Satellite tracking has been around ever since the American military and the Department of Defense began to use the global positioning system about two decades ago. With about 24 satellites (different from wireless communication satellites!) orbiting the earth, the number of applications that are possible with this system is mind-boggling.

Of course, all this was only possible once the Department of Defense allowed for the use of this system for civilian and commercial purposes. Apart from surveying, tectonics and map-making, geofencing is an important application that has helped the transportation industry to a large extent.

Since vehicle tracking is one large part of geofencing, one can track the position and time of any vehicle at any given time, thanks to the “eyes in the sky”. All one has to do is install a GPS receiver in the vehicle that doesn’t need any special technology knowledge on the user’s part.

While the transportation industry gets a huge boost from this system, not only are insurance rates lower for companies that have these real-time devices to their vehicles but the ability to optimize productivity using this system is the biggest advantage of them all.

Cell phone GPS tracking, even though it is less reliable than conventional GPR receiver units sold, has also become a large part of the technology that civilians can use to track their whereabouts through their cell phones.

One is thing is for certain: GPS technology is here to stay!

For most kids who played the first three versions of Duke Nukem (and who hasn’t?), it has indeed been a long wait as the release of its latest installment since the announcement of its release occurred in 1997.

And even though most of us might have grown up in the meanwhile, this series of the Duke Nukem game that has obtained critical praise as well as stirred up controversy due to its crude depiction of women has not been released yet due to going through a phase of ‘production hell’, if you will.

If that was not enough, 3D Realms and Take-Two Interactive, who claimed to have a stake in this game, filed lawsuits and after much haggling, decided to settle differences but it is still unknown as to who owns the rights to the game.

While spending ten years in the development of this game, the studio behind the game announced that it was shutting down in 2009, however, what will cheer DukeNukem fans around the world is that GearBox Software will finish the game while the publisher of the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ games; Take-Two Interactive will publish the game in 2011.

And while the fourth installment of the video game has already been unveiled at a gaming convention recently, it has been kept strictly in line with the earlier installments of the game to rave reviews from enthusiastic fans around the world.

Whether or not, Duke Nukem Forever will be released is anyone’s guess but is for sure is that if it does, fans (whether grown up or not) will yet get a chance to play the latest installment of the Duke Nukem series.

North Korea has recently updated it new site on Facebook posting rare videos and photos regarding the life of people inside the borders of the country. The North Koreans have posted pictures of people, who are very happy having picnics, and some of their parks and places to see in the country’s capital.

 Despite the fact that most people from North Korea have no internet connection, their website has already made almost 400 friends after they have uploaded some links, photos and videos of their country which can be rarely seen.

Some of the uploaded pictures contain people who look very happy and content with their lives in North Korea as well as people wearing their traditional clothes with a variety of colors and the beautiful landmarks and landscapes of Pyongyang.

 Most of the videos posted by the North Koreans were of the former South Korea leader Kim Jong II and its wall is flooded by government statements which were “liked” by a lot of people (symbolized by a thumbs-up icon).

 The North Koreans made a site which was recently deleted by the Facebook administrators because of the sensitive issues that were contained on the page. But recently, a new site for North Korea resurfaced under the profile name “uriminzokkiri” which stands for “with us Koreans” and then later changed to “urimzok”. They also created a Twitter account wherein they post their tweets with similar contents to that of their Facebook account. Currently, their tweets have approximately 11,000 followers.     

GPS tracking is truly a wonderful technological innovation that has numerous benefits. On installing a GPS tracking device the vehicle can be monitored quite easily. In addition to knowing the exact location of the vehicle the manager who is in charge of overseeing the day to day activities of the fleet can easily guide the driver of the vehicle with regard to the easiest and the most convenient route to be taken to reach the destination in the shortest possible time.

Satellite tracking helps the manager to see clearly if the route on which the driver has taken the vehicle is clear or is going through a traffic blockage. This not only reduces the time taken to get the vehicle across to the final destination sooner but also reduces the fuel consumption of the vehicle. Saving fuel literally translates in to saving money and when the number of vehicles belonging to the fleet of the company is large it is sheer logic to conclude that the amount of money saved on fuel from diffrenet vehicles is considerably large.

GPS fleet tracking is being embraced by many companies who have a large fleet of vehicle to be monitored. The financial benefits are definitely numerous but there are other equally important aspects of this particular tracking arrangement. The customer service turns out to be better because as a manager you are in a position to predict the exact time in which the customer can expect the vehicle to reach the premises.

While there are several tracking systems that are out there that claim to protect one from theft and loss, LoJack among others suffer a distinct disadvantage in comparison to GPS tracking. For one, with the opening of the United States military navigation systems (GPS) for the use of the general public, one has 24 satellites (normally three when running a search) at their disposal to provide accurate time and location of any asset or vehicle that is in transit.

However, another invention that has become popular with users who use GPS for personal service is Cell phone GPS tracking but most organizations that use it (as it is most economical) often end up replacing it with far more advanced GPS tracking systems in order to track their employees with greater accuracy who have no chance of tampering with the product.

When it comes to real time GPS vehicle tracking, the installation of a GPS unit and antenna will well and surely ensure that no such thing occurs, and times and locations of the vehicles in question are computed to perfection.

What could this mean for commercial purposes? This will result in employees doing their work efficiently while under constant vigilance and at another level altogether, is known to drop insurance rates by almost 35%, and which will obviously make a big difference for those in the service industry.

Developed by the International Organization for Standardization, the ISO 14000 belongs to a standard of certifications that focus mainly on the implementation and specifies the requirements of an environmental management system.

But before one gets into these specifics that not only has internal benefits (cost-wise) for the organization but also for their overall image in terms of the quality of their products or services, one must understand that ISO certification requires a lot of preparation and this means, hiring the best experts (read: consultants) there are to help you cover your bases in terms of the baseline and final assessment.

Again, the objective of obtaining this certification depends on what your overall company objectives are. What is meant by this is that some companies who already have an excellent reputation in the industry might desire to stay relevant by keeping their business processes compliant with the latest standards offered by ISO, or even want to penetrate a new market and thus need specific certifications such as the CE certification which, if accepted, will allow for one to offer their products in the European market in this case.

While documentation templates and online training is offered by consultants, there is no doubt that the standards involved are stringent, and require a lot of planning regardless of whether you are a medium or small-sized company.

What one refers to, when they use the word GPS tracking is the global positioning system receiver that they use to determine the precise location of the person and vehicle while it is moving, and so, one can continuously track their location. The beauty of this system is that it uses a GPS antenna (of about 10-15 feet) to collect GPS data from specific satellites orbiting the earth which is then sent to GPS tracking company’s servers for processing in real-time.This GPS tracking system was initially developed and implemented by the United States military with the set up of the 27 Earth-orbiting satellites, and now has been opened to the public for use. Several companies now use this system that is in place to provide GPS services to organizations that are in need of such systems.

Interestingly, depending on the time taken by the GPS satellites to send signals back to earth, the GPS receiver is able to calculate its position. However, even a small clock error can result in a large error as it is multiplied into the speed of light as this is the speed at which the signals are sent to receiver. So, three of four satellites are normally used to determine the time accurately.Some of these companies also provide gps fleet tracking services for transportation companies that have an entire fleet of vehicle transporting materials and for whom, most importantly, time is money.