Word of warning: Don’t leave garbage out anywhere in the country, but particularly if you live in Alaska.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is on a mission to track and monitor movements from so called “urban bears”, and have been monitoring city bear habits every 20 minutes using GPS tracking collars.

The project is being done using GPS tracking collars, along with what are called “Critter Cams” to see how they behave when they aren’t watched.

The project is led by Sean Farley, a biologist at the Department of Fish and Game in Alaska. He has placed the cameras under the bears’ chins in order to record 10 seconds every 5 minutes for the black bears, and every 20 minutes for the brown bears. These bears are native to Alaska, with little knowledge about their behaviors since they tend to shy away from humans. The Critter Cams also include GPS tracking devices which can show live feed of the bears’ whereabouts every 20 minutes when the camera picks up live feeds.

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In Chicago,  GPS trackers, similar to LiveView GPS trackers, helped locate stolen school buses. Unfortunately, what they found was a pile of rubble.

Eight yellow school buses were stolen from the Sunrise Bus company yard. This lot is located on the 10000 block of South Torrence Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. In the middle of the night on a Thursday, eight buses were taken from the lot, and not discovered missing until the next morning at around 5:00am.

Sunrise Bus company yard is responsible for providing school buses to public schools in Chicago.

When Gregory Bonnett, the owner of the bus yard and 4-decade veteran of the school bus business, received a call from police saying they found his property, he was ecstatic. But when he got to the site, he found all eight buses were scrapped. All that was left was a pile of metal, shredded for scrap and parts.

“I expected to pull up and meet the police and see eight buses,” Bonnett said. “I got here and I saw exactly what you’re looking at now. A pile of scrap with school bus yellow.”

The buses were found by a GPS tracker that was installed on the buses. Police used the tracker to follow the route to the Gonzalez Auto and Truck Parts store on Lawndale Avenue in Chicago. Here, police went through piles of wreckage until they found five buses partially stripped and three more that were completely shredded.

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GPS Technology now being used to detect natural disasters before they occur.

Natural hazards, like tsunamis, earthquakes and tornadoes, cause disastrous consequences for anyone living or working in those areas. Unfortunately, they also have very little warning potential. Often times, before someone is warned of an impending disaster, it’s too late to find safety.  This is where GPS technology can help.

Global positioning systems (GPS) is currently used in one form or another all around the world. It was originally developed for its GPS tracking and navigational technology, but scientists and researchers are finding brand new ways to use it. Most recently, a research team in Germany, has found a way to use data from previous events, to help predict future disasters.

The team is from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) and led by Dr. Andreas Hoechner. Hoechner believes that with the data they have been processing, it can be used to give advanced warning for natural disasters. Read the rest of this entry »

GPS tracking collars show positive results following a puma study and the affect of civilization on its habits.

The mountain lions have been tracked for over three years in a study conducted by scientists at UC Sana Cruz (UCSC). The researchers have been keeping track of the habits of mountain lions, and the relation to civilization, through the use of GPS tracking technology. There are now the first set of published results, showing exactly what habits are affected by humans surrounding their natural habitats.

The study is called the UC Santa Cruz Puma Project, and led by Chris Wilmers and his colleagues at UC Santa Cruz. Wilmers is currently an associate professor of environmental studies at UCSC. The results were first published on April 17^th, a little over three years after the study began. Read the rest of this entry »

First there were smart cars, then smartphones, now there are smart bikes.

Bicycles are behind the times, in terms of using modern technology to increase the rider’s experience that is. The rider still uses turn signals manually, and most bikes don’t have a handy place to put a smartphone’s GPS tracker. But all that is about to change with the introduction of smart bikes.

An up-and-coming smart bikes is made using handlebars, called Helios Bars, which started as a Kickstarter project. These handlebars include GPS technology, turn signals and a speedometer built right in. What’s more, they can be installed on any current bike, without needing to purchase a brand new one.

Founder of the Helios Bars, Kenny Gibbs, wanted to reinvest the biking experience. He said, “Bikers’ main concerns are security and safety. 600 people died on bike rides and 40,000 were injured last year. Not to mention that 1.5 million bikes were stolen. Helios solves those problems.” Read the rest of this entry »