GPS
Android App Inventor lets you be the developer (video)
Google is following in Nokia’s footsteps today by offering its users a simple-to-use DIY app maker. Employing a design scheme that relies on visual blocks rather than oodles of arcane code, the App Inventor — still in Beta, of course — has functions for “just about anything” you can do with an Android handset, including access to GPS and phone functionality
Hey, Lego my Droid, you remote-controlled fiend! (video)
That original Motorola Droid looking long in tooth? Not sure what to do with it once you upgrade to Incredible , X , or even the progenitor’s most direct descendant
Deluxe Reverse Geocache is reusable, really awesome
You’re familiar with geocaching , right? One person hides a “cache” somewhere in the world and hands out the coordinates; the first person to locate it via GPS wins.
I-O Data TransferJet USB dongle announced in Japan
Been dying to get in on some TransferJet high-speed low-range wireless data transfer action since Sony made such a big fuss of it at CES? Well you can go the all-Sony route and pick up a VAIO F or one of Sony’s Cyber-Shot bundles with a reader, or you can head to Japan and snag this I-O Data USB2-TJC reader, when it comes out later this month for ?10,000 ($115)
Prototype car with tactile feedback challenges the blind to drive (update)
We can already imagine just what you’re thinking — the blind have no place behind the wheel, right? As it turns out, though, cars can steer themselves these days , so there technically no reason why (save a few laws) a computer-assisted blind person couldn’t drive.
NASA successfully tests autonomous lunar lander navigation system, codename GENIE (video)
Robonaut2 may have fantastic biceps , but raw muscle won’t put a man humanoid on the moon — that takes rockets. Rockets like the one in this RR-1 prototype lander, recently outfitted with a Guidance Embedded Navigator Integration Environment (GENIE) system to let the craft safely descend to the lunar surface. On June 23rd, NASA and partner Armadillo Aerospace put the system to the test, hoping it could figure out the complex algorithms necessary to process volumes of data from the laser altimeter, GPS and inertial sensors, and quickly enough to steer the rocket engine accordingly..
