gps device

New shoes with built-in GPS devices will go on sale this month to help track dementia patients who wander off and get lost. Caretakers can download a smartphone app that allows them to track the person wearing the shoes, which could help patients with Alzheimer’s disease stay in their homes and live autonomously for longer periods.

With connectivity and smarter planning, intelligent cars promise to cut congestion, make roads safer and generally improve the whole experience of getting behind the wheel. But nobody said it was all altruistic.

In the collective modern imagination, crop circles are usually attributed to either aliens or a vast human conspiracy; possibly both. Some circle-watchers believe the designs are landing strips, maybe, or some kind of communiqué from outer space. Others argue they’re the result of secret government tests, or perhaps secret codes meant to convey information to satellites and aerial drones.

For all the talk about who makes them, few people discuss how. Do people (or little green men) stomp around willy-nilly until the stalks fall down? Or is something decidedly more high-tech going on? We talked to a circlemaker and a materials physicist to get some answers.

It’s a fair scientific question, according to Richard Taylor, a professor of physics and art at the University of Oregon. He believes circlemakers, as they’re known, are using some advanced technology, from microwaves to GPS, to make their increasingly complicated designs.

Sometimes, you want Big Brother to be watching. In that spirit, South Korean officials are turning to GPS technology to keep their kids safe from criminals, AFP reports.

Starting in October, about 1,200 elementary school children in Anyang City, south of Seoul, will receive matchbox-sized GPS-embedded beepers. The devices can notify authorities of the kids' location and activate surveillance cameras.

In this month's Future of the Car issue, we've envisioned three ambitious concepts for vehicles of the future, based on insights and other concepts from some of the brightest automotive designers and engineers in the industry. You can see the others here.

“Modular mission” flexibility—the ability to rapidly revamp for a new task by simply swapping out gear—is already in the cards for future Navy warships. The same idea is at work in this all-purpose rescue vehicle, which is inspired by the Rescue X concept created for Ford by the German designer Robert Engelmann.

Well, now that T-Mobile's G1 has had plenty of time to rest on its Android laurels, it's apparently coming out season for the rest of the pack. The just-unveiled Archos 5 Internet Tablet mixes one part Archos with one part Android and seasons with some great GPS features to create a multi-function power-player.