A pair of criminals who broke into hundreds of cars to steal valuable equipment such as laptops and cell phones have made a deal with the District Attorney trying their case to serve as many as three years in state prison and pay thousands of dollars in restitution for their actions.

The case against the pair, Jeffrey M. Rice, 32, and Steven A. Glanz, 31, was broken when police received a warrant to place a GPS tracking device on Glanz’s car.

The device made it easy for police to build a map of their activity and linking the suspects to six specific thefts to which they recently plead guilty.

Police suspect that the duo is responsible for nearly 300 different cases involving a smash and grab style spree that mainly targeted business parks and churches.

Despite some resistance from the victims, prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that the hundreds of victims are best taken into consideration by striking this deal which will significantly reduce the prison time for these two criminals while also ensuring that the victims receive compensation for their loses.

This case demonstrates clearly how effective GPS tracking can be for the police in their efforts to put a stop to organized, systemic crime.

If they did not have the tracking capabilities made available by the tracker then there is no telling how much longer and how many more vehicles might have been broken into.

GPS tracking is helping the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) keep track of some threatened giraffes in west Africa. Eight giraffes were fitted with tracking collars in an effort to learn more about these animals movements and to keep them safe.

The reason behind the tracking is sort of a series of strange circumstances. The West African giraffe was put on a red list by the IUCN when it reached a dangerously low 50 giraffes in the late 1990s. Today, there are now around 200 of these beautiful beasts. However, with this boom in population the animals are being forced father and farther away from their “normal” habitat in a search for food.

Getting the GPS tracking device onto the giraffes was anything but easy. Since giraffes cannot have their heart slowed for any period of time greater than half an hour, the fitting crew had to work extremely quickly. After anesthetizing the animal, they have to attach a harness onto the beast with a camouflaged belt.

According to Andy Tutchings, co-founder and trustee of GCF, has said this about attaching tracking device to giraffes:

GPS satellite collaring of giraffes is an adrenaline-filled exercise, but we learned a great deal with our successful efforts in Namibia, and we have the best team working together again for this important effort in Niger.

The aim of the tracking is to figure out where the giraffes are going when they begin to roam for food. Here is how Julian Fennessy puts it:

This data will help us to understand the expanding population better and the extent of their range as they move into new frontiers. In turn, this will enable us to educate the local communities and help them to understand the importance of preserving the giraffe.

The newest GPS tracking effort is going to help researchers better protect these giraffes and make them a viable species once again.

Source: guardian.co.uk

Alvin Notice, the father of Tina Notice who was murdered last year on Valentine’s Day, claims that if her stalker boyfriend had had a GPS tracking device installed on him the murder would never have happened. Ms. Notice, who was 25 at the time of her murder, was stabbed outside her apartment. In a 911 call to police, she had indicated that it was her ex-boyfriend, James Carter II, was the one who had stabbed her.

At the time, Ms. Notice had filed and received a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend. She had even called the police earlier that same day because of some emails that she received from Carter that are alleged to be of a harassing nature. Carter has currently been charged with murder and has chosen to enter a plea of no guilty with the court.

It is in this context that Alvin Notice is calling for GPS trackers to be installed on domestic violence perpetrators. “I want Connecticut to be a place where a domestic violence offender would say, ‘I don’t want to be in this state,’” Notice said in a rally outside the Capitol building in Hartford, Connecticut.

Mr. Notice perhaps has gained inspiration for his desire to monitor domestic violence offenders from neighboring Massachusetts. In 2006 this state passed a law that allowed the GPS monitoring of restraining orders, and since the laws enactment there have been no violations of the orders. This is according to Diane Rosenfeld, a lecturer at Harvard Law School.

To channel his outrage, Mr. Notice has created the Tiana Angelique Notice Foundation in an effort to promote awareness of issues faced by domestic violence sufferers and to lobby the government in Connecticut to institute mandatory GPS tracking for domestic violence cases.

Source: The Bristol Press

Police are now offering a reward for information leading to the apprehension of three men suspected of assaulting and robbing another man. According to police reports, a robbery occurred on January 14th near the intersection of West Church and North Fourth Streets in Newark, Ohio. What is particularly interesting about the case is that the man’s wallet and GPS tracking device were stolen in the robbery.

This must mean that the tracking device that was stolen was a passive GPS tracker or that it did was a real time tracker that was not turned on. Why the man was carrying a tracker on him was not made explicit in reports, but there are a few different reasons why someone would be carrying on of these devices on them.

The first is that they recently purchased the item. Since GPS tracking devices can cost hundreds of dollars, a recently purchased device would be very valuable to robbers.

Another reason is that the individual who was assaulted was a private investigator who had just recovered his tracking device from a vehicle that he was tracking. Perhaps the individuals whom he was tracking did not appreciate it and decided to take back their tracking device? This is not a good explanation because the private investigator would then be able to I.D. the men that he was tracking, unless of course he himself was engaging in some sort of illegal activity as well.

Either way, if you have information on the men who engaged in the assault and stole the GPS tracking device and the wallet then you can make up to a $1000 for information related to the crime.

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, who is better know simply as Ronaldo or Cristiano Ronaldo, has had his free kicks clocked by Castrol Performance Analysis. With the use of GPS tracking systems, the research company was able to put numbers behind the most-expensive-player-in-the-world’s shot. His numbers: 31.1m of acceleration per second at the moment of impact.

How does the foot of this soccer phenom compare? The Apollo 11, which launched in July of 1969, 16 years before Ronaldo was born, accelerated at a measly 7.3m a second after its blast-off. This makes Ronaldo’s free kicks over 4 times faster than a rocket ship. Crazy!

This does highlight some interesting applications of GPS technology, which can be used to measure complex metrics that are useful in a wide array of application and situations. By being able to determine location and altitude while recording time all sorts of movement and speed metrics become available to the researcher.

While the acceleration of Ronaldo’s free kick is not the most important thing to be measuring with that level of precision, it does make the point plane that GPS tracking can be used in this way.

Source: NOTW

Shane Fletcher, the forty-two year old police detective at the center of a GPS tracking scandal involving personell from the Terrebonne law enforcement, a prominent local businessman, and a high school baseball coach, has pleaded guilty to criminal mischief. The charge came in response to reports that Fletcher was behind the illegal tracking of the coach’s personal vehicle.

The GPS tracking device was discovered by Thibodeaux Police when the coach complained of being “stalked” by a prominent businessman whose sun he would not put on his team.

It is alleged that the GPS tracker was placed on the vehicle by a state trooper who is still under investigation for his connection to the incident.

The civilian mastermind behind the stalking is a prominent businessman in the community who was angry with the coach for not placing his son on the local high school’s baseball team. The name of this businessman is John Ledet, Jr. and he has been charged as a principal to the criminal mischief.

There is a long standing animosity between Mr. Ledet and the baseball coach of the team. On at least one occasions in the past six months police have been called to break up an altercation between Mr. Ledet and the baseball coach.

See also: Police Illegally Use GPS Tracking To Stalk For Friend

Source: Louisville Examiner

There is a lot that we still do not know about the animal kingdom, but GPS tracking is helping researchers get a better understanding of where animals go. In Wisconsin, recent efforts have focused on elk, deer, and wolves in an effort to better understand the movements of these animals as they go about their lives – but especially when they come into contact with humans, such as during the hunting season.

The way the animals are tracked is like this. A specialize collar is attached to the animal after they have been sedate safely and humanely by someone running the tracking experiment. A very high frequency (VHF) radio signal is emitted by this collar which can be picked up by a hand-held receiver that a researcher carries out into the field on foot, in a truck, a helicopter, or a plane. As they draw closer to the singal they can begin to get a better location on the animal until they come upon it.

Some collars are set to fall off after a specified period of time, after which it sends out its signal to be picked up by the researcher. He then will go out into the field and recover the device which has passively logged the animals movements for the period that the collar was attached to the animal. This type of passive GPS tracking is very important for research.

Nancy Mathews, Professor and Chair of Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development in the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, had this to say in a recent interview with Madison.com about the some deer tracking data they uncovered:

Some of the best information we obtained dealt with dispersal patterns and exploratory movements. There’s much more we could learn, but the funding for the project ran out and we’re no longer following the few deer that still have collars.

We also dispelled several myths about deer in this area. No adult males studied dispersed from the study area. Deer that were disturbed during the nine-day gun deer season (2005) moved away some but came back to their home ranges within 24 hours.

While this information might not seem terribly important in the short term, being able to fully understand animals is an important thing for humans to attempt to do. If GPS tracking can assist us in that effort then it should be utilized where money and practical concerns allow.

Source: Madison News

Extreme athletes who want to be able to take high definition video while doing their thing have no further to look than the GoBandit. This camcorder is specially designed with the adrenaline junky in mind, allowing users to take beautiful video easily and effortlessly by attacking the cam to a helmet, handlebar, or pack. The GoBandit features an impressive 720p resolution while shooting 30 frames per second. The device has 2 GB of built in memory but can handle up to 32 GB if the right sized SDHC card is installed.

Here is a quick snippet from the GoBandit site talking about the GPS tracking feature:

3D GPS

Using advanced GPS technology in conjunction with unique software algorithms, gobandit GPS-HD can record your adrenaline in 3 dimensions. Standard GPS calculates speed and distance on a horizontal plane, perfect for biking along a highway or running along a path, but just doesn’t cut it with extreme sports. gobandit GPS technology calculates speed and distance in 3D ensuring every heart-thumping minute of action is captured. Whether you’re launching off a snowy summit, biking down insanely steep terrain or jumping out of an airplane, the GPS-HD records your adventure every step of the way!

This device is set to ship out in April and will run somewhere around $475 US. Not all athletes are going to want to take advantage of this passive GPS tracking HD camcorder, but those that do will get some sweet shots when they jump out of a plane, off of a cliff, or ride through a particularly treacherous downhill section.

Source: GoBandit

Snow sucks, especially in cities. It can cause in-told amounts of congestion due to slower driving speeds and accidents caused. One of the most important things a municipality can do to reduce the impact of snow on driving conditions is to quickly and efficiently plow the streets. Then, if they want to get the most benefit from their plowing, they need some way to let their citizenry now that the streets have been plowed. This is where GPS tracking can come in and make things much easier for municipalities that are interested in serving their communities.

Snow Removal & GPS Tracking

One city has taken this step in serving their community. Buffalo, New York has installed real time GPS tracking on their salt trucks and snowplows. These devices inform the Buffalo Public Works Department certain snow control metrics which they can then make known to the public such as how much removed, the names of the streets that have been plowed, and the status of the salting of the those same streets. According to reports from WKBW, Steve Stepniak said that the plow GPS trackers give the city “…tracking ability, vehicle information ability, whether the plow is down up, spreading salt (WKBW).”

Buffalo installed the systems using federal grant money to the tune of $175,000. The system has already improved efficiency this year, improving street cleanup speeds and making the roads safer. Efficiency improvements are only expected to increase next year as management improves oversight and drivers get used to the new system.

With the success of the snow plow program, Buffalo is attempting to place GPS trackers on all of its 545 different city vehicles. They are currently applying for more federal assistance to get trackers on trash trucks and street sweepers.

Because of the success of Buffalo’s program, other cities that receive large amounts of snowfall are also looking into the program. As long as federal money is available for cities to make these purchases, it will probably be a steady trend for the near future. GPS tracking definitely makes things more efficient by reducing waste

Source: http://www.wkbw.com/news/local/84053432.html

Zanier, an Austrian company, has decided that they want to put a GPS receiver inside of some ski gloves. While I applaud the move to cram GPS into everything we possibly can, is this really necessary? The glove will do more than simply track your altitude, speed and distance traveled, all of which will be available for download once you are safety back at the ski lodge through a USB port. It will also serve as a GPS navigation device as well. Need help finding your car? Have time while doing a double diamond trail to see where you are at? The X-Plore.XGX will give you all you need to make those things happen.

In addition to being a passive GPS tracking device, the ski gloves will also keep your hands nice and toasty. They will use Gore-Tex X-Trafit, a high quality material designed to optimize the sensation of touch while still keeping the hand protected and warm.

The power source for this glove / passive tracker combo will come from a Lithium Ion battery which will presumably be recharged via a USB connector.

In all, I don’t see very many people using a pair of tracking gloves. Sure, there might be some uber rich, techno-geek, or survivalist that wants these gloves for their collection, but the average skier is probably going to pass on these for now. Even though Zanier has not released a price for these puppies, I doubt that they are going to be cheap – which means that they are going to be reserved as a luxury item for the rich or as a necessity for the crazy. If you are the type of person that has to have this type of thing, then just wait 10 years and you will be able to find passive GPS tracking ski gloves for dirt cheap.

Source: GPSObsessed