Locating YSR

Location was never so important earlier, on September 2, helicopter carrying the Chief Minister of our federal state Andhra Pradesh:, Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy popularly known as YSR went missing in the jungles of Nallamala in inclement weather conditions. YSR was a dynamic and popular leader, adored by his followers and feared by his opponents. He has received a fresh popular mandate just 3 months ago to rule Andhra Pradesh for next 5 years. As usual, initial response to this emergency was lethargic; however State & Central Governments launched unprecedented search and rescue operations, which was never seen before, where everything at the Indian State’s disposal was pressed into service. Magnitude of this search operation can be gauged by the fact that more than 5000 armed reserve police personal along with several police and paramilitary personal were engaged on foot search, military helicopters, latest all weather combat aircraft Sukhoi with thermal imaging capabilities and even the secretive all weather night capability reconnaissance radar imaging satellite RISAT-2 was looking for the missing leader. Tragedy is that he along with his staff were found dead one of the remote hills of Nallamala at what could be seen as an avoidable accident.

Reports say that none of these technologies could be of much use, owing to the special terrain and climatic conditions prevailing at the location. Location was possible to arrive because of the SMS message delivered to one of the working mobiles carried by the deceased, it is said that mobile Cell Of Orgin (COO) technologies were used to zero down the last known position to 5 KM radius, were search efforts were concentrated and subsequently the crash site was found.

YSR official residence is in around 400 meters from my residence, I was used to traffic restrictions when his cavalcade zips through, I remember several glimpses of him reading a news paper in his travel, he made his final journey, and through the route he generally takes, i.e. passing through Rajbhawan road where our office is located. It was there to say goodbye..

Incidentally, we are working on Mobile Operating System/Mobile Device/Mobile Operator agnostic location based service, beta to be launched during this festive season. The service, we believe would find mass adoption. More of this in month or so…

Tata DoCoMo’s Pulse War

Looks like Tata DoCoMo is quietly writing a history of sorts in mobile space, comparable to what reliance has done to mobile space when they entered the space. Its pulse war branding is right on dot, a time tested text book example of keep-it-simple messaging. This pay-per-pulse concept got an overwhelming response from masses, giving way to a herd syndrome where Tata DoCoMo guys are struggling to manage the subscription seekers.

Interesting to see the response of the big guy AirTel, I assume that there is no leverage except following the wave. Coming days, we would also be seeing intense competition on value added service, all carriers sing the same song, this- is- where- the- money- is.Going by DoCoMo’s japanese lineage on VAS and its superior portfolio, we would see a frenzy of activity on VAS from all operators. Good for the customer!!

2 DIN In Car entertainment system with GPS Navigation

Got this cute looking device installed in my car (Maruti Suziki Swift). The device you see is a 2 DIN (Double DIN) in Car entertainment system which includes GPS Navigation, central to this system is Win CE platform. Connections to the system are Car acoustics, GPS Antenna, DVB-T antenna, rear view camera, head rest monitors etc.

Functions include, Navigation, DVD, AM/FM, Bluetooth, turn- to- turn GPS Navigation, DVD Player/MP3/MP4/MPEG4, F.M. Radio, Bluetooth, Windows compatible gaming, TV, Vehicle Tracking, SD card slot, USB, iPOD connecter etc. I like this device more than the 1 Din (Single DIN) device tested earlier as you can see that this device snuggly fits into the dashboard.

Geo Tagging

Was recently out for a trip to Dehradun via Delhi, took some intresting photos and geo tagged them using Satguide GPS logger device. http://www.satguide.in/satguide-photo-logger.pdf,
for the uninitiated, geo tagging is a process of adding location information (latitude and longitude) on to the digital photograph.

Photograph taken from a digital camera confirms to EXIF (Exchangeable image file format), this specification uses specific Meta tags which store information such as date, time, camera make, settings etc

· What I have done here is that I have switched ON the data logger device which started logging the GPS feed, I started clicking my pictures through my Canon D400 DSLR , note that there is no communication between the GPS logger and the Camera

· Installed, locr Desktop geo tagging application (by the way you can choose from a variety of geo tagging freeware tools)

· Imported the logged data to the desktop tool.

· Imported the photographs and supplied to the desktop tool, the tool is very intuitive, as you can see form the screenshot above.

Clicking the automatic geo tagging button will automatically geotag your images. The technology here is simple, the GPS logger device output file has a time stamp, images you take from the digital camera also has the time stamp ( we need to set this time to our real world real-time time ;), i.e just the actual time). The software matches the timestamp of the image to the timestamp of the log and automatically geotags. As exact millisecond time synchronization is not possible, it’s not needed either, you only need to keep the time matching tolerance level to say 2 minutes in the desktop too, you have a geo tagged image in a jiffy.

The positional information now will be written into the image itself and will be position enabled, you can upload these images on to any of the photo sharing community websites, and the photograph automatically goes and sits at the exact place on the map you guys have taken…

Geotagging and dissemination of this accurate location enabled image information though is fun, has important functional usage in many domains. Points of Interest’s Survey are what come to my mind immediately.

GPS Navigation/Tracking enabled In-Dash Car Entertainment System

Check this out; got a new toy to play with as part of my R&D job , Got this cute car entertainment system fitted to my Swift dashboard. The device is a fully loaded car entertainment system, runs on windows CE OS with features like & inch TFT screen, turn- to- turn GPS Navigation, DVD Player/MP3/MP4/MPEG4, F.M. Radio, Bluetooth Windows compatible gaming, TV, Vehicle Tracking, USB etc

Till now, turn-to-turn navigation was the missing element in In -dash car entertainment systems, our company is all set to launch this device this quarter, which is expected to do good in the market. I am optimistic that navigation availability in the In-dash entertainment systems as an add-on feature will drive GPS navigation adaptability to the next level.

Walking to work

I always liked the idea of living closely to work place to cut down on commuting time, I recently took a leased accommodation which is around 1500 meters from the office, I plan to walk to work, which will reduce my carbon footprint drastically. My residence location is place marked, clicking on it will reveal complete mailing address


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