Thursday, November 29, 2007

Track me Live Saturday 1st December 10:30 - 13:30 GMT

Below is a google Map that produces a live feed of my location (you can click on my icon for a time/date/current speed readout). It's a GPS connected up to my mobile phone that sends updates to a server once a minute. I currently testing it, and it workswell. When I turn it off, it stores my last location which you see until I turn it back on and start moving. You will have to refresh the page to see the update. I may make it refresh the little map every minute to save you reloading/pressing F5, but have not got around to doing it yet.


map loading...


I'm very impressed with it. I plan to take it to Tenerife (if my GPRS access on my mobile works there) just before Christmas and use it to allow everyone to track me. I am doing a 3 day camping expedition on my own. Some of the routes I am planning on doing don't appear on any maps, and some of the terrain is very dangerous. One step the wrong way and it's a 1000ft (at least!) down off a cliff (I'm not joking either!), along some very narrow paths. So as well as being a bit of fun, it does have a practical aspect in case I go missing, or get lost.

Free plug for the software behind this. The company is 3dtracking. You can create a free account here, and there is code there for you to include on your own website.
You will need to have a Google account to use in conjunction with this. It is a little bit techy to setup, but 3dtracking do answer support emails very quickly.

http://3dtracking.net/

3 comments:

Nick Summers said...

Very cool! I'll have to give the GPS feed thing a go. Like you, I am a little geeky and like showing people where I've been, especially if its a long run : ) Some more Google Maps fun can be had here as well - http://lifehacker.com/software/google-maps/google-maps-mobile-adds-gps+like-my-location-327470.php

Rich said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rich said...

Actually Nick your blog gave me inspiration for this. I have been looking around for a tracking system for a couple of weeks, when I noticed the google map embedded on your blog. At that point I wondered if anyone had taken the next step and offered a live update service. After a bit of searching I found 3dtracking.net and with a little trial and error, got it working.

Oddly enough I've been using the new Google maps mobile today, with the little blue dot showing your approximate triangulated position. It's a few hundred metres out, as you might expect, but it's not bad really. They are apparently using data from phones with built in GPS to send back data, in conjunction with application, and thus improve accuracy for everyone.