News: More Augmented Reality - Nearest Tube for iPhone 3GS

Thanks to Pocket-Lint for the heads-up.

Following on from last week's Android Augmented Reality browser comes 'Nearest Tube' for iPhone 3GS.

Developed by Acrossair, authors of TVGuide, Nearest Tube overlays London Tube Station data over the reality view from your iPhone 3GS camera.

Making full use of the tilt sensor and compass, you can see detailed London Underground Tube Station information with the distances and the lines running through the stations all displayed on top of the view as seen by your iPhone's camera.

Hold it flat and you can see all 13 lines with arrows and as you tilt it upwards further data such as direction, distance etc is added with stations increasingly farther away displayed as you increase the tilt. Utilising the compass the data rotates as you turn around.

Submitted to Apple and awaiting approval so for now check out the YouTUBE video here.

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Reviews: Blackhills Solar-Charging Backpack Reviewed

We recently announced on our news page that the Blackhills Outdoor Solar-Charging Backpacks (see here) were available at a special price of only £29.99 including postage (they are now back to full price at £49.99). As Summer is fast approaching I felt I should jet off with the 'Orange and White' budget air travel company to the Costa del Sol with a range of devices to give the backpack the once over.

Click here to read the full review...

Subscribers: The Latest Lifetime Members

Every time we release the PocketGPSWorld.com Speed Camera Database we award those subscribers whose reports met our qualifying criteria a FREE Lifetime Membership to the site. We will publish the names of those who achieved the award following each release.

Of the 52 unique submitters who were first to make qualifying reports for this weeks database release (7.071) congratulations are due for the following 27 members who have just been awarded a FREE Lifetime Subscription:

• ahmedn89
• Bruceclarke
• Chrismate
• crispyjay
• daltonel
• DaveLDaveL
• Davemeade
• DaveNN
• Daveywaveywoos
• Fraserp
• Gadget123
• glovbox
• HHGPS
• idf
• jdcm
• kenb130
• LADmachining
• lola
• Monkey1970
• nicke_engen
• pcfixit
• pillboxman
• ragpot
• RPB
• speedcrusader
• swani
• tankerman10

Subscribers: The PocketGPSWorld.com International Speed Camera Database Has Just Been Updated

Version 7.071 - 01 JUL 09

NOTE: The M60 roadwork cameras (J19-23) are only active at weekends so please refrain from sending remove requests when you see them covered up during the week!

This release sees 110 static and mobile speed cameras added/removed/modified across the various speed camera databases. Please keep submitting all sightings of mobile speed cameras so we can keep our database up to date with active sites. Apparently-inactive sites are regularly removed from the database (note that these do not get included in the total above).

Please click here for the full breakdown of country, speed camera type and number. All members submitting qualifying reports of static/mobile speed cameras will be credited with lifetime memberships by 17:00 02 Jul 09.

The Garmin GPSR database (for older devices) is now up to date (11.17am 02 Jul 09)

Dont forget our RSS feed which is updated every time we release the speed camera database. Simply right click on the RSS image and select copy shortcut, then post the link into your favourite RSS reader.

The speed camera submission page and download page can be found by clicking here. You can submit new speed cameras in one of two ways - either an OV2 file created by POICapture or individual camera locations.

A beginner's guide to the speed camera database can be found here, and some installation instructions for most units can be found here.

Please watch for further announcements on the homepage or sign up to our weekly newsletter alerts which carry full details of future speed camera database releases. The newsletter signup box is located on the top left of all site pages. Your privacy is important to us, we do not sell on your email details.

Events: CTIA Partner With Pocket GPS for San Diego Wireless Show

As a Media Sponsor of CTIA, we are delighted to announce the International CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment Show taking place in San Diego, California in October.

This year the popular mobile business exhibition focuses on applications, network architecture and technologies such as location based services (LBS), machine-to-machine and WiMAX.

The show hosts 250 exhibitors and attracts 15,000 industry professionals every year.

GPS/LBS related companies confirmed to attend so far include deCarta, Networks In Motion and NAVTEQ.

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News: GatsoGate tape may prove expert witness changed evidence

We have covered this case before here.

The original offence took place in 2006 when Mrs Fielden was photographed by a speed camera driving at 36mph in a 30mph limit. A fixed penalty of £60 with the mandatory 3 penalty points was issued.

During hearings at Bradford Crown Court last June, expert witness Mr Theodorus Janssen, from Gatso, testified that being on a curve tighter than 1,200 metres would not affect the accuracy of the camera’s measurements and that the 1,200-metre-limit had been selected 'arbitrarily' by the Netherlands Measurement Institute (NMI). Despite the camera instructions not having been followed the Judge dismissed Mrs Fielden’s appeal.

Now evidence has arisen that suggests the expert witness changed his evidence.

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News: CoPilot Live launches on Android

ALK have today announced the immediate availability of CoPilot Live for Android-based phones.

CoPilot Live can be purchased direct from the Android Market and includes turn-by-turn navigation with voice guidance, 3D mapping, direct dialling POis, location sending via SMS, photo navigation and portrait/landscape modes.

CoPilot Live makes full use of the 'connected' nature of the Android phones and offers real-time traffic alerts, 5-day weather forecast information and a new location sharing service named CoPilot LiveLink'.

This is welcome news, it demonstrates that this version is not just a port of a PPC solution but instead has been designed to make full use of the facilities available and even adds new services. The same cannot so far be said of the iPhone equivalents released so far.

CoPilot Live is available in the Android Market accessed from your Android device at £25.99 for UK & Ireland and £59.99 for Europe.


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News: Weekly Newsletter Published

This week's Newsletter is now out. If you are not a Newsletter Subscriber, you can view the latest issue each week at this link.

Our Newsletter is published every Friday and contains a round-up of the top stories in the preceding week, our database blog, ToP TiPs and other editorial content that is unique and not found on the web-site.

Subscription is FREE, we don't use your email address for anything other than sending the Newsletter and you can easily un-subscribe at any time.

Subscribing is simple. Enter your email address in the Email Updates sign-up box. This is found at the top of the left hand column of every page of this site. You will will receive the next issue in your mailbox each Friday. Be sure to add 'newsletter@pocketgpsworld.com' to any anti-spam filter as a trusted address.

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News: £20m in Essex speeding fines may be refunded due to blunder

It's been a bad week for Speed/Safety Camera Partnerships. On Sunday we wrote that Dorset may have to refund £1.5m in fines due to errors in a traffic order for a Chideock speed camera.

Now comes news that Essex may have to return £20m in speeding fines following a blunder that meant tickets issues by the enforcement department were not legal.

The situation arose after it was discovered that a civilian employee responsible for sending the penalty letters to drivers may not have had the authorisation necessary in law as required by the 1988 Road Traffic Offenders Act.

The error in authorisation stretches back four years and estimates calculate that means nearly 300,000 motorists could be affected.

Essex Police are now discussing the matter with the Crown prosecution Service to establish their position.

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News: Nav N Go Announce iGO for iPhone

Nav N Go have today announced that their iPhone navigation app is 'coming soon'.

It is, rather oddly, called iGO MyWay for iPhone where the screenshots clearly show their iGO Amigo software running on the iPhone. See here for our recent review of the Amigo software.

Regardless, it's Nav N Go, it's on the iPhone and it's coming soon. Stay tuned for more information and click on 'read more' for links to screen shots and a video of the app.

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News: Intrinsyc announce Destinator 9

Some of you may still remember the Destinator 3 navigation software that had quite a big market share in 2003/2004.

On the occasion of the upcoming re-introduction of Destinator 9 (jumping a few versions as you can see) I had the opportunity to talk to Mr. Souheil Gallouzi, head of the Mobile Products group at Intrinsyc, the company that bought the Destinator engine.

This time around Destinator 9 will be mostly bundled with new phones and PNDs, and the OEMs can customize the look and feel to their needs.

For example, at the last Mobile World Congress in Barcelona LG Electronics announced that they had selected Destinator 9 for some of their future devices.

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News: Dorset deploys dual-role speed and red-light cameras

Dorset Safety Camera Partnership, keen to recoup the £1.5m they stand to lose because of the invalidated speed camera in Chideock have a cunning plan.

Their latest tactical move in the war against motorists is to convert red-light cameras to Monitron's that can operate in dual red-light and speed camera roles.

Following Home Office Type Approval and successful test, the Monitron cameras that were previously installed to monitor red light 'non-compliance' are now being converted to operate in a speed role as well.

Work has now begun on installing the additional road markings to cameras in Poole. You have been warned.

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Events: Video iPhone launch day in Apple Store UK

Last Friday saw the launch of the iPhone 3GS across the globe. We decided to take a plunge and go to London UK?s Apple Flagship store to get our shiny new iPhones, and also to document the day.

The queues in the Apple Store were mad. Hundreds of patient users waiting to part with hard earned cash for a new iPhone 3GS. In true Disney style Apple managed to snake the queues round to cram as many people into the store as possible. Then with military precession they were moved from staging point to staging point before finally getting to the sales guy, and getting the new iPhone.

We also took a trip to the Oxford Street Carphone Warehouse where things where a bit quieter, CPW were only selling the iPhones on 18 month O2 Contracts.

The video covers us tramping round London to find some iPhones, and also shows the quality of the new video camera in the phone. This video was taken in my car whilst in a HR iPhone mount.

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News: PayPal Servers are Down

Anyone attempting to join or renew their subscription this morning will have noticed that PayPal is currently down.

They have acknowledged the issue on their developer status pages but as yet there is no ETA for a fix.

We will post an update for you as and when this is resolved,

In the meantime, anyone wishing to renew can use NoChex or await Paypal's return to health.

[UPDATE:]11:08hrs The issue has now been resolved and access to PayPal restored.

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A software flaw is killing Garmin nuvi 7x5s

Reports from Garmin 7x5 owners in the US and UK of bricked units following an automatic software update are now growing in number.

Although the cause is far from clear but it appears to be triggered by a GPS firmware update. Soon after, the units lose all signal.

Suggestions that it involves a bug in the GPS chipset firmware are one possibility or it could simply be a bug in the 7x5 software.

There is a temporary work-around which involves reverting to an earlier firmware release which PaulB explains in the forum thread.

For now, if you have a nuvi 7x5 please read the thread as this issue WILL affect your device.

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