Friday, February 24, 2012
The siren-like call of the sat-nav
Most of us would probably be quite happy to have a sat-nav, if we haven’t got one already.
But beware!Their voices can lead you astray as surely as a siren’s call, and in total sat-navs have reportedly cost £203million in vehicle repairs in the last 12 months alone.
The head of car insurance at Confused.com stated, “Our research has shown that the sat-nav is not always the blessing it was once hailed to be and, increasingly, motorists appear to be citing the device as a source of frustration and danger.”
The problem is that a combination of out-of-date maps on the devices and drivers relying too heavily on the directions given by the gadget is resulting in crashes which could easily have been avoided.
Although it is hoped that a summit set to be held in March this year will solve a lot of the navigational errors being suffered my motorists, many sat-nav problems can be resolved by drivers paying more attention to the road and looking at their intended route on a real map before leaving.
The art of true navigation is being lost, let’s reacquaint ourselves with it.
Photo © Unhindered by Talent via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: car insurance, Confused.com, crash, device, directions, gadget, map, motorists, navigational error, road, sat-nav, summit, vehicle repairs
Monday, January 23, 2012
Tourist information? …Sorry I’ve forgotten
Are you proud to know your way around your area and happy to direct visitors to wherever it is they’ve just asked you directions for?
Well don’t keep relying on your sat-nav when on the road, because you might start to lose the ability to remember the layout of places.
According to researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, in Germany, we remember our way around by creating a mental map.
Our mental map is created, in part, by looking at a real map of an area. However, our mental map is prone to being forgotten if our brain gets used to being guided around with no real knowledge of its location or surroundings.
If you want to avoid losing your mental map, and your ability to create new ones, then you might want to follow the advice given by one of the researchers.
“Look at maps before you start your trip, keep them at hand, but navigate yourself, and try to rely on your memory.
“It will work better than you expect.”
No more sat-navs for us – we’re building up our mental maps! (Although we might turn the sat-nav back on for confusing ring-roads…)
Photo © @boetter via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: directions, layout, location, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, mental map, navigate, ring-road, road, sat-nav, surroundings
Friday, January 6, 2012
Is there an end in sight for sat-nav misdirection?
It’s not unusual to hear about outrageous sat-nav blunders, and although I don’t use mine too often, there have been a couple of times where I have had to use my common sense and follow road signs rather than the little arrow on the screen.
However, it has been reported that the Government has plans to tackle those misguided drivers who end up in compromising situations due to a technological error. It will be discussing the out-of-date directions at a summit.
According to the Department for Transport, it can sometimes take months for road updates to be delivered to sat-navs from local authorities, and misdirection has been known to land lorries in side streets and cars into swamps.
At last, this may mean the sat-nav problems are finally addressed and sorted out! Mind you, it’s important that drivers are always careful to think about where they are steering rather than blindly relying on advice from their navigation system.
Photo © Tim Green aka atoach via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: directions, lorries, navigation, road signs, sat-nav, summit, vehicles
Monday, December 12, 2011
Indoor positioning system
If you find sat-navs useful when you’re trying to make your way around the UK’s roads, a new gadget which technology companies have created could help you when you’re out of your car!
Such firms as Google and Nokia have developed an ‘indoor positioning system’ so that people walking around very large buildings, like shopping centres, can navigate the area easier.However, some people are worried that individuals using this system could be tracked, or that companies could collect information about which shops they went into and spam them with targeted advertising.
Nevertheless I think this gadget could be useful. Many huge shopping centres have maps scattered about for customers to look at – but they’re not always that easy to find.
My experience is that I walk past the shop I was looking for in an attempt to find a map!
Photo © Jeppestown via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: gadget, Google, indoor positioning system, map, Nokia, road, sat-nav, UK
Monday, November 21, 2011
Hippocampus GPS
Do you always get lost? Maybe you just need to update your brain with new maps.
Apparently, according to neuroscientists at the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at University College London our mind works like a sat-nav when we’re making our way somewhere by foot. One section analyses how far there is to go before we reach our final destination, and another part decided upon which route to take when we have several paths to choose from.
One of the scientists explained, "The posterior hippocampus cares about how long a route is going to be. It's like GPS. It knows how far you've got to go in the real world and it gets more excited the closer you are to your goal."
So, if you’re thinking about getting a sat-nav, maybe you don’t even need one!
On the other-hand, navigating your way through some of the UK’s more complicated roads, like the one-way systems which encircle whole towns or cities, might be a little easier with GPS technology on your side, and not just the posterior hippocampus.
Photo © dkwonsh via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: brain, destination, GPS, hippocampus, lost, map, navigating, road, route, sat-nav
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sat-nav blindness
Sat-navs can be really useful for people who haven’t taken a certain route before and feel more confident if they have some guidance.
The problems begin when motorists rely too heavily on their GPS system and begin following it blindly to the ends of the Earth. The truth is, voice on the machine may sound authoritative, whether it’s Yoda or the basic man or woman’s voice, but it is still a machine and doesn’t have a brain.
No offence meant to sat-navs, they’re a great piece of technology, but if they hasn’t been updated for a while they could take you down a road that’s blocked off, or across a junction that doesn’t exist anymore, or tell you that through the new shopping centre is the best course of action.
One lorry driver recently got his vehicle wedged between two buildings at the end of a narrow lane that his sat-nav had told him to go down.
A car probably would have gone through – but this man must have forgotten that the GPS doesn’t know what vehicle you’re in.
A landlord near the narrow lane stated, “It was a very stupid thing to do and the locals thought he was a bit of an idiot for doing it.”
He caused damage to the properties on either side and the lorry was finally freed in a six hour operation the next day.
Next time he might try to judge the situation for himself before blindly doing as the sat-nav tells him…as should we all.
Photo © Mavroudis Kostas via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: GPS, guidance, junction, lorry, motorist, narrow lane, road, route, sat-nav, technology, vehicle
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Cat-nav research
When confronted with the abbreviation ‘GPS’ (Global Positioning System), you probably think of your sat-nav.
However, one study undertaken by researchers at the University of Reading which began in 2009, uses GPS for an entirely different reason.
To track cats.
Why, you may ask? Well they want to find out how badly our domestic felines are affecting urban birds by monitoring how far a field they travel from home to hunt, amongst other factors.
At the beginning of the study they recruited 200 cats around the Reading, who all happily signed on with a paw print (probably), and attached a little camera and tracking devise to each of their collars.
Now, after several years of going about their mysterious business, the cats’ secrets have been revealed and the study has come to a close.
The team in Reading haven’t yet updated their website with the findings, but suffice to say the cats are likely to be interested to see just how much the humans have managed to deduce from their movements.
Image by eva101 via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: cameras, cats, GPS, Reading, research, sat-nav, track, University
Friday, July 15, 2011
The satellites which keep global order
It takes an eight-man team and a further 5,000 civilian employees to keep these objects 12,500 miles above Earth on course, while they travel at 4.5 miles a second, and “on a bad day there isn’t even time to go to the bathroom”.
What are we talking about? The GPS satellites, run by 2d Space Operations Squadron in America, which stop planes colliding with one another, keep ships on course, save the world from chaos – oh, and keep your sat-nav on track.
We don’t give a second thought to the fantastically clever little box on our dashboard – which guides us through the UK roads only occasionally telling us that we’re actually ploughing through buildings or driving in the sea – but we should.
It’s almost a miracle that the system works at all, and some of us would be very lost without it.
Maybe from now on, instead of shouting at it when it goes wrong we should take a deep breath and wait until our hard working GPS take a moment to sort itself out, it’s the least it deserves.
Photo by Lee Jordan via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: driving test, GPS, roads, sat-nav, satellites, UK