Vehicle Navigation Systems Stay Relevant By Including Integrated DashCams

As reported by Engadget: Dedicated GPS units may be less popular these days, but Magellan has figured out a way to justify their existence: strap a dash camera to the back. The company's upcoming RoadMate 6230T-LM DashCam can both guide you through unfamiliar areas and record video to an SD card, saving you the trouble of mounting two devices in your car. 

Magellan's hybrid design is also handy even if you don't need directions, since you can watch live video from either the built-in camera or an optional wireless backup cam. The new RoadMate won't ship until April, but it will also cost $230 -- a relative bargain next to purpose-built dash cams that offer many of the same features.

iBeacon Location-Sensing Tech Put To Use At Grocery Stores

InMarket debuts its iBeacon platform in dozens of Safeway and
Giant Eagle supermarkets to give shoppers grocery list reminders,
deals, and reward points.

Apple's iBeacon location-sensing technology appears to be having a major breakthrough. Mobile shopping startup InMarket announced Monday that it's beginning to use the platform in more than 150 grocery stores across the US, according to The Associated Press.

This means the 20 million people who use InMarket's apps on its Mobile to Mortar platform will be able to get grocery list reminders, deals, and reward points at supermarkets like Safeway and Giant Eagle. To use the technology, shoppers have to opt in by downloading specific apps, like InMarket's Checkpoints.

Apple debuted iBeacon late last year on devices running iOS 7. The location-sensing technology works by sending off short-range (Bluetooth) transitions that notify mobile devices when they are within 100 feet of a beacon. This type of location-sensing technology can be used for indoor navigation, automatic ticketing, and location-relevant promotions.

iBeacon has already been used at Apple retail stores, is in testing mode with MLB at certain baseball stadiums, and will even be used for a scavenger hunt at this week's Consumer Electronics Show. Starbucks, Macy's, and American Airlines are also said to be testing the technology.

InMarket's iBeacon feature will be in more than 150 stores in Seattle, San Francisco, and Cleveland within the next two weeks; and the company plans to expand to thousands of grocery and retail stores by the end of 2014, according to the AP.

How Google Cracked House Number Identification in Street View

As reported by MIT Technology Review: But the task of spotting and identifying these numbers is hugely time-consuming. Google’s street view cameras have recorded hundreds of millions of panoramic images that together contain tens of millions of house numbers. The task of searching these images manually to spot and identify the numbers is not one anybody could approach with relish.

So, naturally, Google has solved the problem by automating it. And today, Ian Goodfellow and pals at the company reveal how they've done it. Their method turns out to rely on a neural network that contains 11 levels of neurons that they have trained to spot numbers in images.

To start off with, Goodfellow and co place some limits on the task at hand to keep it as simple as possible. For example, they assume that the building number has already been spotted and the image cropped so that the number is at least one-third the width of the resulting frame. They also assume that the number is no more than five digits long, a reasonable assumption in most parts of the world.

But the team does not divide the number into single digits, as many other groups have done. Their approach is to localize the entire number within the cropped image and to identify it in one go—all with a single neural network.

They train this net using images drawn from a publicly available data set of number images known as the Street View House Numbers data set. This contains some 200,000 numbers taken by Google’s Street View cameras and made publicly available. The training takes about six days to complete, they say.

Goodfellow and co say there is no point in using an automated system that cannot match or beat the performance of human operators who can generally spot numbers accurately 98 percent of the time. So this is the team’s goal.

However, that doesn't mean spotting 98 percent of the numbers in 100 percent of the images. Instead, Goodfellow and co say it is acceptable to spot 98 percent of the numbers in a certain subset of images, which in this case turn out to cover around 95 percent of the total.

But even this is significantly better than any other team has been able to achieve. “Worldwide, we automatically detected and transcribed close to 100 million physical street numbers at [human] operator level accuracy,” they say, describing this as an “unprecedented success.”

And they can do it at considerable speed. “We can transcribe all the views we have of street numbers in France in less than an hour using our Google infrastructure,” they say. Yep, that’s just one hour.

One interesting question is whether the same technique might help extract other numbers such as telephone numbers on business signs or even number plates.

However, Goodfellow and co are not optimistic. They say the success of their technique rests heavily on the assumption that street numbers are never more than five digits long. “For large [numbers of digits] our method is unlikely to scale well,” they say.

And of course, the system is not yet perfect. That 2 percent of misidentified numbers is still a thorn in the team’s side.

But in the meantime, Google can rest assured that it has made a significant step forward in character extraction and recognition: the localization and identification of numbers by a single neural network.

The big question of course is what’s next. And Goodfellow and co oblige by opening the kimono just a fraction: “This approach of using a single neural network as an entire end-to-end system could be applicable to other problems such as general text transcription or speech recognition.” 

Three CubeSats Released by the ISS

As provided by NASA: Cubes are orbiting the Earth. 

Measuring ten-centimeters on a side, CubeSats -- each roughly the size of a large coffee mug -- are designed to be inexpensive both to build and to launch. 

Pictured here, three CubeSats were released from the International Space Station (ISS) last November by the arm of the Japanese Kibo Laboratory module.  

CubeSats are frequently created by students as part of university science or engineering projects and include missions such as collecting wide angle imagery of the Earth, testing orbital radio communications, monitoring the Earth's magnetic field, and exploring the Earth's surrounding radiation. 

Depending on the exact height of their release, CubeSats will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere on the time scale of months to years.

SpaceX Falcon Rocket Lifts Off With Thaicom Satellite

As reported by Reuters: A Space Exploration Technologies' Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Monday to put a commercial communications spacecraft into orbit for Thai satellite operator Thaicom.  

The 224-foot (68-meter) tall rocket burst off its seaside launch pad at 5:06 p.m. EST (2206 GMT), soaring through overcast skies as it headed toward the satellite's drop-off point more than 55,000 miles (88,500 km) above Earth or about one-quarter of the way to the moon.  

From that position, the 6,649-pound (3,016 kg) Thaicom 6 satellite is designed to lower itself to about 22,300 miles (35,888 km) above Earth and shift the angle of its orbit so that it can be permanently stationed to beam high-definition and digital television services to customers in Thailand and surrounding areas.  

The satellite, built by Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp , also is equipped to provide other communications services for customers in Southeast Asia and Africa, including Madagascar, Thaicom's website shows.  

Including launch services and insurance, the Thaicom 6 satellite cost about $160 million, according to Thaicom. So far, about two-thirds of the satellite's capacity has been sold, according to Thaicom.

Monday's launch was the second in just over a month for Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX.

In December, the California-based firm, owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, who also serves as chief executive of Tesla Motors car company, launched its first commercial communications satellite, staking a claim in a global satellite launch industry worth about $6.5 billion a year, a study by the Satellite Industry Association trade group shows.

So far, privately owned SpaceX has sold about 50 commercial launches worth about $40 billion. About 25 percent of the flights are for NASA, which hired SpaceX, along with Orbital Sciences, to fly cargo to the International Space Station, a $100 billion research complex that flies about 250 miles (about 400 km) above Earth.  

SpaceX's next flight, slated for late February, will be the third of 12 station resupply missions under its $1.6 billion NASA contract.

Orbital Sciences, which holds a separate $1.9 billion NASA contract, is preparing to launch the first of its eight station cargo runs on Wednesday. The company's Antares rockets fly from a commercial spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia.

Before Monday's launch, Falcon 9 rockets had flown seven times, all successfully, though on its first cargo flight to the station, in October 2012, one of the rocket's nine first-stage engines shut down prematurely.

Other motors compensated, and the rocket was able to deliver its Dragon cargo ship to the intended orbit without a problem.

SpaceX is working on three parallel programs to expand its business and cut costs, including reusing its first-stage boosters. However, a proposed demonstration to restart the engine so it could cushion the splashdown into the ocean was not attempted on the Thaicom 6 mission, said SpaceX spokeswoman Emily Shanklin.

HEAVY-LIFT FALCON MISSION

In addition, the company is working on a 27-engine, heavy-lift Falcon rocket as well as a version of its Dragon cargo capsule that can carry astronauts and other passengers to the space station.

A Falcon Heavy demonstration mission from SpaceX's second launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is slated for 2014, the company's website shows.

A successful mission on Monday also could clear SpaceX to enter a lucrative competition to launch U.S. military reconnaissance and communications satellites, a service now exclusively provided by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

Potential Government Mandated GPS Tracking Devices In Cars Prompt Privacy And Cyber Hacking Concerns

As reported by the Inquisitr: GPS tracking devices, also referred to as vehicle tracking systems, may soon be mandatory in all new cars, and concerns over either federal or state mileage tax have begun anew. 

In just a few weeks, federal government officials could approve the GPS “safety devices” installation requirement. In addition to privacy concerns raised by those who oppose the tracking devices, fears that cyber hackers could “take control” of vehicles and the roadways are also emerging.  

Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication devices are currently being debated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, according to ABC News. A V2V system allows cars to “talk to each other” and are being touted as accident prevention devices by supporters. Those opposed to the techno gadgets most often consider them an example of government overreach, data mining, and a citizen tracking initiative without a warrant.

A recently released study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) claims that V2V devices could offer warnings to drivers that could potentially prevent 76 percent of multiple vehicle accidents. According to highway collision statistics, there are approximately 5.3 million car accidents and 32,000 drivers and passengers killed in wrecks in a common year.

An excerpt from a recent GAO report about vehicle tracking systems reads:

“The continued progress of V2V technology development hinges on a decision that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to make in late 2013 on how to proceed. … One option would be to pursue a rule requiring their inclusion in new vehicles.”

GAO Physical Infrastructure Director David Wise went on to add that the success of smart cars and the GPS tracking technology is dependent upon vehicles possessing the same system so they can talk to each other while on the road. Wise also acknowledged the controversial privacy concerns the V2V systems propose, “Privacy is the real challenge. Who has access and how do you secure the data?”

The government staffer also noted the possibility of a cyber hacker gaining access to the system and literally wreaking havoc on highways across the nation. Such a possibility also brings to light potential national security and terrorism concerns. During such a cyber warfare scenario, a domestic or foreign terrorist could hack into the V2V system of a tractor-trailer carrying explosive or toxic materials and essentially create portable bombs. The vehicle tracking systems also reportedly have the capability to record alleged traffic violations and mail tickets to drivers. If a V2V system thinks that a driver engaged in a rolling stop or drove one mile over the speed limit, a ticket could soon appear in the vehicle owner’s mailbox.

The possibility of a mileage tax was raised and hotly contested by rural residents late last year. The vehicle tracking systems now under consideration by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) appear to make such a new tax a far more likely possibility. Both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Tea Party have been vocal in their opposition to a mileage tax. Americans who live in an area where they can walk, bike or hop on a bus to get to work, the doctor, or the grocery store may not understand how expensive a mileage tax would be for the folks who live in rural areas.

Several states unwilling to wait until the federal government decides whether or not to mandate the tracking devices opted to initiate their own pilot programs. In Oregon, approximately 5,000 drivers agreed to install V2V type devices in their cars and pay mileage fees instead of gas taxes during the study. New York City is considering a similar program and Nevada also recently completed a smart car pilot program. A group dubbed the I-95 Coalition, which consists of 17 state level transportation departments, are pondering how to implement a GPS tracking device system in cars in their respective states.

Wi-Fi Location Analytics To Play 'Bigger Role' in Business Intelligence

As reported by Trade Arabia: Wi-Fi based location analytics will play a bigger role for organisations to help increase business intelligence, define security policy, and improve customer/user experience, said an expert.

Nader Baghdadi, regional director MENA, Ruckus Wireless, pointed out that analytics will become more important specifically to correlate the myriad data points from clients.

He has also forecast a continued adoption and integration of BYOD solutions and device management; and an increase in the adoption of 802.11ac Access Point (AP), mainly driven by more 802.11ac-enabled devices.

Baghdadi said enterprises continue to look to service providers for a managed Wi-Fi service to address issues with network complexity, new services, and a skills shortage in many IT shops.

Work will continue on policy solutions that will help smartphones to select between Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity, he stated.

Seamless Wi-Fi handoff will become a reality with technologies like 802.11r and 802.11k making their way into mobile devices and APs, allowing Wi-Fi to emulate the hand-off experience that is currently available through cellular services.

He also pointed out that no matter how much network capacity is put in place through a combination of cellular and Wi-Fi  it will likely never be enough.  More spectrum and spectrum sharing ideas are required, along with ever greater wireless network capacity.