedIn and Why You Should Be Using It is a post from: Buy Handheld GPS Online

On a day inundated by cascading blue chips, it was hard not to think of blue turf.

Boise State has National Signing Day, too. Well, maybe Regional Signing Day.

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The Broncos' cap seldom rests on the table for the duration of this Teen Spirit ritual, in which fabulously large, exceedingly young football players stand in front of the cameras and theatrically choose the hat that belongs to the school they want.

In the Rivals.com rating system, Boise State has signed no five-star players and one four-star player in the past five recruiting classes.

That player was not Kellen Moore, who this year set the FBS record for victories by a quarterback. no, Moore fundamentally had to peddle his abilities around the Northwest, getting no interest from any person but Boise.

Neither was that player Tyler Shoemaker, who set the school record with 15 touchdown passes. Shoemaker was a no-star player. not even the Broncos offered him a ride. He walked on, after turning down a GPS of small-college offers – Eastern and Western Oregon, Eastern and Western Washington.

No, the big-time recruit was cornerback Jeremy Ioane, from Honolulu. He is now a redshirt sophomore, but he did not start last year.

So February is not the month Boise State chooses for prime time. It alternatively chooses the final five months of the calendar.

The Broncos are 126-17 since the end of the 2000 season and have lost to just one BCS group discussion team since Chris Petersen became coach in 2006. in that span they have beaten Georgia, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Oregon and Oregon State.

In 2011 they wasted Arizona State in the Las Vegas Bowl. Arizona State had a lot of cap guys on it is roster.

From 2007-2010, none of Boise State's recruiting classes was rated in the top 50 nationally. But then, Wisconsin did not have a class rated higher than 34th, Oklahoma State never was rated higher than 26th, and Stanford only once was as high as 20th.

Texas was rated fifth, 11th, fifth and third in those four seasons, and you don't see Texas play on new Year's these days. Florida was first, third, 11th and second, and the Gators struggle as well.

Today UCLA fans are walking proud because they've heard good stuff about Jim Mora's original recruiting class. they forget that Rick Neuheisel's final three recruiting classes were rated 13th, 14th and eighth.

This is not a criticism of the evaluators. they ranked Alabama's classes no. 1 in 2008 and 2009, and they apparently were right.

They are not projecting that today's cap-choosers are tomorrow's champions. they are merely assessing players as they are. they, more than anyone, recognise that pre-judging a college football player is no posing no difficulty than tracking a hummingbird.

Yet fans become obsessive experts on this queer day, and much of the media feels compelled to follow.

Besides, the day itself has gotten quieter, on the inside.

"In 1983 we had Andy Sinclair (who chose Stanford), and I had six or seven coaches from around the country in here attempting to sign him," said Dave White, Edison High's coach. "Not a heap of coaches are here today."

The die is often cast before a player becomes a senior. Chase Favreau, Edison's quarterback, was getting minimal attention because he was hurt for part of his junior year and missed the summer camps that have become so critical.

Favreau did sign with San Diego State on Wednesday, which gratified White. But still....

"Not a great deal of of these kids have the cash to go to all the camps," White said. "The colleges make these conclusions so much earlier. Kids are committing as sophomores. what do they know about these colleges?"

And then there's Boise State, where White's son, Hunter, was a successful defensive back.

"They're signing more highly rated guys than they used to," White said. "But what they commonly do is go after maybe the second-tier guy, coach the heck out of him, make it a team atmosphere. they likewise genuinely scout their character. they tell them, 'Hey, it's not for everybody. If you don't like it, don't come.'

"Those kids have a chip on their shoulder. I know Hunter did. two Pac-10 schools told him they'd sign him if he was 2 inches taller. Kids don't want to listen that. What's 2 inches if a guy can play?"

The biggest disclaimer must be stamped on quarterback hype. Mitch Mustain, Ryan Perilloux, Ben Olson and Garrett Gilbert were all first-team USA Today quarterbacks.

Robert Griffin III was rated the 42nd-best player in Texas in 2007 by Scout.com. somehow that wasn't embossed on his Heisman Trophy.

"I'm old school," White said. "I see these kids making these proclamations at these press conferences. they have to realize they haven't done anything yet."

That's why there's a hot exercise field in August, to make the chips come down.

Contact the writer:

Boise State cashes in its chips is a post from: Buy Handheld GPS Online

The Health Secretary had set great store by his own inflated assert that GPs, who would supposedly be at the centre of his plans to reorder the NHS, were strongly behind these changes.

The GPs themselves have spoken, with over 90 per cent of respondents telling a RCGP consultation exercise that the only future they would contemplate for Lansley's Health and Social Care bill is withdrawal.

If there was the slightest grain of truth in Tory protestations of good faith and respect for the views of health professionals, this bill would already have been relocated into the nearest recycling container.

The RCGP is not the first professional health body to reject the Tory plan.

It is the last and the one that the coalition government was relying on to counterbalance the implacable hostility of the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, which have been unequivocal in their demand to kick the bill into touch.

Add to them the "grave concerns" of the Royal College of Radiologists and the view of the Royal College of Psychiatrists that it is "fundamentally flawed" and the picture of an not wanted piece of draft legislation takes clear shape.

Even the Tory-majority Commons health committee has spurred and encouraged Lansley and health privatisation zealots to think again.

The government's response is a state of denial fathered by a bizarre mix of injured innocence and feigned bafflement.

Health Minister Simon Burns claims that the RCGP position is at odds with "what I listen GPs up and down the country saying," which indicates either that he is choosing the persons he listens to very conservatively or he hears only what he wants to hear.

The Health Secretary has tabled a number of amendments to the bill in response to the tidal wave of criticism from NHS staff, professional organisations, trade unions and the general public, but his proposed changes have left the core of his approach untouched.

And the wide front of the Bill's opponents appreciates, as RCGP chairwoman Dr Clare Gerada put it so succinctly, that Lansley's vision offers the chance of "a fragmented, pricey and bureaucratic health service for all of us and one that will be very difficult to sort out and put back into a consistent form."

Burns's subsequent undertake to spun the latest brick in the wall of opposition to the government plan as the not surprising outcome of Dr Gerada's personal hostility to "our plans to improve the NHS" conjures up the unlikely effigy of the professional body representing tens of thousands of GPs pleading: "please don't improve our NHS."

And the Health Minister deploys what he clearly believes is a clincher argument by noting that the 1,000-strong Family Doctor Association is along for the coalition ride, unmindful to the reality that this tiny group is a tiny drop of complicity in an ocean of antagonism.

As GPs have learned more when it comes to government intentions, seeing clearly that the planned clinical commissioning groups are more likely to be overshadowed by private management firms than by themselves, their opposition has hardened.

The government case is threadbare. The bill has to be derailed or the aftermaths will be disastrous.

GPs’ gust of realism is a post from: Buy Handheld GPS Online

Just tell this app what it is that you're looking for and it will direct you, using a GPS system, to the nearest pharmacy with the best deal around.

LowestMed is a discount prescription service that shops for the lowest price for prescription medications.  The idea is that you enter the medication prescribed, and whether you are at the doctor's office or out looking for a refill, the app tells you (and shows you, via GPS), the pharmacy with the best deal on that prescription.

The app launched last week, and we had a probability to interview Brad Bangerter, CEO of LowestMed.

From looking at your website, it seems that LowestMed is fundamentally a discount prescription program. does this mean that members get a lower price than they would if they weren't members, or does it just compare prices between pharmacies?

LowestMed is a discount prescription program with tools to empower buyers in making purchasing decisions. To get the prices listed on the app, users ought to present the discount card on their mobile device. The prices are negotiated discounts for our users, not marketing price comparisons.

Couldn't buyers get the same prices just by calling various pharmacies or going to pharmacy websites? What vantage does LowestMed offer over the manual method.

Pharmacies only give merchandising prices over the phone and on their websites. They will not give insurance card negotiated prices nor discount card negotiated prices over the phone. To know those prices, a buyer must go to the pharmacy and present a prescription at which time the pharmacy submits a claim, fills the prescription, and gets a price. Then the buyer may decide whether or not to buy it. It's kind of a convoluted system. That's why we make it easy for users to see what our negotiated discount prices are without having to go to each pharmacy to find the best price. The app makes it easy and commodious to save time and money

Is there any charge to use your application, for example a regularly every month subscription fee?

No, there is no regularly every month charge or subscription to use the LowestMed app.

Tell us in regards to the app -- are the results displayed as a list, on a map, or in some other format?

The app shows a quick comparison of prices in list form on a results screen. The comparison is very powerful yet easy to use. Users may click on the pharmacy name to see a map of locatings and get driving directions.

Is this principally for people who have insurance through their employer, are self-employed, or those with no insurance?

The app is mainly for humans with no insurance (49.9 million) and those with High Deductible Health Plans (over 11 million). however, many times, the prices available through LowestMed may be less than insurance plan co-payments so those buyers should use it too.

When you sign up on your web page, there is some personal selective information (e.g. address requested). How is this info kept secure? Will it be sold or shared with other companies?

No personal data is required to use the app. If a buyer chooses to enroll on the website, their info is held secure and is not sold or shared with any other companies.

This post also appears on medGadget, an Atlantic collaborator site.

LowestMed’s New App Finds the Best Prescription Prices Near You is a post from: Buy Handheld GPS Online

In a potential quandary for Congress, the Supreme Court ruled that government authorities will have to obtain a warrant before attaching GPS devices, like car-mounted electronics, to track suspects. But they didn't rule on tracing the emplacement of mobile devices, like smartphones, that officers have never touched.

In United States v. Jones, the justices determined that the U.S. government violates constitutional protections versus unreasonable searches when it "physically invades" personal property -- in this case an alleged cocaine dealer's Jeep -- to insert a location-detection tool. The device transmitted signals pinpointing the vehicle's emplacement within one hundred feet to a government computer, according to the court's opinion.

But Monday's ruling does not address the legality of tracking mobile appliances without handling them -- a debate that is sure to intensify as location-identification services become ubiquitous in society. The justices underscored that unsolved privacy issues remain:

"If long haul monitoring can be accomplished without committing a technical trespass -- suppose, for example, that the federal government required or persuaded automati makers to include a GPS tracking device in every car -- the court's theory would provide no protection," Justice Samuel Alito wrote. "For example, suppose that the officers in the present case had followed [the] respondent by surreptitiously activating a stolen vehicle detection system that came with the car when it was purchased."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor consorted with Alito: "With increasing regularity, the government will be competent of duplicating the monitoring undertaken in this case by enlisting factory- or owner-installed vehicle tracking gimmicks or GPS-enabled smartphones," she stated. "GPS monitoring generates a precise, comprehensive record of a person's public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations . . . The government can store such records and expeditiously mine them for data years into the future."

In a way, the judicial branch passed the baton to the legislative branch for closure on the executive branch's case. The Justice Department had argued authorities don't need a warrant to track a person's movements on public streets.

"Concern about new intrusions on privacy may spur the enactment of legislation to protect versus these intrusions," Alito acknowledged. "This is what ultimately happened with respect to wiretapping . . . In circumstances involving dramatic technical change, the best solution to privacy worries may be legislative."

Lawmakers who have supported bills banning cellphone-tracking took vantage of the ruling to press for permanent protections.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement, "It seems that a majority of the Supreme Court would agree that secretly turning someone's cell phone into a tracking device without their cognition is unconstitutional. however, U.S. law is woefully outdated when it comes to all kinds of emplacement tracking technology. Congress has a obligation to step in and provide clear rules and boundaries for the use of these technologies, so that law enforcement doesn't have to go all the way to the Supreme Court every time it needs direction."

Last Congress, Wyden introduced the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act, or GPS Act, with Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk and Reps. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Peter Welch, D-Vt.

Goodlatte said in a statement that the high court's decision "confirms the fact that a warrant is necessary for tracking an individual's movements with a GPS device . . . however, the court stopped short of requiring a warrant for all geolocation selective information including that received from mobile telephones."

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Supreme Court Defers to Congress on Smartphone Tracking is a post from: Buy Handheld GPS Online

GeoMicro Inc., an Irvine geographic emplacement software developer, has been bought by Descartes Systems Group, a Canadian logistics company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

GeoMicro was founded in 1997 to provide businesses with Internet mapping and geographic intelligence. It launched its initial AltaMap Server in 1998. It now has mapping merchandise for GPS fleet tracking, cartographic-quality maps and North American geocoding and routing.

Descartes Systems Group in Canada has bought Irvine-based GeoMicro. ADVERTISEMENT

Descartes said its scheme is to provide the most comprehensive logistics management solutions on the market. its foundation is Descartes Global Logistics Network on which apps and community are built. Descartes' press release said GeoMicro's engineering will add to that foundation progressed geographic selective information schemes that are key to effective logistics operations.

Descartes said that GeoMicro will exaggerate Descartes' capablenesses to offer Internet-based address validation and tracking; geographic selective information systems required to manage mercantile transportation; and capitalize on future prospects as more companies use the technology.

Edward Ryan, Descartes chief mercantile officer, said, "Geographic emplacement is rudimentary to logistics and a key factor of numerous business decisions. By adding GeoMicro's engineering and services to our Logistics Technology Platform, our clients may access the innovative geographical data processing that is critical to effective logistics operations."

Descartes Chairman and CEO Arthur Mesher said, "We recognized the need to extend our cloud-based Logistics Technology Platform's GIS capablenesses to provide solutions that not only meet today's geographic info needs, but likewise scale to address future engineering science probabilities such as crowd-sourced emplacement traffic and road network services."

The GeoMicro internetlocation said of the deal, "Descartes extends the command of logistics operations, helping the world's greatest and most connected logistics community to quickly reduce costs, improve service and comply with customs and transportation regulations."

Click here to read more.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7927 or

Canadian company buys O.C. software firm is a post from: Buy Handheld GPS Online