Hike down geotagged memory lane with GPSMAP 62’s built-in camera

 

We’re wrapping up our exciting week of product announcements with an addition to the GPSMAP 62 series of rugged outdoor handheld devices – a built-in 5 megapixel camera with automatic geotagging to capture the highlights of any adventure and allow you to share the locations or navigate back to that site. We’re showing off GPSMAP 62stc and GPSMAP 62sc here at the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, CO, capping four days of fun that included this and other big news in the popular eTrex, Rino and Astro families.

Hikers, hunters, mountain bikers and other outdoors enthusiasts often don’t have the time or energy to dig through their pack every time they see something memorable or worth sharing later,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “The built-in camera seamlessly integrates photography into your basic navigation, whether you’re out for a day of leisurely sightseeing or serious reconnaissance – or simply trying to get back safely to where you started.”

Picture perfect: Whenever a picture is taken in stunning clarity with the 5 megapixel, auto-focus camera on GPSMAP 62stc or GPSMAP 62sc, the photograph is geotagged – meaning the location is saved and encoded into the file – so that the geographical information can be used at any time as a point of reference or as a destination that can be reached through GPS guidance and directions. And because the GPSMAP family is waterproof to IPX7 standards, the built-in camera will still be snapping photos even in the worst conditions. Ample built-in memory (3.5 GB for both models) allows you to take plenty of pictures on the trail and save the downloading and deciding for later. Once your GPSMAP 62stc or GPSMAP 62sc is connected via USB, you can use Garmin’s free BaseCamp software (http://garmin.com/basecamp) to easily store and share your photos. BaseCamp also helps you view, plan and organize your maps (in 2D or 3D), waypoints, routes and tracks – including elevation profiles – and send them to your Garmin handheld.Options abound: Boasting a 2.6” sunlight-readable color display, intuitive push-button interface, up to 16 hours of battery life and a high-sensitivity GPS receiver and quad helix antenna for unparalleled reception, the GPSMAP 62 series features various models and custom dashboards to suit various activities and interests. And thanks to enhanced navigation and the 3D digital elevation model (DEM) data, users navigating to a destination on an active track will see changes in elevation ahead as well as where they’ve been. Also, waypoints and other key locations along the active route – such as start, end and high and low elevation points – appear on the map and active route pages. When choosing the best model for your lifestyle, it’s easy to remember that the “s” stands for integrated sensors (electronic compass and barometric altimeter), “t” denotes preloaded topographic maps, and “c” indicates the built-in camera described above. Learn more about the GPSMAP 62 models and features at the interactive minisite at http://www.garmin.com/gpsmap62.

What’s inside: GPSMAP 62 models with an “s” include a 3-axis tilt-compensated electronic compass and wireless connectivity for sharing routes, tracks, waypoints and geocaches between other compatible Garmin handhelds. These models feature a barometric altimeter that tracks changes in pressure to pinpoint your precise altitude. Users can also plot barometric pressure over time, which can help keep an eye on changing weather conditions. These devices also use ANT+ for wireless sharing between compatible devices, monitoring heart rate and cadence with those optional accessories, and interacting with chirp geocaching beacons (www.garmin.com/chirp).

Taming the terrain: GPSMAP 62 models with a “t” in the name feature preloaded 100K topographic maps for the entire United States (or preloaded 50K topographic mapping of Canada for the Canadian version). Detailed coverage includes major trails, urban and rural roads, interstates, highways, coastlines, rivers and lakes as well as national, state and local parks, forests and wilderness areas. In addition, you can search for points of interest by name or proximity to your location and view descriptive details for terrain contours, topo elevations, summits and geographical points.

 

Google Map Maker & Chicago

(Cross-posted from the Student Blog)

The Google Map Maker campus tour recently visited the Windy City to talk to students about how they can use Map Maker to map their campuses and make updates to places they care about on Google Maps. While in town, we also hosted a Map Maker event at the Google Chicago office to share the tool with folks working in the public sector. We had a great time meeting so many enthusiastic mappers from the area, and look forward to seeing how they put Chicago on the map.

Our first stop was the University of Chicago campus, a beautifully historic area with architectural gems galore. Students who attended this event were excited to map not only their campus, but neighborhoods near the university, showing the diversity and development of the population and culture.

Our second stop was Northwestern University, where a packed room of students learned about mapping while sampling some traditional Chicago style deep dish pizza. Delicious! Students were particularly interested in adding details to their campus, naming the buildings, adding locations of the sororities and fraternities, and marking the building outlines or footprints of their favorite restaurants and stores nearby.

 

Our Google Map Maker team loved partnering with Google Student Ambassadors from these campuses, who creatively and passionately helped plan these events. You guys did an amazing job! The Google Student Ambassadors from Northwestern University had this to say about the Map Maker visit:

“Our event brought together over 120 Northwestern students who were eager and excited to learn about how they could make an impact by adding to Google Maps using Map Maker … Map Maker was a welcome product that put the power to shape the map in our hands. All in all, it was an incredibly fun and engaging experience!”

-Sourya and Minjae, Google Student Ambassadors at Northwestern University

The last event—a meeting with public sector officials at the Google office in Chicago—gave us some great insights about how Map Maker can be used for large metropolitan areas. University educators, Department of Transportation employees, Census Bureau representatives, Chicago Health Department folks, and many more shared how they would like to see Map Maker applied to what they do. We really appreciate all their feedback and suggestions, as well as their enthusiasm for how this tool can help them share their work with each other and the public.

Chicago and the surrounding areas were such enjoyable places to visit, full of vibrant and passionate people. We look forward to visiting other campuses in the fall, but don’t wait until then to leave your mark on your campus!

Free data a GFC casualty

The US government has been a proponent of free data for quite a while now and over the years it established a number of national programs to allow easy access to wast resources of public information. However, the annual budgets for e-government initiatives were slashed by 75% last month, putting in question the survival of such programs like data.gov (it is the repository for publicly available data that was promised as a platform to power software and analysis created by and for the public). Comments from federal CIO Vivek Kundra indicate that data.gov will not be shut down but “…there will be no enhancements or other development to address needs for improvement”. So, although the policy of free data remains unchanged, significant cost of delivering that policy may be its ultimate “undoing”.

Meantime, in Australia, the progress towards opening up government data vaults has taken another step forward. Earlier this week Australia’s Information Commissioner, John McMillan, unveiled eight new rules for Federal agencies to adhere to when considering the publication of government data. These rules are:

  • Open access to information – a default position,
  • Engaging the community,
  • Effective information governance,
  • Robust information asset management,
  • Discoverable and useable information,
  • Clear reuse rights,
  • Appropriate charging for access, [So, not entirely free access!]
  • Transparent enquiry and complaints processes

The Principles are not binding on agencies, and operate alongside legal requirements about information management that are spelt out in the FOI Act, Privacy Act 1988, Archives Act 1983 and other legislation and the general law.

Despite the launch of data.gov.au portal, there is no federal program in Australia to facilitate access to public data on a large scale (ie. the US style) and the onus so far is on individual agencies to manage the dissemination of public information in their possession. State and Territory governments are pursuing their own initiatives. This “piecemeal approach”, although slower in implementation, may prove to be a more sustainable model for enabling access to public data, considering the vulnerability of large scale initiatives to budgetary pressures of the government of the day in these uncertain times.