Three ways to track your lost smartphone

You’ve lost your most prized possession: your mobile device. Don’t write it off just yet. We explain what to do when your cellphone goes missing.

1. Track it down digitally
Install iHound on your iPhone so you can keep tabs on it if it’s lost. When activated, the application uses the GPS and Wi-Fi built into the device to zero in on its location and sound an alarm. If you’re a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile device user, try GadgetTrak: It can locate your phone with GPS or data collected from cell towers. And if you’re nervous about a sticky-fingered filcher accessing your files, you can also use it to wipe data off your smart phone remotely.

2. Stick an ID tag on it
Don’t doubt the morality of your fellow citizens: An ID tag with alternative contact information could be your best hope for recovery – especially once the battery dies. If you’d rather not advertise your personal details, buy a TrackitBack tag ($20 each). The sticker displays an ID code that the finder can report through a toll-free number or website. Jason Wagner, founder of the Winnipeg-based company, says the recovery rate for lost phones outfitted with TrackitBack IDs is 85 per cent.
One TrackitBack client lost his BlackBerry at the Sydney international airport, Mr. Wagner says. On his journey back to Halifax, he called the airport at each stop to see if it had been recovered. Meanwhile, someone had found the phone and reported it to TrackitBack’s office, which had couriered it to his home in Halifax. The man and his phone were reunited in just a day and a half.

3. Report it to your service provider
Most service providers, including Bell Mobility and Rogers Wireless, recommend you call them if you lose your phone so they can block further use. You may not get your phone back (smart thieves will simply unlock the device before selling it), but this will at least prevent them from running up charges on your account.

*And don’t do this

Get out of a taxi without making sure you have your phone. It’s one of the top spots missing mobiles are found.
By the numbers
40: Percentage of U.S. and British mobile users surveyed who say they'd rather lose their wallets than their mobile devices
Source: Research firm Coleman Parkes

Having Fun with GPS

Having Fun with GPS

Almost everyone has heard of the Global-Positioning System by now, and many radio hobbyists own a handheld GPS receiver. For the uninitiated, the GPS system works with a network of 24 satellites orbiting some 12,500 miles up in the sky. Each one has an atomic clock to set the precise timing that is part of the math used by a land-based a GPS receiver to triangulate its location on the face of the earth. GPS satellites continuously transmit signals and data. Those signals are picked up by GPS receivers, with up to 12 satellites being received simultaneously. A calculator in the GPS receiver crunches the data, and shows it to us as latitude and longitude.

The GPS term for a set of latitude and longitude coordinates is waypoint. If you connect the waypoint dots, you have what’s called a route. As you move with a GPS in your hand, it generates a virtual breadcrumb trail called a track. Waypoints, routes and tracks can be saved in a GPS memory. Now you have the basic GPS vocabulary.

Got a Map in Your Hand?
When people want to know how much to spend on a GPS receiver, we ask if they want to see a map in their hand. Entry-level GPS receivers display basic geographic information: latitude, longitude, elevation, direction, and bearing.

They calculate the distance between points and estimate your arrival time. They will also have a screen that shows a graphic representation of the points you marked with the GPS, as if you had drawn a sketch, but that isn’t a scale map. For that, you have to spend more, and most GPS users think it’s worth the expense. Better quality GPS receivers come with a base map of North America, but with such a large area to cover, the maps don’t include much detail. Spend a little more, and you get map memory, up to 24mb, to upload more maps and a higher level of detail: city maps, topographic maps, and “points of interest” such as hotels restaurants, museums, and so on. Garmin and Magellan, perhaps the most popular makers of handheld GPS units, produce software for this purpose.
Although you will see maps on your PC screen during the process of uploading them to your GPS, they aren’t meant to compete with real desktop mapping software.

By Anton Ninno, N2RUD, and Jim Kuhl, N2STK

An Easy Primer on GPS

In this week's Giz Explains, we're doing a quick rundown of a sweet technology that has evolved from a (deadly) serious military application to becoming a household utility, found in all kinds of gadgets: GPS.

Let's start with the acronym: GPS stands for global positioning system. Originally a DARPA-funded joint project of the Air Force and Navy, this satellite network tells ya where stuff is, like bombers and cruise missiles in decades past, or you as of mid-2000 when the government made GPS of decent accuracy available for civilian electronics. (It was available before then, but wasn't good enough for reliable turn-by-turn app.) The soul of GPS is the constellation of at least 24 satellites way out in orbit. Signals from four separate birds are usually needed for a standard GPS receiver to peg your position.

The GPS goods most people are familiar with are ones you mount in your car (though like we said, GPS will fit just about anywhere now) with the biggest players being Garmin, TomTom and Magellan. They used to be a lot more expensive, but now you can get basic namebrand models for not much more than $200, and cheap knock-offs for even less.

At a basic level, these all operate the same way, with variations in feature sets and UI: Your GPS receiver picks up signals from orbiting satellites and plots your position accordingly on pre-loaded maps. (The maps themselves typically come from one of just two companies, Navteq and Tele Atlas.) More recently, live traffic info (or something close to it) to avoid the Monday jam courtesy of an overturned 18-wheeler of pig lard has been the goal, with the pricey (but awesome) Dash Express delivering the up to the minute goods via GPRS cellular connection.

While GPS has gotten better in your car and on your wrist, the real excitement is its movements into cellphones and other gadgets such as cameras for location-based services (and maybe ads) and tricks like geo-tagging. Sprint's Instinct phone, for instance, makes a big a deal out of having real GPS while the iPhone has less accurate triangulation via cellphone towers, since being accurate to within several blocks isn't nearly as helpful as knowing where you are within a couple of meters. Friend finders and kid locators are options on pretty much every carrier.

As GPS modules get smaller and less power-hungry, you can expect GPS to keep showing up in ever smaller and crazier gadgets, since it'll be cheap and easy to cram it in. Manufacturers on everything from laptops to shoes are getting in on GPS mania, so even if you never owned a GPS device, odds are, you soon will.

Elements of GPS

GPS has three parts: the space segment, the user segment, and the control segment. The space segment consists of a constellation of 24 satellites plus some spares, each in its own orbit 11,000 nautical miles above Earth. The user segment consists of receivers, which you can hold in your hand or mount in a vehicle, like your car. The control segment consists of ground stations (five of them, located around the world) that make sure the satellites are working properly. The master control station at Schriever Air Force Base, near Colorado Springs, Colorado, runs the system.

Ground Stations

The GPS control segment consists of several ground stations located around the world:
• a master control station at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado
• five unstaffed monitor stations: Hawaii and Kwajalein in the Pacific Ocean; Diego Garcia in the
Indian Ocean; Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean; and Colorado Springs, Colorado
• four large ground-antenna stations that send commands and data up to the satellites and
collect telemetry back from them

A Constellation of Satellites

An orbit is one trip in space around Earth. GPS satellites each take 12 hours to orbit Earth. Each satellite is equipped with an atomic clock so accurate that it keeps time to within three nanoseconds—that’s 0.000000003, or three-billionths of a second—to let it broadcast signals that are synchronized with those from other satellites.

The signal travels to the ground at the speed of light. Even at this speed, the signal takes a measurable amount of time to reach the receiver. The difference between the time when the signal is received and the time when it was
sent, multiplied by the speed of light, enables the receiver to calculate the distance to the satellite. To calculate its precise latitude, longitude, and altitude, the receiver measures the distance to four separate GPS satellites.

Military Uses for GPS

Although the GPS system was completed only a few years ago, it has already proved to be a valuable aid to U.S. military forces. Picture the desert, with its wide, featureless expanses of sand. The terrain looks much the same for miles. Without a reliable navigation system, U.S. forces could not have performed the maneuvers of Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. With GPS the soldiers were able to go places and maneuver in sandstorms or at night when even the Iraqi troops who lived there couldn’t. More than 1,000 portable commercial receivers were initially purchased for their use. The demand was so great that before the
end of the conflict, more than 9,000 commercial receivers were in use in the Gulf region. They were carried by soldiers on the ground and were attached to vehicles, helicopters, and aircraft instrument panels. GPS receivers were used in several aircraft, including F-16 fighters, KC-135 aerial tankers, and B-52 bombers. Navy ships used them for rendezvous, minesweeping, and aircraft operations.

GPS has become important for nearly all military operations and weapons systems. It is also used on satellites to obtain highly accurate orbit data and to control spacecraft orientation.

The Aerospace Corporation

The Aerospace Corporation is a private, nonprofit company established in 1960 to serve and support U.S. national-security space projects and programs. We operate a federally funded research and development center specializing in space systems and technologies. Aerospace provides systems engineering, architecture, and development support to the U.S. government, principally the United States Air Force. We also perform national-security work for other agencies in the national interest.

Our primary resource is people. Technical and scientific professionals of the highest caliber are responsible for a corporate tradition of excellence. Nearly half of our employees are members of the technical staff. Two-thirds of the technical staff hold advanced degrees in a broad range of disciplines, and about one-fourth of those staff members hold doctoral degrees.

Our corporate headquarters is located in El Segundo, California, next to Los Angeles Air Force Base. Regional offices exist at Air Force launch sites on the East and West coasts; at Johnson Space Center in Texas; at satellite operations and technology centers in California, Colorado, and New Mexico; and in the Washington, D.C., area.

Receivers

GPS receivers can be carried in your hand or be installed on aircraft, ships, tanks, submarines, cars, and trucks.
These receivers detect, decode, and process GPS satellite signals. More than 100 different receiver models are already in use. The typical hand-held receiver is about the size of a cellular telephone, and the newer models are even smaller. The commercial hand-held units distributed to U.S. armed forces personnel during the Persian
Gulf War weighed only 28 ounces (less than two pounds). Since then, basic receiver functions have been miniaturized onto integrated circuits that weigh about one ounce.

GPS in Everyday Life

The GPS system was developed to meet military needs, but new ways to use its capabilities for everyday life are continually being found.
GPS is helping to save lives and property across the nation. Many police, fire, and
emergency medical-service units use GPS receivers
to determine the police car, fire
truck, or ambulance nearest to
an emergency, enabling the
quickest possible response in lifeor-
death situations. GPS-equipped
aircraft can quickly plot the perimeter
of a forest fire so fire supervisors can
produce updated maps in the field and
send firefighters safely to key hot spots.

Mapping, construction, and surveying companies use GPS extensively. During construction of the tunnel under the English Channel, British and French crews started digging from opposite ends: one from Dover, England, and one from Calais, France. They relied on GPS receivers outside the tunnel to check their positions along the way and to make sure they met exactly in the middle. Otherwise, the tunnel might have been crooked. GPS allows mine operators to navigate mining equipment safely, even when visibility is obscured.

How GPS Work

The principle behind GPS is the measurement of distance (or “range”) between the satellites and
the receiver. The satellites tell us exactly where they are in their orbits. It works something like this: If we know our exact distance from a satellite in space, we know we are somewhere on the surface of an imaginary sphere with a radius equal to the distance to the satellite radius.
If we know our exact distance from two satellites, we know that we are located somewhere on the
line where the two spheres intersect. And, if we
take a third and a fourth measurement from two
more satellites, we can find our location. The
GPS receiver processes the satellite range
measurements and produces its position.
GPS uses a system of coordinates called WGS 84, which stands for World Geodetic System 1984. It produces
maps like the ones you see in school, all with a common reference frame for the lines of latitude and longitude that locate places and things. Likewise, it uses time from the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., to synchronize all the timing elements of the system, much like Harrison's chronometer was synchronized to the time at Greenwich.

You should now have a fairly clear picture of the GPS system. You know that it consists of satellites whose paths are monitored by ground stations. Each satellite generates radio signals that allow a receiver to estimate the satellite location and distance between the satellite and the receiver. The receiver uses the measurements to calculate where on or above Earth the user is located.

Now that you have an idea about how GPS functions, let’s see how we can put it to work for us. As you might imagine, GPS has many uses in both military and civilian life.

The next major developments in navigation were the magnetic compass and
the sextant. The needle of a compass always points to the magnetic North
Pole, so it tells you your “heading,” or the direction you're going. Mariner’s
maps in the Age of Exploration often depicted the headings between key ports
and were jealously guarded by their owners.

The sextant uses adjustable mirrors to measure the exact angle of the stars,
moon, and sun above the horizon. From these angles and an “almanac” of the
positions of the sun, moon and stars, you can determine your latitude in clear
weather, day or night. Sailors, however, were still unable to determine their
longitude. When you look at very old maps, you sometimes find that the
latitudes of the coastlines are accurate, but the longitudes are off by hundreds
of miles. This was such a serious problem that in the 17th century the British
government formed a special Board of Longitude consisting of well-known scientists.
This group offered 20,000 British pounds—equal today to about $32,000 but worth a lot more back then—to anybody who could find a way to determine a ship’s longitude within 30 nautical miles.

What is Navigation?

Since prehistoric times, people have been trying to figure out a reliable way to tell where
they are and how to get to their destination—and home again. Such knowledge often meant survival and economic power in society. Early cultures probably marked trails when they set out hunting for food. They later began making maps and, by the Classical Age of Greece, developed the use of latitude (your location on Earth measured north or south from the equator) and longitude (your location on Earth measured east or west of a designated prime meridian) as a way of locating places. Today the prime meridian, used worldwide, runs through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.

Early mariners followed the coast closely to keep from getting lost. When they
learned to chart their course by following the stars, they could venture out into
the open ocean. The ancient Phoenicians used the North Star to journey from
Egypt and Crete. According to Homer, the goddess Athena told Odysseus to
“keep the Great Bear on his left” during his travels from Calypso’s Island.
Unfortunately the stars are only visible at night—and only on clear nights.
Sometimes lighthouses provided a light to guide mariners at night and warn
them of nearby hazards.

What is GPS?

GPS, the Global Positioning System, is the only system today able to show you your exact position on Earth at any time, any where, and in any weather. GPS satellites orbit 11,000 nautical miles above Earth. They are monitored continuously at ground stations located around the world. The satellites transmit signals that can be detected by anyone with a GPS receiver.

The first GPS satellite was launched in 1978. The first 10 satellites launched were developmental satellites, called Block I. From 1989 to 1997, 28 production satellites, called Block II, were launched; the last 19 satellites in the series were updated versions, called Block IIA. The launch of the 24th GPS satellite in 1994 completed the primary system. The third-generation satellite, Block IIR, was first launched in 1997. These satellites are being used to replace aging satellites in the GPS constellation. The next generation, Block IIF, is scheduled for its first launch in late 2005.

Before we learn more about GPS, it’s important to understand something about navigation.

GPS Guide for Beginners

An Amazing Tool
Imagine being an archaeologist on an expedition to the
Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. After preparing for your trip
for months, you are certain that somewhere close by are
the ruins of villages once inhabited by Mayan Indians.
The forest is dense, the sun is hot, and the air is moist and
humid. The only way you can record where you have been
or find your way back to civilization is by using the power
of your GPS receiver.

Or let’s suppose you are an oceanographer for the
International Ice Patrol, responsible for finding icebergs
that form in the cold waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean.
Some of the icebergs are 50 miles long. More than 300
of them form every winter, and they are a major threat to
the ships that travel those waters. Using a GPS receiver,
you are able to help ships avoid disaster by zeroing in on the position of the icebergs and
notifying ship captains of their locations, perhaps averting disaster.

Someday soon every car on the road could be equipped with a navigation and
communication system. The in-dash monitor would provide a full-color display of your
location and a map of nearby roads. A computer-generated voice would guide you to
your destination. In the event of an accident, the car would use its built-in cell phone to call
local emergency services and tell them where you are. At its heart will be a GPS receiver.
Systems as advanced as this one are already available in some cars.

GPS Management Today.

The Global Positioning System management structure
is currently undergoing a transition. Until recently, DoD was solely
responsible for the management and operations of GPS as well as for policy formulation
regarding the system and its uses. Although DoD and the Department
of Transportation cooperated on those aspects of GPS policy affecting civil
access to the system, much of the decision authority rested with DoD, and ultimately
with the National Command Authority. However, now the civil government sector—primarily DoT—has been given a more active role in GPS management.

Many changes occurring are a result of recommendations made by a joint task
force of the Departments of Defense and Transportation in 1993. The Joint
DoD/DoT Task Force (JTF) was established after the Secretaries of Defense and
Transportation agreed to examine the operational, technical, and institutional
implications of increased civil use of GPS. The JTF was directed to (1) evaluate
services derived from GPS signals; (2) evaluate the ability of GPS, as managed
and operated by the DoD, to meet the needs of civil users; (3) assess the importance
of GPS services to civil, commercial, and national security objectives; and
(4) assess the long-term U.S. government sustainment of GPS as a national resource.
The JTF recommendations, released in a report in December 1993,
point to seven core areas where GPS is not meeting civil user expectations or
where alternate management strategies have been recommended. The GPS
management structure was one of the core areas where the JTF saw room for
improvement. The JTF recommended that steps be taken to enhance civil
participation in developing GPS policy and in managing the basic system and
planned augmentations.Thus the U.S. government is now involved in
striking a balance between military and civil requirements and providing channels
for both sectors to offer input to GPS management and policymaking.

In addition to precipitating a rise in demand for GPS commercial receivers, the
war provided GPS technology and the suppliers of GPS receivers broad exposure.
News coverage of the conflict served as free publicity for the two main
wartime suppliers. Following the war, Trimble Navigation’s sales to non-DoD
customers went from a fraction of overall sales to a majority. Desert Storm
was also instrumental in helping manufacturers ramp up operations.

However, the war was also disruptive because manufacturing lines were turned
to support DoD demand, and commercial GPS marketing efforts were slowed
for the duration of the war. Nevertheless, in peacetime, the U.S. commercial
GPS manufacturers continue to produce new and cheaper receivers.
While GPS markets have benefited from government policies and initiatives, the
development in commercial markets has also contributed to the national security
mission of GPS. The demand by civilian commercial users of GPS for
smaller, better, cheaper receivers has directly benefited systems designed
specifically for military use. For example, the precision lightweight GPS receiver
(PLGR) used by U.S. military forces and designated a “nondevelopmental
item” was built at a low cost and delivered on time in large part
due to technical benefits derived from research and development being
conducted for civilian commercial applications.

The export controls issue also served as a catalyst for the U.S. commercial GPS
industry to organize itself. Prior to the 1991 revision of export controls, U.S.
manufacturers were concerned that foreign competitors were gaining an unfair
advantage because of fewer restrictions. Fearing that the United States would
lose control over an American-made space technology, a group of GPS manufacturers
began working together to tackle export problems and in the process
formed the U.S. GPS Industry Council (USGIC). The USGIC now has a permanent
office in Washington, D.C., and has incorporated as a nonprofit entity.
The council monitors and addresses emerging regulatory, political, and global
issues affecting the GPS industry and serves as an information resource for key
policymakers.

By the time the GPS constellation neared completion in the early 1990s, domestic
manufacturers were well aware of the commercial potential of GPS.
Ironically, it was the military, through its involvement in the Persian Gulf conflict,
that gave the commercial GPS market its biggest boost. The success of GPS
in Operation Desert Storm sparked a surge in a growing multi-million-dollar
market that had barely existed just a few years prior to the war. Desert Storm
provided the setting for showing off all the military uses of GPS—from helping
soldiers navigate across a featureless desert to enabling artillery and bomber
units to target the enemy with unprecedented accuracy.

When the war broke out, there were a limited number of military receivers in
the DoD inventory. This led the DoD to purchase thousands of GPS civilian receivers
and the National Command Authority (NCA) to turn off selectiveavailability (SA) so that the troops could get better accuracy using the civilian
receivers. The Pentagon bought most of the GPS receivers used in the Persian
Gulf from Trimble Navigation and Magellan Systems. These two companies
became emergency suppliers, selling the Pentagon 10,000 and 3,000 receivers
respectively.Close to 90 percent of the GPS receivers used in the war were of
the commercial sort.

The U.S. Government’s Role in Fostering Commercial GPS Markets.

The birth
of one of the first GPS markets—surveying—was influenced by a 1984 decision
by the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA)to publish the first draft standards in the Federal
Register that allowed for the use of GPS data. This seal of approval of GPS data
by a civil government agency helped jump start the expansion of the surveying
market even while the GPS system was still in development.

By the mid-1980s, commercial GPS equipment aimed at the surveying
profession appeared on the market even though only a small number of operating
GPS satellites were in orbit. Surveying and time transfer were logical entry points into the market because their applications could accept the limited
availability of satellite signals.Surveyors did not need to use their data in real
time, but could make observations whenever sufficient satellite signals were
available, day or night. GPS surveying offered greater productivity and cost
savings over traditional survey methods. Tasks that normally required several
weeks or months to finish could now be completed in a fraction of the time
using GPS—at one-fifth to one-tenth of the cost of conventional surveying.
Satellite surveying also helped sustain the commercial market for GPS
equipment after the Challenger disaster shut down operations and delayed
satellite launches for several years.

The money generated by the survey market boom was also important to the
overall development of GPS applications because it enabled U.S. manufacturers
to invest in research and development (R&D) on GPS technology. The added
R&D investment helped accelerate the development of GPS applications faster
than would have been possible had the DoD been left to carry out this task on
its own. In fact, surveyors were the first to employ some of the more advanced
differential GPS techniques being used today, such as kinematic surveying and
real-time carrier phase tracking. Now, ten years after the first standards were
published, almost all geodetic standards are based on GPS data.

The growth in the GPS survey market opened the way for a number of GPS
niche markets such as aviation. Even in these smaller markets, government
agencies have contributed to their expansion. For example, the FAA issued
performance standards for GPS receivers (Technical Standard Order C129) in
1992. This action allowed manufacturers to build GPS receivers as supplemental
navigation aids for aircraft, thereby broadening the range of market opportunities
for GPS suppliers. As evidence of this, Trimble, the first company to be
awarded the GPS Technical Standard Order certification, signed an agreement
with Honeywell in 1995 to cooperate in developing GPS products for the commercial,
space, and military aviation markets. This alliance will allow both
companies to tap into new GPS markets.

Government export controls have also affected GPS markets. Prior to 1991,
most GPS user equipment shipped abroad required individual validated licenses
to ensure compliance with various Department of Commerce (DoC)
Bureau of Export Administration export control programs. On September 1,
1991, the DoC revised its export list of electronic equipment requiring licenses
for shipment abroad. What the DoC essentially did was to make a clear delineation between military and civil GPS user equipment. Under the revised regulations,
civilian GPS receivers, other satellite equipment, and telecommunications
systems were freed of restrictions and were allowed to be shipped as
“general destination items,” although military receivers, GPS null steerable antennas,
encryption devices, and certain other components were still treated as
“munitions” with strict export restrictions. This liberalization of export controls
helped speed up the U.S. industry’s entry into foreign markets. Today, export
markets are important to U.S. GPS manufacturers, making up an average
of 45 to 50 percent of overall sales.

The United States Opens GPS Up to Civilians.

The first U.S. pronouncement regarding civil use of GPS came in 1983 following the downing of Korean Airlines Flight 007 after it strayed over territory belonging to the Soviet Union.
At this time, President Reagan announced that the Global Positioning System
would be made available for international civil use once the system became operational.
In 1987 DoD formally requested the Department of Transportation to
establish and provide an office to respond to civil users’ needs and to work
closely with the DoD to ensure proper implementation of GPS for civil use. Two
years later, the U.S. Coast Guard became the lead agency for this project.

The Reagan announcement was followed by a U.S. offer to make available the
Standard Positioning Service of GPS, which was announced at the International
Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Tenth Air Navigation Conference,
September 5, 1991. The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Administrator,
James Busey, promised that GPS would be available free of charge to the international
community beginning in 1993 on a continuous, worldwide basis for at
least 10 years. This offer was extended the following year at the 29th ICAO
Assembly, when the United States offered SPS to the world for the foreseeable
future and pledged to provide at least six years notice prior to termination of
GPS operations or elimination of the GPS SPS.

Both offers were formally reiterated in a 1994 letter from the FAA’s chief, David
Hinson, to ICAO, reaffirming the U.S. government’s intention to provide GPS
SPS free of charge for at least 10 years. In 1995, President Clinton once again
confirmed the government’s commitment to provide GPS signals to international
civil users in a statement that was released at an ICAO meeting in
Montreal in March.