iTRAK and Magellan collaborate on Navigation integration for GPS Fleet Tracking Systems

A view of the navigation and communication menus for the
Magellan Roadmate® Commercial terminal as implemented by iTRAK
Fleet Executive (iFE).

iTRAK Corporation a leading provider of GPS/GNSS-based wireless fleet tracking, digital mapping, and vehicle reporting software solutions announced a collaborative effort with MiTAC Digital, manufacturer of the popular Magellan® professional and personal navigation devices to provide integrated fleet tracking and navigation systems; that combined with a heavy duty engine interface will meet the new and emerging EOBR/ELD standards, while providing customers with the flexibility, efficiency and reduced liability required by today's professional carriers and heavy duty equipment operators.

The combined product will allow remote tracking of vehicles and handsets in the field, while integrating with the Magellan commercial product to provide in-cab navigation voice prompts and terminal text messaging. 

Mark Perini, Associate Vice President of Product Marketing for Magellan said: "Magellan is pleased to have iTRAK as a partner integrating the Magellan RoadMate® Commercial 5190T-LM  in their offer combining navigation, messaging and fleet tracking."  The integrated system provides fleet tracking using iTRAK's patented iTRAK® Fleet Executive™ (iFE) and WebApp™ systems to remotely track vehicles and handsets in the field, while integrating with the Magellan RoadMate® commercial product to provide in-cab voice navigation and terminal messaging through the iFE cloud-based application.

Magellan RoadMate professional in-vehicle navigation systems
will include free map updates, and traffic alerts for the life of
the system - as well as HOS tracking.

Among the features included in the product are the following:

• 5" touch screen: 5" hi-resolution WVGA screen makes viewing your map easier
• Customizable Truck Routes: The system allows legal truck routes to be generated based on vehicle type, dimensions, weight, number of trailers and HAZMAT type (if any).  This information can be set up by the driver on the navigation device, or remotely through iFE.

iTRAK®  WebApp™ smartphone and
tablet software used to track vehicles
from the field

• The truck road attributes can be turned off, so drivers can use the same navigation device in their personal passenger vehicles.
• Free Lifetime Traffic Alerts: Real-time traffic updates sent directly to your GPS unit to avoid traffic jams and other delays.  Alternate routes are suggested by the system, conforming to the truck settings that are in place.
• Multiple Stop Routing: Plan your trip with multiple stops in the order you want or automatically optimize for the most efficient route, saving time and money and improving customer service.
• Hours of service tracking: The device supports driver log-in and capture of changes in driving status.  Authorized users of iFE are able to remotely view the changes. Multiple drivers can be supported on a single device.
• Optional engine interface: Heavy duty J1939 interfaces are supported.  Engine data can be transmitted to the office by the iTRAK system. 
• Extra-loud (93dB) speaker: Navigation instructions can be heard in the cab.

Example of a documented customer specific install.

• Messaging to and from the vehicle: iTRAK Fleet Executive (iFE) sends messages that are displayed on the navigation device, and messages from the vehicle are generated on the Magellan RoadMate.  Canned reply messages can be defined to eliminate typing by the driver (when the vehicle is not operating).
• Truck-specific POIs such as weigh stations and truck stops:  Truck stops can be filtered based on amenities, such as showers or certified scales.
• Bluetooth: The navigation device includes Bluetooth capability, to pair with and serve as the speaker for a smartphone.
• Affordability: The combined system and associated services will be priced at a substantial savings compared to the EOBR/ELD systems used for cost estimates by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

An installation diagram for the integrated navigation,
fleet tracking and messaging system.

The combined iTRAK/Magellan product will provide affordable and safe fleet tracking, communication and navigation functions for commercial trucking, service vehicles, government, sales fleets and much more.

iTRAK Corporation (formerly Data Burst Technologies) was founded in 1995 by the company President Thomas L. Grounds; as a developer of GPS-based wireless tracking and AVL systems. The company’s principal offices and network operations center are located in Colorado.  Video tutorials and testimonials can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/iTRAKcorporation.

The company’s flagship product, iTRAK Fleet Executive, is designed for commercial fleets of 5 to 50,000 vehicles, and runs as a web-hosted service or on-site enterprise system. The application is used by thousands of fleet managers throughout North America, and around the world. Its event-based transmission scheme dramatically improves tracking efficiency by sending more data when the vehicle is moving quickly and less data when the vehicle is moving slowly or stopped. Transmission triggers include distance traveled, elapsed time, and key events.

iTRAK Fleet Executive (iFE) has been embraced by decision-makers in diverse markets such as Construction Services, Plumbing/HVAC, Trucking, School Transportation, Landscaping, Towing & Recovery, Electrical Contracting, Waste Disposal, Auto Glass, and Public Safety agencies. The application is integrated with Bing® and Google Maps™ and has full mapping and geocoding capabilities for most of the world, as well as being translated into 9 languages. For more information, visit www.itrak.com. (iTRAK is a registered trademark and iTRAK Fleet Executive is a trademark of iTRAK Corporation.)

iTRAK® is a registered trademark of iTRAK Corporation.  iTRAK® Fleet Executive™ (iFE) and iTRAK WebApp™ are trademarks of iTRAK Corporation.  Bing® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.  Google Maps™ is a trademark of Google Inc.

NFL to use GPS tracking devices during games, practices

A GPS tracking device, fitted into a pocket on the back of the jersey
 will collect information about
player location, distance traveled, and exertion levels.

As reported by the NFL:

The NFL is evolving in ways many never would have considered 10, 20, 30 years ago.

In an attempt to get the most out of its players, the NFL, in conjunction with all 32 teams, will "require players to wear non-obtrusive tracking devices in select practices and games," according to a league memo sent to the clubs on Aug. 1.

The tracking devices will use GPS functionality to monitor "positional and performance data," including speed, distance traveled, exertion levels and field locations.

Information such as this will help the NFL and its teams better evaluate the physical highs and lows any given player will experience during a game or practice, in hopes of being able to maximize performance.

Data collected from these devices will not immediately be shared with the clubs, as the league plans to work with the Competition Committee on how to best evaluate and distribute the information.

The Buffalo Bills have been using similar technology for close to a year, and feedback has been positive.

"They talk about the distance you covered and the explosiveness and how fast you're running," running back C.J. Spiller told BuffaloBills.com. "It's a good device to have."

According to the memo, it is likely that all players will be required to wear them "at some point over the next few seasons."

EOBR proposal and harassment survey advancing on separate paths

As reported by LandLine Mag: A proposal that could someday lead to a mandate for electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) in commercial trucks is moving along two separate paths at the federal level. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) is paying close attention to both, as the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) attempts to address the issue of EOBRs and the harassment of drivers by motor carriers.  One part of the proposal, a supplemental notice of proposed rule-making, advanced to the White House Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday, Aug. 7.

According to the notice, the proposal attempts to establish performance standards for EOBRs, also known as electronic logging devices or ELDs; define a mandate to replace paper logs with ELDs; define requirements for hours-of-service (HoS) supporting documents; and take measures that “ensure that the mandatory use of ELDs will not result in harassment of drivers by motor carriers and enforcement officials.”

The FMCSA hopes the proposal clears the Office of Management and Budget in November on its way to publication.

The second part of the proposal involves a survey of drivers being prepared by the FMCSA that specifically targets the issue of electronic logs and driver harassment.

OOIDA filed comments in advance of the survey, urging the FMCSA to ensure the questions got to the heart of the harassment issue. OOIDA has raised numerous concerns about the use of EOBRs by carriers to make drivers drive when they are tired or in need of a break, to disturb a driver who is taking a mandatory rest break, or to track a vehicle being used for personal conveyance.

The issue of driver harassment raised by OOIDA was all it took for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to rule against the FMCSA in a lawsuit and vacated an agency rule from 2010 that would have required electronic on-board recorders in the vehicles of motor carriers that demonstrated unsatisfactory safety and compliance ratings.

The FMCSA has been back at the drawing board ever since to deal with the court ruling and establish criteria for electronic logs.  The current highway bill, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, or MAP-21, requires the FMCSA to advance another rule for electronic logs, but also to make sure the devices cannot be used to harass drivers.

An FMCSA spokesman outlined the agency’s intentions to take separate paths for the supplemental notice and the driver survey on harassment. “At this juncture, the driver survey is on a separate track than the (supplemental notice),” said spokesman Duane DeBruyne. “When completed, however, the survey will be brought onto the same track to inform the rule-making process.”

Crowdsourcing weather using smartphone batteries and GPS/GNSS Location data

The OpenWeather smartphone app collects temperature, humidity
and air pressure information from users around the world combined
with GPS/GNSS location data to track weather conditions in real
time. Right now, the app is only available on Android smartphones.

As reported by Phys.org: Smartphones are a great way to check in on the latest weather predictions, but new research aims to use the batteries in those same smartphones to help predict the weather.

A group of smartphone app developers and weather experts discovered a way to use the temperature sensors built into smartphone batteries to crowdsource weather information - mashing it up with location data provided by the phone's GPS/GNSS interface. These tiny digital thermometers usually prevent smartphones from dangerously overheating, but the researchers discovered the battery temperatures tell a story about the environment around them.

Crowdsourcing hundreds of thousands of smartphone temperature readings from phones running the popular OpenSignal Android app, the team estimated daily average temperatures for eight major cities around the world. After calibration, the team calculated air temperatures within an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of the actual value, which should improve as more users join the system.

While each of the cities already has established weather stations, according to the new method's creators it could one day make predictions possible at a much finer scale of time and space than is currently feasible. Whereas today, weather reports typically provide one temperature for an entire city and a handful of readings expected throughout a day, the technique could lead to continuously updated weather predictions at a city block resolution.

"The ultimate end is to be able to do things we've never been able to do before in meteorology and give those really short-term and localized predictions," said James Robinson, co-founder of London-based app developer OpenSignal that discovered the method. "In London you can go from bright and sunny to cloudy in just a matter of minutes. We'd hope someone would be able to decide when to leave their office to get the best weather for their lunch break."

Wireless 'Internet of Things' go battery-free with experimental communication technique

Using 'ambient backscatter', these devices can interact with users
 and communicate with each other without using batteries. They exchange
 information by reflecting or absorbing pre-existing radio signals.

As reported by the University of Washington: We might be one step closer to an Internet-of-things reality.

University of Washington engineers have created a new wireless communication system that allows devices to interact with each other without relying on batteries or wires for power.

The new communication technique, which the researchers call “ambient backscatter,” takes advantage of the TV and cellular transmissions that already surround us around the clock. Two devices communicate with each other by reflecting the existing signals to exchange information. The researchers built small, battery-free devices with antennas that can detect, harness and reflect a UHF TV signal, which then is picked up by other similar devices.

The technology could enable a network of devices and sensors to communicate with no power source or human attention needed.

A block diagram of a simple backscatter device.  Note that
the power comes through the RF antenna.

“We can re-purpose wireless signals that are already around us into both a source of power and a communication medium,” said lead researcher Shyam Gollakota, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering. “It’s hopefully going to have applications in a number of areas including wearable computing, smart homes and self-sustaining sensor networks.”

The researchers published their results at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Data Communication 2013 conference in Hong Kong, which began Aug. 13. They have received the conference’s best-paper award for their research.

“Our devices form a network out of thin air,” said co-author Joshua Smith, a UW associate professor of computer science and engineering and of electrical engineering. “You can reflect these signals slightly to create a Morse code of communication between battery-free devices.”

Smart sensors could be built and placed permanently inside nearly any structure, then set to communicate with each other. For example, sensors placed in a bridge could monitor the health of the concrete and steel, then send an alert if one of the sensors picks up a hairline crack. The technology can also be used for communication – text messages and emails, for example – in wearable devices, without requiring battery consumption.

Everyday objects could be enabled with battery-free tags to
communicate with each other. A couch could use ambient backscatter
to let the user know where his keys were left.

The researchers tested the ambient backscatter technique with credit card-sized prototype devices placed within several feet of each other. For each device the researchers built antennas into ordinary circuit boards that flash an LED light when receiving a communication signal from another device.

Groups of the devices were tested in a variety of settings in the Seattle area, including inside an apartment building, on a street corner and on the top level of a parking garage. These locations ranged from less than half a mile away from a TV tower to about 6.5 miles away.

They found that the devices were able to communicate with each other, even the ones farthest from a TV tower. The receiving devices picked up a signal from their transmitting counterparts at a rate of 1 kilobit per second when up to 2.5 feet apart outdoors and 1.5 feet apart indoors. This is enough to send information such as a sensor reading, text messages and contact information.

It’s also feasible to build this technology into devices that do rely on batteries, such as smartphones. It could be configured so that when the battery dies, the phone could still send text messages by leveraging power from an ambient TV signal.

The 'Internet of Things', is slowly becoming a reality, but
providing power to everything we'd like to communicate
with is a challenge.  'Ambient backscatter 'could be a key
technology needed to bring the idea to fruition.

The applications are endless, the researchers say, and they plan to continue advancing the capacity and range of the ambient backscatter communication network.

The other researchers involved are David Wetherall, a UW professor of computer science and engineering, Vincent Liu, a doctoral student in computer science and engineering, and Aaron Parks and Vamsi Talla, both doctoral students in electrical engineering.

The research was funded by the University of Washington through a Google Faculty Research Award and by the National Science Foundation’s Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering at the UW.

GPS/Location and Mashup Analytics: The Future Of Big Data

Mashup analytics can reflect human behavior, in real-time
and by location; and it can track people changing their behavior.  Powerful
tools in the age of Big Data.

As reported by Information Week: When it comes to big data, most CIOs find themselves in the same boat as Bill Chalmers, the beleaguered main character of the novel 'The Diagnosis'. Chalmers' work involves an ever-expanding swamp of data. He uses every trick available to master it. He can't keep up. No one in his office can. In a cunning plot element, when he suffers a mysterious ailment, no amount of information seems to help the doctors diagnose him.

Chalmers' world provides an apt metaphor for today's, where information expands exponentially, straining our capability for understanding. Now we've got unstructured data pouring in from sensors, mobile apps, GPS and other real-world, real-time sources. Must we suffer like Chalmers and his hated boss, Stumm, who secretly brings his wife in at night to help him try to catch up?

Perhaps not. Chalmers didn't have Mashup Analytics.

What's Mashup Analytics? It's part technology, part statistical process; that enables real-time business intelligence regarding events or changes occurring in the marketplace - and which can be applied to almost any industry or market, given the right context. An example comes from the Brooklyn Nets basketball team. The Nets rolled out their AchieveMint Challenge, a health-related marketing app in May.  Fans could sign up for the Brooklyn Nets app and feed data to it from apps like FitBit, RunKeeper, Twitter and FourSquare. Fans who signed up and then posted earned points, which could be redeemed for Nets merchandise. Grand prize was a Nets party on draft day, June 27.

The app did well -- more than 1,600 fans signed up in one week. Those fans interacted with the Nets more than 100,000 times in the three weeks of the promotion, checking in regularly from an average of three apps.

What makes this Mashup Analytics? For one, the Nets didn't gather the data, or even initiate the campaign. The Nets had the brand, and the customer base. The team worked with Van Wagner, a sports marketing firm (it pioneered rotational ad signage at sporting events). Van Wagner's client is French pharmaceutical Sanofi, which had the marketing budget. Sanofi knew about AchieveMint, a startup that aggregates social media and health apps. AchieveMint provided the technology, the analytics and, in effect, the IT.

Activity trackers are the latest trend in fitness tracking over
the Internet - combined in some cases with smartphone
applications.  Mashups of fitness data, GPS/GNSS location
information including speed, altitude, and other telematic
data such as temperature and humidity will be critical data
sources in the future of health care IT systems and analytics.

A mere 100,000 data points doesn't sound like the kind of thing that would trouble Bill Chalmers, or any self-respecting CIO. But this is not ordinary data. It's drawn from apps that don't talk to each other. It reflects human behavior, in real-time and on location. And it reflects something hard to do: people changing their behaviors, in response to what was in effect a hands-off marketing campaign.

Mashup IT like this will matter most immediately to CIOs in pharmaceutical and health benefits companies. In markets like the U.S., where the entire health care model is switching away from paying for treatment to paying for outcomes, apps like AchieveMint yield behavioral data that will become crucial to healthcare. Nearly a quarter billion health and fitness apps will be downloaded by 2017, up from 156 million today, predicts iSuppli (recently acquired by IHS Inc). Separately, sales of sports and fitness monitors, like heart-rate monitors and pedometers; most with with integrated GPS/GNSS, will reach 56.2 million units in 2017. Many of these will be on mobile phones, and they will increasingly connect to the Internet.

Fitness apps and devices represent a remarkably splintered market (iSuppli tracks the top 20 vendors). AchieveMint may not become the 'Huffington Post' of fitness apps, but it's clear that aggregation is coming to this new kind of content: consumer behavioral data.

Such data does exist now, says Joseph Stetson, VP at Van Wagner Sports, "it's just hard to get to it."
He's excited about Mashup Analytics because it's going to get a lot easier to get that data, something he thinks will change the game for any company that interacts with consumers.

CIOs need to recognize that no one company will be able to create such powerful data by itself. That demands Mashup IT. Questions it creates include ones like these: Since pedometer readings aren't like claims data, how should a health care company meld claims data with individuals' self-reported exercise and diet behavior? How can companies begin to understand what links behavior and risk? Is it best for the CIO to devise the algorithms and structures to do the processing? Or to let third parties do the work, be they an AchieveMint or a consultant?

The answers aren't clear yet, says Mikki Nasch, AchieveMint's CEO and co-founder. She thinks it will take at least six months to devise analytics models that can take these new kinds of data, merge them with existing data, and say something useful about them. "Right now, we don't know what correlates. If I go to Whole Foods and I run every day, what kind of person am I?" she asks.

There are plenty more questions to ask, but a smart CIO can get a head start on diagnosing what it means for his or her company by starting now.

The Hyperloop revealed

One of the world’s most visionary entrepreneurs, Elon Musk, says he wants
 to revolutionize the way we travel. On Monday he unveiled a new design
 for a transportation system that would move up to 700 miles per hour
 on a magnetic levitation system.

As reported by NBC News: Electromagnetic acceleration: That's the high technology behind the high-speed transit concept that billionaire Elon Musk calls the Hyperloop.

Musk — who already plays leading roles in the SpaceX rocket venture, the Tesla electric car company and the SolarCity solar-energy company — unveiled his vision of the Hyperloop on Monday.

The plan is aimed at cutting the travel time between San Francisco and Los Angeles to 35 minutes, at a price of $20 for a one-way trip.

"It would actually feel a lot like being on an airplane," Musk said.

Musk said the Hyperloop arrangement could be implemented between any pair of cities situated up to, say, 900 miles (1,500 kilometers) apart. For longer distances, air travel would probably be more efficient, he said.

A cutaway shows passengers inside a Hyperloop
passenger capsule.

In a blog posting and a 57-page PDF file about the Hyperloop, Musk said he came up with the plan out of frustration with the shortcomings of California's $68 billion high-speed rail project, which is just getting started. Musk estimated that about a dozen engineers from SpaceX and Tesla worked on the Hyperloop concept over the past year or so as a "background task."

How the Hyperloop would work
The Hyperloop would send travelers through low-pressure steel tubes in specialized pods that zoom at high subsonic speeds, reaching about 760 mph (1,220 kilometers per hour). That compares with typical speeds of 110 mph (for U.S. systems) to 300 mph (in China) for high-speed rail travel.

Musk's plan would rev up the pods from their stations using magnetic linear accelerators — and once they're in the main travel tubes, they'd be given periodic boosts by a linear induction motor built into the tube and the pods. "The moving motor element (rotor) will be located on the vehicle for weight savings and power requirements, while the tube will incorporate the stationary motor element (stator) which powers the vehicle," Musk wrote.

An illustration from Elon Musk's technical paper shows the proposed
 geometry for the Hyperloop passenger capsule, housing several distinct
 systems within the outer mold line.

The pods would have electric compressor fans mounted on their noses to transfer high-pressure air from the front to the rear, getting around an aerodynamic limitation that would otherwise stymie near-supersonic travel in a tube. "We can make it work" with the current technology for electric motors and batteries, as implemented in the Tesla Model S sedan, Musk said.

The journey would be nearly frictionless, thanks to a cushion of compressed air between the cars and the tube's inner surface. Musk said the system could be scaled up to hold three full-size automobiles per pod, with passengers inside.

The whole system would be powered by solar panels installed onto the tubes. "By placing solar panels on top of the tube, the Hyperloop can generate far in excess of the energy needed to operate," Musk wrote.

A cutaway view shows the Hyperloop passenger capsule in a
transit tube, mounted on pylons with solar arrays attached on top.

The tubes would be elevated on pylons, and generally follow Interstate 5 between San Francisco and L.A. Musk said that would cut down on the cost of land acquisition and rights of way. He estimated that the whole system would cost around $6 billion to build. "Even several billion is a low number when compared with several tens of billion proposed for the track of the California rail project," he wrote.

This combination of technologies is what led Musk to describe the Hyperloop last month as a "cross between a Concorde, a rail gun and an air hockey table." The hints that he dropped along the way sparked a flurry of speculation, about schemes ranging from "Jetsons"-like people-movers to underground vacuum tunnels.

One of the closest guesses came from a self-described "tinker" named John Gardi, who laid out a plan for a turbine-driven pneumatic system. Gardi said Musk's system was even better. "Beautiful, elegant, efficient!" Gardi wrote in a Twitter update after Monday's big reveal. "The aerodynamic solution is brilliant, brings me to tears ... I can see why I missed it."

Artist's conceptions show off the aerodynamic look
of Hyperloop pods.

Who'll build the Hyperloop?
Musk has said he wouldn't be able to build the Hyperloop himself, due to his duties at SpaceX and Tesla. But he changed his tune slightly on Monday, during a news conference to discuss the idea. "I'm somewhat tempted to at least make a demonstration prototype," he told reporters. "I've sort of come around a little bit on my thinking here, that maybe I should do the beginning bit, create a subscale version that's operating, and then hand it over to somebody else."

However, Musk cautioned that such a demonstration wouldn't be immediate, and that it would serve as a technological test bed rather than a practical transit system. He compared the project to a rocket demonstration on SpaceX's test range in Texas.

Musk estimated that it could take seven to 10 years to build a working Hyperloop between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The Hyperloop could be held back by technical as well as political and economic issues. Transportation policy experts say that high-speed transit in the United States has been stymied not so much by technological challenges as by the challenges of acquiring rights of way and getting enough money to build the required infrastructure. Despite the hurdles, high-speed transit projects are beginning to gain traction. California, for example, is continuing with its next-generation rail system, and other states are proceeding with their own high-speed rail initiatives.

Musk said he thought the California project should be put on hold, considering that the construction cost could balloon well past the current $68 billion estimate, and is likely to result in a rail system that's slower than taking an airplane. "That just doesn't seem wise for a state that was facing bankruptcy not that long ago," he said.

Emil Frankel, a former transportation official who is now a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said he didn't know enough about Musk's freshly revealed concept to comment on its pluses and minuses. But he said anything that gave a boost to the debate over the future of transportation was a good thing.

"I think that the best way for us to spend our money on infrastructure, given scarce resources, is with incremental improvements, restoration of our existing systems and appropriate expansions," he told NBC News. "The analyses that have been done suggest that these kinds of incremental improvements to the efficiency and reliability of our existing systems provide the best benefits."