Vladimír Lapáček wrote:
Hi,
I am quite currious about the GPS module planned in Neo 1973. For me
it is one of the really nice things about Neo. I don't have much
experience with GPS, but this really makes me thinking about buying
the device.
My question is if in Neo will have sense of direction in much similar
way a compass has. This would be very handy for orienting the map
overlay that every one would most like to use in connection with such
device.
Any ideas explaining this are more than welcome.
GPS only gives you position (assuming 4 satellites, in 3-D space).
If you're standing absolutely still, the GPS can't tell you which
direction you're facing.
You can take the vector of the last motion as an approximation, of
course, and as soon as you start to walk/run/drive again, you can
correct any errors.
If the cell towers would give the phone the angle of arrival (a
side-effect of beamforming) from two or more towers, then you could make
an estimate of which direction the phone is facing.
There are electronic compass chipsets, but the Neo1973 doesn't have one.
The addition of something like Honeywell's HMC 1055 could provide not
only a tilt-compensated electronic compass, but the accelerometers could
make for interesting additions to the GUI(s).
Jim
_______________________________________________
OpenMoko community mailing list
community@lists.openmoko.org
http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
