I recently found a website that increases the "Whoa, cool!" factor up several orders of magnitude for GPS's. If you have a GPS unit you need to check this place out: www.GPSVisualizer.com

This website allows you to upload your tracks and waypoint files and convert them into a number of different views. You can convert your files (any GPS manufacturer) to files readable by any other GPS unit.

You can overlay your tracks on a topo map of the region.


You can overlay your track on an aerial photograph of the region.


You can overlay your track on a satellite photo.


You can even plot your changes in your altitude!

Uh, this last one is much more interesting when you actually DO change altitude...

You can also convert your track into Google Earth .kml or .kmz files. Then you can see your track overlayed on Google Earth and do a bird's eye flight of your path.

This is really neat if you are a map freak!

-Mark

What I want to know is with all these new cell phones having GPS capability why don't any of them have the ability to output the GPS signal to the data port or at least display the position on the screen. Sure they are not going to be as good as a real GPS but the same applies to the camera phones, they are not as good as a real digicam but adequate for those times when your not carrying a real camera.

I was told by someone who works for Motorola that they don't actually contain a GPS, but instead use triangulation with the local cells (using signal strength) to identify your 2-dimensional location - this is supposedly done at the cell stations, not on your cell phone itself, BUT have not been able to verify that.

By the way, another GPS product that does similar displays of maps & photos is http://www.expertgps.com . I use this mostly to store/manage my waypoints and to get quick on-line topo maps. For good topo maps I much prefer National Geographics' Topo! software, which is also GPS compatible.

For those interested I just got a new Garmin Geko 201 yesterday. REALLY nice little GPS. I read a bunch of complaints about slow starts or accidental on-button pressings, but it starts up even faster than my Garmin GPS III+, and the on-button has a raised guard now. The software is very "natural" to use.

Ken

I have heard the same thing too...

If I remember right, the cell phone companies have to provide the location data for Enhanced 911; it doesn't really matter exactly how they find your location. They can use triangulation from cell towers or GPS -- I think most use the triangulation method.

There are true GPS-enabled cell phones out there that will show you your position, directions, etc. Nextel comes to mind.

The ExpertGPS software looks interesting but you have to pay for it and it doesn't work on a Mac. Thanks for the link, though.

-Mark

Figures, the feature I want only comes from the provider I don't want <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I don't know anything about this, but found the ad in a magazine. Trimble Outdoors GPS/cell phone combo thingy.

www.trimbleoutdoors.com