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Apple Maps, which replaced Google Maps as the navigation program in the company’s new devices, has not been met with universal kudos. And with the news from Google that its iOS-specific navigation app won’t be ready for Apple devices for months, what’s a frustrated iPhone 5 owner or iOS 6 user to do?
Consumer Reports car experts tested the new Apple Maps feature as part of the iPhone 5 review. And while there are some initial flaws that make Apple Maps seem to have been “rolled out in beta form,” as o…
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It's not every day that you stumble upon an abandoned Google StreetView Camera Car in the middle of nowhere. And since you are bound to ask, by 'nowhere' we mean down a rocky hill in the Leh district of northern India. An unidentified man who sounds like he has an American or a Canadian accent captured a film of the aftermath. The video shows the high standing camera-equipped Opel Astra hatchback (previous generation) facing down the hill with its front smashed up on the rocks. Read more »…
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Hungarian Grand Prix Technical Feature: Explaining engine torque maps
Remi Taffin, race engineer Renault F1 Team with Adrian Newey, Red Bull Racing, Technical Operations Director with Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing, Sporting DirectorPhoto by: xpb.cc
Renault Sport F1 deputy managing director, Rob White, sums up engine mapping and the latest developments.
What is a driver torque map?
The driver torque map represents the torque requested by the driver as a function of engine speed and accelerator pe…
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Planning out your motorcycle road trip with Google Maps is the quicker, cheaper alternative to using an actual GPS devise. While Google Maps can be a big help when it comes to planning your rout there are several things you can do to enhance the accuracy and usefulness of this tool, especially when calculating the duration. This can be especially helpful when you need to reach certain destinations within a certain time frame. Let’s take a look at what can be done to ensure that you can accurately plan the duration of your motorcycle trip using Google Maps.
The Default Calculation
When you type in a starting location and a destination Google Maps automatically gives you a calculated travel time. This calculation can be accurate or it can be incredibly inaccurate, depending on a huge variety of factors. The travel time is located via speed limit data gathered from public records and road signs provided by Google Maps data providers. This would be fine if you could guarantee that you would travel at each specific speed limit for each area. However, as well all know, this isn’t always possible.
Variable Travel Speed
While Google Maps provides a travel time based on speed limits it can’t cover other factors. Things such as traffic, school zones, accidents, bad weather and many other factors can slow your travel speed and contribute to inaccurate travel time estimation. Additionally, if you’re traveling faster than the speed limit in some areas that can also contribute towards an inaccurate estimation. This is especially true on interstates since people tend to travel faster than the speed limit there.
Improving Travel Time Accuracy
One way of improving the accuracy of the duration of your motorcycle road trip is to get regular updates on the travel time provided by Google Maps. This will required a couple of things to do though. First you must have a mobile device capable of accessing Google Maps so you can check it as you go. Second of all you will have to be within a city to get an updated estimate.
For example, let’s say you’re traveling from San Diego to Houston. You can start by getting the travel estimate at your starting location, then at each city you come to replace the starting location in Google Maps with the new city name and get a new estimate. While this isn’t quite as good a method as using an actual GPS to get real time trip duration estimates it is a good free alternative.
Google Maps Forums
There are forums for Google Maps where you can get additional data. You can post and ask if the travel estimate from your starting point to the destination is accurate and get feedback on what to expect. You can also see if there is anything in particular on your rout that may slow you down. Don’t forget to mention that you’re using a motorcycle, this could have a big impact on the advice you get.
You can also ask if anyone who’s driven a similar rout to yours has their own estimate as to about how long it takes. The more people you can get to talk to you about their experience the better since it will help to improve your own estimate.
Considering the Weather
Bad weather is a much bigger problem for those traveling by motorcycle than those who’re using a car or truck. Due to this fact it is very important that you check the weather in advance before you start out on your trip. If you’re traveling a particularly long distance you will probably want to get weather forecasts for each segment of your journey. You can use the Google Maps travel estimates as well as the estimates you get from the forums and other sources to get an idea of when you’ll be passing through each area of your journey.
While Google Maps is a handy tool for calculating road trip duration it isn’t 100% perfect. More than anything your own experiences and the experiences of others will be a better indicator of how long it will take to get from one place to another. Also, don’t forget to use Google Maps to update your estimate as you pass through each city if you don’t have a GPS. This will further refine the accuracy of your travel estimate as you go.
Sam is an avid Harley rider who loves nothing more than packing up his saddlebags and heading out onto the open road!
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The Obama administration announced two efforts Tuesday to boost electric vehicles, including a partnership with search engine giant Google.
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Surface View Researchers generated the maps from the three billion data
points received from the LRO since 2009 (300 times as many as any other survey). This is a view of the moon’s southern hemisphere. NASA/GSFC/MIT/SVS
NASA’s high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon’s pockmarked terrain the most precise topographic measurements to date-bring us one giant leap closer to a return mission. To create the map, the laser altimeter LOLA on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter bounced five laser beams off the surface…
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Finding a place to charge up is a key concern for electric car buyers. Our own first drive impressions showed that especially in cold weather the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf exhibited significantly less electric range than the manufacturers claimed. With the Leaf, running out of power can mean getting stranded for a long time before a tow truck can drag the car to a charging station.
Now Google is stepping up to help electric car drivers avoid that problem by displaying electric car charging statio…
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The New Cartography A mapping satellite captures an airplane passing below in this Google maps image of Hyde Park in Chicago. Google MapsMapmakers have more power than ever. But who are the mapmakers?
Buried beneath November’s headlines depicting rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula, European economic woes, and the brazen disclosure of confidential State Department cables, a meaningful geopolitical event went largely overlooked: Nicaragua invaded Costa Rica. There was no shooting war and the incident …
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The New 3-D View from Google Maps 5.0 for Android Image via Gizmodo
The wrapper just came off Google’s newest version of Maps for Android (launching soon), and it looks pretty slick. Separating the refreshed Maps 5.0 for Android from its predecessor: faster map loading, an iPhone-like function that spins the map according to the phone’s compass, and an offline mode. And did we mention that maps are in 3-D?
A new vector graphics scheme and small file size allows the updated Maps to load much faster, and …
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My new portable navigation system arrived in the mail the other day. The handy rectangular device fit right in the palm of my hand and featured crisp, easy-to-read graphics.
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