Part 2: Mail carriers feel more heat from GPS

Flip phones are not archaic electronic devices; they’re part of a plan to track mail carrier routes with built-in GPS trackers.

In a similar way that UPS drivers (and your packages) are tracked, letter carriers are tracked with GPS tracking and Bluetooth technology.

Some areas of the United States already have this program implemented, causing mail carriers to move as quickly as possible through neighborhoods in order to get mail delivered on time.

The flip phones are linked electronically with a handheld scanner mail carriers are already equipped with.  They carry a scanner to record barcodes on deliveries and attempted deliveries. This is usually on Priority or Express mail, deliveries with delivery confirmation, and many different packages. The scanner does track some of the mail carrier’s activities at mailboxes along their route that has barcode stickers, but these only provide simple tracking capabilities. The number of barcodes has increased, but it still isn’t enough to get accurate tracking. Read the rest of this entry »

Using a deer hunting camera and a GPS tracking device, a construction owner catches repeat thieves.

Chris Davis, owner of construction company Paramount Exteriors, has been dealing with a nightmare for over a month. He has experienced his building materials stolen countless times, totaling approximately $21,000.

The roofing material was all stolen from the Legacy Apartments complex that was being built in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

Not only is it inconvenient coming to work with the intent to start building and noticing materials being gone, but the money he lost was considerable.

“It’s very frustrating because I have mouths to feed and so does my partners and we’re losing a lot of money on this job,” Davis told reporters. Read the rest of this entry »

Teen driver in the home?  Take their driving seriously.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fences have been used to manage livestock for centuries. The fences themselves may have seen a few updates over the years. By and large, however, there have been few advances in the system of livestock management since medieval times. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) believes that’s all about to change.

The USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is projecting that virtual fences may be the way of the future for containing cattle and other livestock. They’ve granted exclusive licensing to Krimar of Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia; a Canadian firm that offers a GPS linked virtual fence dubbed as Directional Virtual Fencing (DVF).

What’s the big deal about virtual fences? Because they aren’t physical barriers, virtual fences allow an easier rotation of the livestock from one area to another. This is a great way to control feeding grounds and patterns. Livestock can easily be moved from one area of land to another so that the ground can recover from constant grazing before the livestock returns. This goes a long way to help mitigate soil erosion, habitat encroachment, and other “green” issues ranchers consistently face. Read the rest of this entry »

Dangerous ash-filled clouds may soon have a new enemy –  GPS tracking technology.

Scientists are currently working on a new way to utilize GPS tracking technology in order to follow some dangerous clouds. These ash-filled clouds, or “volcanic clouds,” have the potential to, among other things, clog an airplane’s engines with their particles. This could mean an airplane starts plummeting with no other course of action.

The technology looks similar to the bars you see on your cell phone when you have a strong or weak signal. This new signal strength technology is used in conjunction with the intensity of the GPS signal, while trying to cut through the volcanic cloud’s large particle-filled plumes. The research in question was originally published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal.

The research for this new signal strength technology came shortly after a volcano in Iceland caused cancelled flights throughout Europe for almost a week. This was two years ago. The ash from the clouds caused too much interruption and made flying too dangerous. Read the rest of this entry »