It seems that bears in Yosemite are going after more than picnic baskets these days, leaving wildlife management personnel looking for a new tool to help the more than four million park visitors from bear activity throughout the year. This tool is a GPS tracking device.

How big is Yosemite’s bear problem?

As recently as 20 years ago, it was not at all uncommon for bears to damage cars in search of food. As many as 600 cars per year became targets of bears in search of grub.

The new solution they’ve found?

Thanks to advances in GPS tracking technology over the past several years, the park is going to outfit 20 of its bears with shiny new collars complete with GPS trackers to help rangers keep up with what’s going on with bear population.

Specifically, rangers are looking for information concerning where bears are, how often they wander into campground areas, and which bears are the primary offenders. Read the rest of this entry »

HVAC companies are constantly on the move. Fleet vehicles must continuously make service calls, perform installations, and even perform routine maintenance on HVAC systems throughout the cities where you conduct your business. This takes a toll on trucks and drivers — not to mention a huge chunk of change out of the profit category each year.

But, did you know something as simple as a GPS HVAC tracking system can actually save your business money each year? That’s only the tip of the iceberg though. These types of benefits are perfect reasons for HVAC companies to consider GPS fleet tracking services.

More Accurate ETA Reporting

People are either boiling in their homes or turning into ice cubes when their air conditioning units or heaters are out of commission. They only thing they want more than the problem solved is an accurate estimation for when the HVAC technician is going to arrive.

With GPS HVAC fleet tracking, you can accurately estimate the amount of time it will take service personnel to arrive based on their current location and current traffic situations. This makes you a real hero in the eyes of your customers. Read the rest of this entry »

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently rendered a somewhat shocking, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), verdict. It was an eight to five decision in the case U.S. v. Katzin.

The surprising decision is that evidence derived from the warrantless use of GPS tracking is, in fact admissible in court, in some situations. The ruling relies on a massively expanded interpretation of the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule spelled out in the Fourth Amendment.

The majority opinion held that officers acted in good faith based on years of precedence when using tracking technology for beepers in previous cases without a warrant.

In building the case against Katzin, police, who suspected Katzin of a string of Rite-Aid pharmacy robberies, attached a GPS tracker to Katzin’s car and used information discovered as a result of the GPS tracking device to arrest Harry Katzin. They did this in absence of probable cause or a warrant.

The evidence was initially excluded by a federal judge in Pennsylvania as a result of its lack of a warrant. It was then appealed to a three-judge panel who were divided on the issue. The matter then went before the full court who reached an eight to five decision holding that because they were acting in good faith at the time, the search was admissible. Read the rest of this entry »

Mark your calendars! Stanford University’s Per Enge and Frank van Diggelen have teamed up to teach a massively open online course (MOOC) about GPS basics during the fall of 2014.

When is the Course Offered?

The course itself, titled GPS: An Introduction to Satellite Navigation, with an interactive Worldwide Laboratory using Smartphones, takes place between October 13 and November 24 and focuses attention on the basics of GPS using smartphones.

Each week during the course a new lesson, or module, will be released along with a series of short quizzes to accompany the lessons. Some weeks will also require participation in a GPS lab, which is conducted outside with your smartphone or tablet. During these labs it is up to you to collect data and share it with the virtual classroom.

The fact that the class is offered online means that you have the flexibility to participate according to your own schedule. You have the option of doing all the week’s work in one sitting or breaking it up into small chunks during office lunch hours or whenever is convenient for you. Read the rest of this entry »

K9 dogs in Arizona test out new GPS tracking units to track their location and health status.

Three dogs that work for the Arizona Department of Public Safety department are testing out brand new GPS tracking devices. The devices utilize global positioning system (GPS) technology that is constantly being upgraded for more advanced data tracking abilities. What was previously used for mainly for mapping and navigational properties is now helping organizations all over the world get up-to-date data analysis, including police departments.

The GPS trackers will keep track of where the police dogs are and how they are doing, health-wise. It uses various data to gather and analyze this information, including the temperature and behavior of the dogs, and mapping technology to look at their movements and find their location.

In addition, the GPS tracking device are helping the Arizona police department with K9 training and for learning the searching patterns the dogs use to search for a missing item or person.

Especially in the summer, heat is a concern for police dogs that work long days out in the sun. The core temperature of the dogs is consistently tracked to protect their health and safety when Arizona heat gets up to 100 or more. Read the rest of this entry »