E911 Location Technology may not be Accurate Enough for All Emergencies

As reported by GCN: There is a great deal of interest in tracking the location of mobile devices. Commercial carriers use location information to deliver services such as targeted advertising. The public safety community needs it to pinpoint 911 calls from mobile phones and to track personnel in the field.

The challenge is making wireless location technology accurate enough for use in life-and-death situations.

Polaris Wireless, which provides higher accuracy wireless location data for 911 call centers using its RF pattern-matching technology, is experimenting with the feasibility of using commercial GPS-only services for some public safety applications. It is “good enough” for some uses, not for others.

We often assume that the Global Positioning System that provides location data for many smartphones and navigation applications is very accurate. But GPS [for smartphones] has limitations when not assisted by other technologies, although they often are not noticed by users.

Government standards call for accuracy of at least 7.8 meters at a 95 percent confidence level. That’s about 26 feet, which is not bad. But atmospheric conditions, the local environment and the quality of the receiver can change that dramatically.

The Federal Aviation Administration has found that some receivers can locate a user to within three meters, horizontally. But for vertical information — determining what floor someone is on inside a building — forget about it. Likewise, if there are buildings, trees, mountains or other obstructions in the way — anywhere except in a flat, open-sky environment — GPS accuracy can quickly drop to the tens of meters.

Accuracy to within 50 meters is useful for some things, but for it’s not good enough for public safety. There are a number of technologies to improve accuracy, such as Polaris’s OmniLocate RF pattern-matching service, but although they show “significant promise,” they are not yet dependable enough for first responders answering 911 calls, according to a Federal Communications Commission study.

The FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council conducted tests late last year in the San Francisco Bay area to establish a baseline of current capabilities of three commercial location technologies.

“Even the best location technologies tested have not proven the ability to consistently identify the specific building and floor, which represents the required performance to meet public safety's needs,” the report said. “This is not likely to change over the next 12 to 24 months.”

Companies See Market for Systems To Counter GPS Jamming Devices

UAV RF communications testing in an anechoic chamber.

As reported by Space News: The proliferation of GPS jamming devices is creating a market for countermeasures, both in the defense and commercial sectors, industry officials say.

Companies are testing and rolling out new systems to counter the threat, either by overcoming jamming signals or by identifying and locating their source, they say.

In a speech at the annual Air Force Association conference on Sept. 17, Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, which operates the 30-plus satellite GPS constellation, highlighted jamming as an increasingly common problem.

“Lots of jammers [are] out there for GPS,” Shelton said. “In fact, you can buy a jammer on the Internet. By the way, that’s illegal, but you can find them on the Internet and lots of adversaries around the world have GPS jamming capability so we’re going to have to learn to fight through GPS jamming.”

Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver, prime contractor for the next-generation GPS 3 satellite system, has said that the new satellites will have eight times the jamming resistance of their predecessors. The GPS 3 satellites are slated to begin launching in 2015 but it will be several more years before that system is fully deployed.

In the interim, companies are seeing growing demand for systems that counter jamming threats to both military and civil GPS signals.

“We've seen enough of it [that] we think there’s a market,” said Kevin Farrell, general manager of positioning, navigation and timing at Exelis Geospatial Systems of Rochester, N.Y.

A fairly common Chinese made GPS jamming device that
can be found on the Internet.  Purchasing or operating one in the
USA is illegal.  In the EU using one is illegal, but they can still be
purchased.

Exelis has been testing a product called the Signal Sentry 1000 that detects and locates GPS interference sources and allows users to notify law enforcement. 

As an example of the proliferation of commercially available GPS jamming devices and the problems they pose, Exelis officials have regularly cited so-called personal privacy GPS jammers, which are commonly used by truckers so employers will not know where they are. If enough trucks equipped with these devices were parked at an active shipping port, they could wreak havoc on signals used by maritime traffic. 

Exelis officials said interest in the Signal Sentry 1000 has been particularly strong among airports and law enforcement agencies. The company is in active discussion on two possible sales of the system, they say.

Joe Rolli, Exelis’ program manager for Signal Sentry, said the technology used in the program could eventually lead to military applications.

Raytheon Co. of Waltham, Mass., is also working on a new product for its GPS anti-jam line called MiniGAS. Executives are touting it as the company’s lightest and smallest GPS anti-jamming system that helps overcome interference. On Sept. 11, the company announced its first contract for demonstrator units of the new system but did not name the customer.

The Defense Department, meanwhile, has been working on improved antenna solutions that would withstand jamming. In July, the Navy conducted a test in which it mounted a small antenna system on a unmanned aerial vehicle and subjected it to heavy interference. While there was no formal report on the outcome, Mark Burroughs,  navigation lead for the communication and GPS navigation program office at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., described the results as “very good.”

While many anti-jam units are about the size of a Frisbee, this system was about the size of a hockey puck, Burroughs said. The smaller size would allow the Defense Department to add another layer of protection, particularly on smaller vehicles.

The Navy plans to evaluate a series of anti-jam options, Burroughs said.

Experts and industry officials said one of the problems facing the military is accurately attributing the jamming to an adversary.  While new technology may be able to pinpoint exactly where jamming is coming from, it creates questions about whether individuals or groups are acting alone or on behalf of an adversary.

This can be an important distinction given what Shelton had to say about options for countering GPS jamming threats.

“Certainly tactics, techniques and procedures can help. Antenna designs will help as well,” he said. “But let me tell you also that big jammers are called targets. As they radiate and perform their operations, we can identify, geolocate and destroy those targets in a campaign.”

GPS, Rear-View Camera in Motorcycle Helmet

GPS, digital audio, and hands-free phone systems have become
common in cars, but motorcycles have largely been left behind.
Now, Skully integrates these feature and more in a new motorcycle
helmet.

As reported by CNet: Using GPS on a motorcycle usually involves looking down at a portable navigation device on the handlebars, but Skully Helmets wants to update that experience. The company developed the Skully P1 motorcycle helmet, which gives riders a heads-up display and integrates not only GPS, but a rear-view camera, hands-free phone system, and voice command.

According to Skully's press materials, the display is not in the rider's primary field of vision, and appears as if it were floating 6 meters ahead.

The helmet runs a modified version of the Android operating system, which comes loaded with navigation and Bluetooth connectivity. With the helmet paired to a smartphone through Bluetooth, the rider can use voice command to make phone calls and start music playback.

A heads-up display shows the rider turn-by-turn directions or the image
from a rear-view camera.

The heads-up display can also show the image from an integrated rear-view camera. Skully notes that this camera has a 180 degree field of vision, so the rider can also see when it is safe to change lanes.

Skully will show off the P1 helmet this week at the Demo 2013 conference in Santa Clara, Calif. The company did not say when the helmet would become available, or list a retail price.

Scientists Develop Underwater Wireless Internet For ‘Deep-Sea’ Communication

As reported by International Business Times: You can hardly walk through a café, subway station or even a public park without picking up WiFi on your smartphone. Almost anywhere you turn, there’s a wirelessInternet network to greet you. But there’s one spot the mobile Web can’t go: underwater.

Water poses a problem for wireless communications, which employs almost the same technology as walkie-talkies, cell phones and other mobile devices to convert the 1s and 0s of computer code into radio waves. Radio waves travel poorly through water, UCSB’s ScienceLine noted, especially at the frequency the Internet requires.

While very low frequency radio waves – waves with a frequency between 3 and 30 kilohertz – are used in submarine communication systems, Internet radio waves have to transmit at frequencies of 2.4 gigahertz or 5 gigahertz in order to accommodate larger data (How Stuff Works).

A prime example of the limitations of underwater communications is the robotic vehicle sent down to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. The vehicle needed a very heavy and expensive cable attached to it in order to communicate with a boat 12,500 feet, or about 2.4 miles, above it.

Researchers from the University of Buffalo are developing a way to wirelessly transmit the Internet underwater. According to Phys.org, they recently tested a system in Lake Erie, just south of downtown Buffalo, N.Y. They submerged two 40-pound sensors into the water, and then communicated with them wirelessly through a laptop.

“A submerged wireless network will give us an unprecedented ability to collect and analyze data from our oceans in real time," Tommaso Melodia, a University of Buffalo associate professor of electrical engineering and the project’s lead researcher, said in a press release on the university’s website. “Making this information available to anyone with a smartphone or computer, especially when a tsunami or other type of disaster occurs, could help save lives.”

Current underwater communication technology, like that used by the Navy and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, relies on sound waves.  

NOAA’s tsunami sensors, for example, located on the sea floor transmit information to buoys on the surface through the use of acoustic waves. Technology on the buoy then turns that information into radio waves.  

The university’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation, a U.S. government agency that sponsors research in non-medical fields of science and engineering, including the recently shuttered Antarctic research program.

The reason for developing underwater wireless Internet isn't so you can scuba dive and shop Amazon at the same time. Researchers hope that by improving underwater communication, they can make improvements in tsunami detection, pollution monitoring and offshore oil and natural gas exploration. 

World’s Fastest Wireless Network Hits 100 Gigabits per Second, Can Scale to Terabits

As reported by Extreme Tech: German researchers have combined photonics and electronics to create a world-record-breaking wireless network that can send and receive data at a heady 100 gigabits per second (Gbps). This beats the same team’s previous world record of 40Gbps. At 100Gbps, or a transfer rate of 12.5 gigabytes per second — ten times faster than Google Fiber — you could copy a complete Blu-ray disc in a couple of seconds.

To achieve such a sizable data rate, researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) used a massive swath of bandwidth at around 240 GHz — close to the terahertz frequency range. To create the signal, two laser beams (carrying the data) are mixed together (using a photon mixer made by NTT Electronics). An electrical signal results, where the frequency of the signal (237.5 GHz in this case) is the difference between the two optical signals. A normal antenna is then used to beam the signal to the receiver, where a cutting edge chip fabricated out of fast-switching III-V transistors (pictured below) is required to make sense of the super-high-frequency signal.

KIT’s 100Gbps wireless network is exciting for two reasons. The first is the most obvious: Yay, faster download speeds! Second, because the wireless signal is generated by a laser signal, it’s an ideal technology to tack on the end of a fiber network. For example, if you have high-speed fiber coming into a telephone exchange or mobile base station, you could then use KIT’s wireless tech to cover the last mile to your home. So far, KIT has only created a 100Gbps network over a distance of 20 meters in the lab — but last year’s 40Gbps world record was set using similar hardware over a range of one kilometer, across the rooftops of the city of Karlsruhe, Germany.

Perhaps most importantly, though, KIT transmitted 100Gbps using a single data stream. In the case of conventional WiFi, a single connection — between your router and laptop, for example — in reality consists of dozens of data streams, which are squeezed over the same channel with clever techniques such as multiplexing and MIMO (multiple antennae). These same techniques could be used on KIT’s 100Gbps data streams, boosting total link speed to terabits per second — or entire Blu-ray movies in just a fraction of a second. (See: Infinite-capacity wireless vortex beams carry 2.5 terabits per second.)

Both the 40Gbps and 100Gbps world record were part of the Millilink project, a project funded by the German government to bring broadband internet connections to rural and under-connected areas. The project’s entire budget was just two million euros ($2.7 million). It makes you wonder what could be done to the abysmal state of rural internet access in the US and elsewhere if we actually invested some money into it.

How the Latest Smartphones Could Turn Us All Into Activity Trackers

As reported by Wired: While much has been said of the A7 chip in the new iPhone 5S — arguably the “world’s first consumer ARM-based [system-on-a-chip]” — its associated new M7 coprocessor was surprisingly under-hyped, by both industry media and Apple.

For the first time, motion sensing occurs in a separate processor, which makes constant activity tracking using the gyroscrope, compass, and accelerometer sensors more power-efficient withoutturning on the rest of the A7 chip. This means we’ll start to see more Quantified Self (QS) tracking apps detecting steps and stair-climbing, bringing Fitbit and Jawbone capabilities to our phones. And the M7 does all this without a noticeable drain on the battery.

But that’s the sticking point: noticeable. The introduction of the M7 means Apple could collect this activity and movement data in the background without affecting our iPhone experience. Apple says that the M7 coprocessor only stores accelerometer data for up to seven days, but the capability remains.¹

Activity tracking used to be a very conscious, active decision. There was a process of deciding what to track, and perhaps buying a device or turning on an app to track it. We also had to remember to put on our wrist bands or clip our Fitbits to our clothes.

Now, with the M7, activity tracking comes as an automatic feature on the device that most of us carry with us all day, every day (Google and Motorola’s Android-based Moto X features a similar coprocessor). The capability to track activity using the existing sensors in our smartphones was there in previous models. And apps like Moves, Human, and Saga had started to take advantage of accelerometer, gyroscope, and GPS information to turn the phones we already carry into activity trackers. But these early applications were still pretty battery intensive.

When a phone becomes a powerful body activity tracker, it's
a whole different story.

With the M7, the phones in our pockets can keep on tracking — and possibly do more: “Because where we go, so go our phones.”

We have reason to be wary. We were surprised to find out that Google tracked our walking and bicycling activities when they first surfaced the data in Google Now cards. When we discovered a couple years ago that the iPhone was storing a location cache file based on cell tower and Wi-Fi network triangulation, Apple didn’t even show us that data — it had to be hacked.

It’s not so far-fetched to imagine that companies like Apple and Google would have an interest in gathering such large-scale activity data now that they have sensors in place to capture this information efficiently. Maybe they just want to know how we use our phones to deliver a better experience. Maybe they want to make better products. For Apple, large-scale activity data from all its iPhone 5S users could provide development fodder for its much-rumored wearable smartwatch. Apple already uses that data to optimize battery life: to stop network pinging when our phones haven’t moved for a while (sensing that we are likely sleeping), or to not try to pick up Wi-Fi signals as we fly past in a car (sensing that we don’t need it then).

Forget such context-aware performance optimization. And this goes beyond surveillance of communications metadata. When a phone becomes a powerful body activity tracker, it’s a whole different story.

The M7 coprocessors introduce functionality that some may instinctively identify as “creepy.” Even Apple’s own description hints at eerie omniscience: “M7 knows when you’re walking, running, or even driving…” While it’s quietly implemented within iOS, it’s not secret for third party apps (which require an opt-in through pop-up notification, and management through the phone’s Privacy settings).² But as we know, most users blindly accept these permissions.

It all comes down to a question of agency in tracking our physical bodies.

The fact that my Fitbit tracks activity without matching it up with all my other data sources, like GPS location or my calendar, is comforting. These data silos can sometimes be frustrating when I want to query across my QS datasets, but the built-in divisions between data about my body — and data about the rest of my digital life — leave room for my intentional inquiry and interpretation.

We’re already living in a world where our clicks and queries are analyzed as signals of our digital lives; it’s the exchange we’ve made for a free, advertising-supported internet. Are we now entering a phase where the physical world — through the interface of our bodies — is also subject to surreptitious tracking in exchange for staying connected while mobile?

There aren’t yet a lot of apps designed to take advantage of the M7’s low battery-consuming, activity-tracking potential, so coverage around the Apple announcement only acknowledged its potential and pointed to the trend of “ambient intelligence.”

Of course we can get excited about the potential new applications of the latest smartphone features, but we shouldn’t let that excitement blind us to the more insidious potential uses of those same features. We put a lot of faith and trust in our favorite tech companies to do the right thing with our data, and to make our lives easier and better with it. But we need to have a critical dialogue about the uses of data that we are and are not comfortable with.

What if the M7 sensed our sedentary lives and offered those data points to underwrite insurance, for instance? Without some transparency about how phone manufacturers intend to use the data, or confirmation that they are even collecting it outside of a specific application’s use, we can’t be sure.

Smartphones are just the start. Sensors are starting to show up in more of our appliances and devices. With activity tracking on our phones, a few quantified selves turns into a quantified society … whether we are aware of it or not.

¹ Correction 3:35 EST 10/10/13 This line was clarified to explain how the M7 stores data after Apple responded to the author’s request for comment.

² Correction 3:35 EST 10/10/13 This line was clarified to explain that users give permission to track motion activity in third party apps.

GPS for Elderly Demonstrates Dementia Challenge

As reported by Bloomberg: Gill Stoneham had fallen, and she couldn't get up.

Her husband, Bernard, saw she hadn't moved for 11 minutes and knew something was wrong. That’s because Gill, 73, who has vascular dementia, carries a GPS device the size of a pager that enables him to track her movements online. Alarmed, he went out and found her stuck in a muddy field near their home in Chichester, England. She had slipped while walking her cocker spaniel Oliver.

“Without the locator, I wouldn't have known where to look,” especially as Gill had strayed from her normal route, Bernard Stoneham, 69, said in an interview.

At least 35.6 million people have dementia, with Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia the most common forms, according to the World Health Organization. About 40 percent of them get lost, and half of those who are missing for more than 24 hours die or are seriously injured, according to studies.

That means GPS systems like the one used by the Stonehams are increasingly in demand. Dementia care costs about $600 billion a year worldwide and is projected to rise to $1.1 trillion by 2030, according to Alzheimer’s Disease International. In high-income countries, the non-medical costs - - paid social care in homes and facilities and unpaid care by family members -- account for 85 percent of the total.

More Freedom

Chichester, a town known for its Roman past and medieval cathedral, is part of a growing movement to use GPS devices that promise dementia patients more freedom and their caregivers less anxiety. The spread of the technology across Europe and in the U.S. is drawing concern from advocates for the elderly, who say GPS tracking shouldn't become a substitute for quality care.

The MindMe GPS devices, which can locate a carrier’s whereabouts every four minutes, are connected to Careline, a round-the-clock community call center that can liaise with local police and fire departments.

MindMe, developed by entrepreneur Adrian Wolf, costs 125 pounds ($200), with the 24/7 response service costing an additional 14.50 pounds a month. It’s being used in several cities around the U.K. including Chichester, as well as in Finland and the Netherlands, Wolf said. Care centers in Italy and Switzerland may adopt it as well, he said.

“We are looking to expand throughout Europe and the U.S. as quickly as possible because we know there is a huge demand for the dementia locator,” Wolf said in an interview.

Text Alerts

A newer version of MindMe enables patients to push a large round button to talk to a Careline operator through the device, helping seniors who don’t use mobile phones or who become too panicked to dial emergency numbers, said Brenda Jackson, manager of Careline. It can also send text message alerts to relatives or carers if a patient moves beyond a fixed distance.

Norman McNamara, who has lived with dementia for six years, said he would sign up for a GPS device “in a heartbeat,” given his fear of dying from malnutrition or dehydration if he gets lost, even with the round-the-clock care provided by his wife Elaine. He said he feels so strongly about the technology he is helping to develop a competing GPS program to be unveiled Oct. 20, he said.

“Not only will GPS give me peace of mind, it could quite possibly extend my life,” McNamara said in an interview in London. “I want to go on holiday without worrying about how I will be; I want to be able to walk into town on my own, or catch a bus, a taxi, anything where I don’t have to have Elaine giving up all her time.”

No Panacea

Caregivers and patients shouldn't rely too much on the devices, which could be abused, advocates for the elderly say.

“We are concerned this new technology would be used to replace human care,” said Neil Duncan-Jordan, spokesman for the U.K.’s National Pensioners Convention.

That’s particularly worrisome when the state of care for retirees is already “appalling,” he said. Several local governments have suffered budget cuts, resulting in employment of poorly trained low-paid workers, and almost 1 million retirees who need some kind of care are denied any help at all, according to the convention.

Gill Stoneham of Chichester had been attending a memory clinic until about four years ago, when the program ended because of budget cuts, Bernard Stoneham said. The local Rotary Club is trying to pick up the slack by organizing monthly events such as cathedral tours and cream teas, he said.

Patient Consent

“We’re quite fortunate to have a forward-thinking council, but there’s a huge gap in support services,” he said.

Consent to use the technology is also an issue, according to Duncan-Jordan. Some local authorities require the patient’s consent, while others will only ask for the consent of relatives with power of attorney, he said.

“The rights of individuals are not properly regulated in this respect,” he said.

In the U.S., the Alzheimer’s Association provides a GPS tracking service through a dedicated device similar to MindMe, a mobile phone, or a device installed on a car. More people may be interested in something that resembles a watch, said Beth Kallmyer, vice president of constituent services at the association.

“With a pocket device, you can set that down and forget it,” Kallmyer said.

GPS devices are diverting attention away from the key goal of good dementia care -- to interpret and respond to what is driving the wandering, said Desmond O’Neill, professor of geriatric medicine at Trinity College in Dublin.

“Wandering is not a disease but a form of communication,” O’Neill wrote in the British Medical Journal.

People with dementia may walk or wander as a response to stress and anxiety, to relieve boredom or pain, because they are confused about the time, or are searching for the past, among a variety of reasons, according to the Alzheimer’s Society.

While McNamara, the dementia patient and founder of the Torbay Dementia Action Alliance in Devon, would rather not wander, he said it is a reality that he has to live with.

“These GPS systems will save lives,” McNamara said. “We have the technology; why not use it?”