Electronic Logging Device (ELD) rule now projected for Feb. 27

As reported by CCJ Digital: In its monthly update on significant rulemakings, the Department of Transportation has again revised the projected date of publication for a rule mandating Electronic Logging Devices (also known as Electronic Onboard Recorders) for all drivers subject to keeping records of duty status, backing it up this time to Feb. 27.

This is the third month in a row the DOT’s report has projected a date later in the same month, but in both December and January, no rule came, and the rule still has yet to clear the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. The current DOT report predicts that the rule will clear OMB Friday, Feb. 14.

Upon publication, the proposed rule would have a 60-day comment period ending April 30.

Also updated in the DOT report is the status of the drug and alcohol clearinghouse rule,which cleared the OMB Jan. 27 and is now projected to be published Friday, Feb. 14. The rule would establish a database of drivers who have failed or refused to take a drug or alcohol test, and carriers would be required to upload test refusals or failures to the database. Carriers could also query the database when screening drivers.

It too will have a 60-day comment period, ending April 14.

The Carrier Safety Fitness Determination rule is still projected to be published in early August, per the report. The rule would allow the agency to change the methodology with which it calculates carriers’ Safety Fitness Determination scores, allowing it to use data from roadside inspections, crashes, investigations and violation history — a very similar data set as used in the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program’s Safety Measurement Score.

The DOT report also still projects its driver coercion to be published April 23. The rule would create a requirement that the agency “consider whether coercion of drivers” by shippers, receivers, carriers or brokers “is a concern when developing a rule.”

Portland Uses Wireless Alert System For First Time

As reported by KGW: The City of Portland used the Federal Wireless Emergency Alert system for the first time Sunday morning to warn residents after freezing rain blanketed the metro area with ice.

On Saturday evening, the freezing rain paralyzed the city that has already been reeling from three days of snow.

The system sent a special alert to all WEA-enabled cell phones in Multnomah County. The message read: "Portland strongly urges all residents to stay indoors today & not travel due to ice."

"The icy condition of sidewalks, in addition to the already slick roads, were key deciding factors in sending out the alert," Transportation Director Leah Treat said.

Sunday’s alert was the first time WEA was used by the City of Portland. The system was previously used by the National Weather Service and for Amber Alerts.

Five Ways GPS Helps Cut Costs and Improve Service

Farmers rely on GPS systems to program tractors to automatically
plow, fertilize, and harvest their fields.

As reported by Government Technology: The Global Positioning System (GPS) is made up of 24 operational satellites orbiting the earth at speeds around 7,000 mph. At this speed, you could travel across the entire United States in about 30 minutes. Did you know that GPS is used on golf courses to measure the distance between golfers and the pin? Farmers also rely on GPS systems to program tractors to automatically plow, fertilize, and harvest their fields.

Here are five ways GPS technology can help you cut costs within your government agency and provide better public service.

1.       Reduce downtime

With GPS, you can automatically collect location data and transmit the information to any computer or device with a browser. Managers can see where field employees are and produce reports showing where a worker has stopped, for how long, at what time, and on which date. Reducing idle time equates to improved efficiency and often less overtime – a cost savings no agency can ignore.

2.       Integrate and dispatch jobs to the field
Customer service representatives handle thousands of non-emergency 311 calls related to city streets; sidewalk curbs; signs and pavement markings; bicycle and pedestrian programs; and more. Being able to generate jobs information from the field allows for faster response to 311 requests. A prompt reply may even reduce the number of repeat calls – a win-win for everyone.

3.       Send help where it's needed – quickly
When storms or disasters hit, using mobile forms means departments can note what types of crews and equipment are needed and where, depending on the nature and location of the disaster area. This data can be transmitted back to headquarters where a detailed analysis can be done to set tasks for the next shift and adequately schedule work crews. In the event of a disaster, a prompt reply is expected of any city or state government. GPS and forms can ease the stress of an emergency by helping place the required help in the hardest hit areas.

4.       Automate timekeeping and payroll processing
Many city workers and contractors have to clock in and clock out for work. This often requires extra time to simply submit essential paperwork. GPS technology can automate timesheets and payroll processing, shaving minutes from hundreds of workers. The best part is that the timesheets can sync with your accounting program to make this truly a seamless process for both workers and administration.

5.       Use geofencing to ensure safety of employees and reduce fuel costs
A geofence is a virtual barrier for a specified geographic area. Programs that use geofencing allow managers to set up triggers when a vehicle enters or exits the defined boundaries. There are two common uses of this technology.

a.       Employee safety: Managers are alerted if an employee enters or leaves a specified area. With many city workers working in the field, it is critical to ensure their safety, but not knowing where everyone is located makes this nearly impossible. GPS technology can alert dispatchers if a code enforcer has not made contact and send backup if necessary.

b.      Reducing fuel costs: Studies have found that with GPS tracking installed on fleets, employees are less likely to make personal stops, therefore reducing fuel costs.

Satellite Hotspot Promises To Bring Wi-Fi Everywhere

As reported by PCWorld: There will soon be nowhere to hide from Facebook selfies, Justin Bieber news and emails from your boss.

Satellite communications company Iridium has developed a Wi-Fi hotspot that can bring Internet connectivity to almost every corner of the planet.

The pocket-size device, set to be released in the second quarter, connects to the company’s satellite voice network to provide service similar to the analog modems that were commonly used for landline Internet access until about a decade ago.

Speeds will be low—about 20 kilobits per second, according to the company—but a slow connection might be better than none at all, depending on the location.

To tackle the slow data rate, Iridium will offer its own email application that utilizes compression to increase data transmission efficiency. That should enable about 20 text-based emails per minute, the company said.

"We’re working with app developers to create apps that are maximized to run on our network," said Ashley Eames, a spokeswoman for Iridium.

The hotspot will cost about US$800 and data rates will vary depending on the Iridium airtime plan. They will be sold as regional or seasonal packages with prices of around $1 per minute on prepaid plans.

Data speeds are expected to get faster in the coming years after Iridium launches a new fleet of satellites.

The low data transmission speed on the current network is a result of the satellites having been designed when data and Internet access weren’t large priorities. The Iridium Next satellites that will launch from 2015 should provide 1.5M bps data service, according to the company.

Iridium offers a separate satellite broadband service, although it requires a large antenna and is targeted at maritime and aviation use.

At Sochi Olympics, Crowdsourced OpenStreetMap Trounces Google Maps

The Olympic ski area is virtually a blank on Google's map (right)
compared to Open Street Map.

As reported by Wired: If you’re looking for detailed maps of the Olympic sites around Sochi, Google maps may not be your best bet. OpenStreetMap, the crowdsourced Wikipedia of cartography, looks to have much better coverage of the Olympic sites, as the images in this gallery show.

The region outside Sochi where the Olympic ski and snowboard events will be held is virtually a pale green blank on Google maps, for example. The maps here come from the fun and fabulously time-sucking Map Compare tool on the website of Geofabrik, a German company developing commercial uses for OSM data. The Olympic park along the coast, and even downtown Sochi are also covered in more detail in OSM (although with some features that appear on one map but not the other, it’s not clear which is more accurate — at least not without being there).

Google still has a huge advantage in navigation — typing an address into your phone and getting step-by-step directions to your destination. That’s the next step in OSM’s evolution, OSM founder Steve Coast wrote in a recent blog post announcing that Telenav, the personal navigation company he joined last year, had acquired skobbler, a German company that developed a popular OSM-based GPS navigation app.

But the real power of OSM is its users — more than 1.5 million people have registered to edit its maps, mapping some parts of the world down to the level of shrubbery. OSM maps can be as detailed as people care to make them. You can see this in the final map in this gallery, which shows OSM edits to the area around the Sochi Olympic park in the past 90 days. People have been busy mapping.

And with all the visitors to the area, the maps are only likely to get more detailed over the next few weeks — assuming some of the spectators can find time between events to plot a few footpaths and buildings.

3D Automotive Dead Reckoning Offers Improved Urban Navigation

As reported by Motor Authority: GPS has replaced the map as most people's navigation tool of choice, but it has its limitations. In order to accurately determine a car's current position--and thus calculate a route--a system needs to constantly receive signals from an overhead network of satellites.

That can be a problem in urban areas, where tall buildings and bridges can temporarily block the signal, or where underground driving through a tunnel or parking garage can completely isolate a car and its driver from the satellite beacon.

Swiss semiconductor manufacturer thinks it has a solution. Its latest navigation chip uses a new system called "3D Automotive Dead Reckoning," or "3D ADR." 

Rather than relying exclusively on satellite signals to orient itself, 3D ADR uses sensors that track a vehicle's speed, horizontal movement, and elevation. The latter is especially important considering that enclosed multistory parking garages are among the most notorious GPS dead zones.

By measuring movement in three dimensions 3D ADR allows a car's navigation system to keep track of its location, so that it doesn't need to re-orient itself every time it loses and regains a link with a satellite.

Since 3D ADR is essentially just a chip that can work with a car's built-in sensors and navigation system, the company says it should be fairly easy to install. The company says its chip will work most vehicles regardless of their drivetrain configuration.

Want To Remotely Control A Car? $20 In Parts, Some Oily Fingers, And You're In Command

As reported by The Register: Spanish hackers have been showing off their latest car-hacking creation; a circuit board using untraceable, off-the-shelf parts worth $20 that can give wireless access to the car's controls while it's on the road.

The device, which will be shown off at next month's Black Hat Asia hacking conference, uses the Controller Area Network (CAN) ports car manufacturers build into their engines for computer-system checks. Once assembled, the smartphone-sized device can be plugged in under some vehicles, or inside the hood of other models, and give the hackers remote access to control systems.

"A car is a mini network," security researcher Alberto Garcia Illera told Forbes. "And right now there's no security implemented."

Illera and fellow security researcher Javier Vazquez-Vidal said that they had tested the CAN Hacking Tool (CHT) successfully on four popular makes of cars and had been able to apply the emergency brakes while the car was in motion, affect the steering, turn off the headlights, or set off the car alarm.

The device currently only works via Bluetooth, but the team says that they will have a GSM version ready by the time the conference starts. This would allow remote control of a target car from much greater distances, and more technical details of the CHT will be given out at the conference.

"The goal isn't to release our hacking tool to the public and say 'take this and start hacking cars'," said Vidal. "We want to reach the manufacturers and show them what can be done."

The duo aren't the first to demonstrate the total lack of security in the CAN bus system. At last year's DefCon convention, veteran hacker Charlie Miller showed how the CAN system was easily controlled using a laptop, and allowed modification of the car's firmware.

Both cracks need physical access – at least briefly – in order to work, but that's not impossible to achieve, and once the hardware's in place all you need to start causing trouble is a wireless signal. With the US government pushing for standards for car communications it might be an idea to insist there should be some security controls built-in, as well.