Monday, November 23, 2009

DARPA, GPS, and the wax cylinder

One of the listeners of my recent NPR interview has taken me to task for suggesting that DARPA (the subject of my new book) was crucial to the development of the Global Positioning System.

Roger Easton, Jr., professor at the Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology, points out that the early DARPA-funded system on which I based my contention, TRANSIT, used an entirely different technology for establishing the location of ground receivers than today's GPS.

While TRANSIT was the first satellite positioning system (with launches beginning in 1959), its reliance on less-than-precise doppler shift measurements was rendered obsolete by later satellites using transmitted time signals for determining position. As Easton put it to me:
It is imprecise at best and incorrect at worst to say that Transit was a predecessor to GPS—the idea really did come from the Navy rather than from DARPA. To me, this would be akin to saying that Thomas Edison had a vital role in developing the iPod because his wax cylinder system was also capable of recording and playing back music.
Not incidentally, Easton is the son of Roger Easton, Sr., one of the pioneering Naval Research Laboratory engineers behind the idea of using satellite time signals (as in today's GPS) for navigation. In fact, Easton, Sr. holds a patent for the idea, "Navigation Using Satellites and Passive Ranging Techniques," number 3789409, filed in 1970.

Thanks for the correction, Dr. Easton. I'll be more nuanced in future statements (DARPA funded the first satellite navigation system, not GPS, along with the first small, lightweight GPS receivers, paving the way for wide use). I'll also correct the next edition of the book.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

NPR interview and Department of Mad Scientists excerpt


You can now hear me on demand, talking about my new book on DARPA, The Department of Mad Scientists, on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.


Also on that page is the opening of the first chapter, which is about DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics program.

The program is the most ambitious artificial limb project in history, devoting some $100 million to building an arm the looks, feels, and wears like a native arm.

Want more? Listen to me read from the intro in a clip on my home page:

Monday, November 09, 2009

I'm not texting, I'm driving!

Check out this video from a group of National Instruments engineers who rigged up a remote controlled car with an iPhone as the controller.


NI press rep Trisha McDonell tells me there are practical uses for this project: "these applications can help in autonomous vehicle research which are used in rescue missions."

Looks to me like these guys are just having a ball taking texting and driving to a whole new level. DO try this at home, they say. Just don't sue us if you run yourself over!